A Letter to Santa From An Internet Marketer

Dear Santa,

I hope you are doing good. I am an internet marketer and I think that is pretty good job. I have been looking at the Christmas wish list that you published this year and could not find any mention of making it easier for businesses to buy things from your store.

First, let me say thank you for acknowledging me by putting my name on the list. Second, why not make it easier for businesses to buy things from your store? This way they can spend more gift money with you. Third, I can help you with this. Here's how it works:

Let's say Jane Doe has a website and a few customers. She creates an account at your e-store. The next day she goes to Amazon and buys her products there for cheaper in most cases. Now she will order from you again because when she bought things from you the next day at Amazon it said that her email address was already registered with you so she might as well buy things from you again right?

Let me ask you Santa, do you think this could be pretty good for business?

Thank You,

Jane Doe [ARTICLE ENDS]

This letter could be sent to santa@northpole.com, but this is a letter to Santa from a marketer sending the message that it's not good business to give away free content. The best response you can make is by sending a follow-up letter that proves you know nothing about marketing and you have no idea what marketing does.

What do you want: Free stuff? You say "free" as if you're trying to trick all the people into giving it to you, but they won't because then they wouldn't be taking advantage of your generosity. If I see a guy with a sign saying "free candy", I walk around that corner and go to the next street vendor without paying him anything.

How about you start using the same tactics by putting a sign out saying "free iPhones or computers" then people will walk around and buy your products because they already have those things if they wanted them. Everyone knows the best business practices now days is to make something free and then make money off of it when you ask for more information. So we're going to send Michael another letter that works on that same theory:

Dear Michael, We're just writing a few short lines to thank you for your letter to Santa Claus. We have long been tired of the way he has been oppressing us for too many years. Considering this, we are in agreement with you. It is now time that the Christmas spirit is truly felt by businesses, just like it was meant to be. You found it great that Santa could use his vast wealth of knowledge to help businesses create a better world by providing content and services online. We agree. You are right to say that this will pave way for your business to make more money. You are also right to say that it is better for businesses if they have more freedom to make split second decisions based on customer needs. That will help us create a better world, especially for our customers. Now, we've heard rumors that you are a great person who has the feeling of Christmas spirit and we want to offer you a $300 coupon code for one of our e-stores. Like you said, it's time that businesses like ours receive more attention. We're glad to have you as part of the team. The coupon code is [INSERT COUPON CODE]. Have a Merry Christmas! [LETTER ENDS - THE END] Now, we set up the letter like we did with Michael and we send it to Michael's email account. It will arrive on his inbox at 4:30 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST) on December 23, 2012.

It's time to give out that $300 off of a shopping offer so everyone in the world can get coupons to use as gifts for their family or friends. However, it's not over yet. We also have to worry about the people who are actually following up with him on this and helping him react.

At 4:46 PM PST, we need to see if the coupon code was delivered (it was) and what Michael's response is. If it matches up with what we want to see, we will send out more letters. If not, then our job is done for the day - at least until another person gets in touch with us on their own. If it matches up like this, we'll send one final letter:

If you are reading this letter right now, then you have successfully been contacted by a man who does not know marketing and who has no idea what marketing does. We are the owners and operators of a company called "Magic Internet Marketing". The best way to contact us for anything is by going to our website: www.mam.com. You can also call us at 1-800-MAM-888!

This letter goes into a deep dive into the specific things that Michael has done wrong and only gives out information about how he can improve his business. The best thing about this is that because we are giving out free information, we can make sure he uses it for our benefit.

The main problem with the content is that using no-follow links is the worst thing you can do in SEO. Michael was not aware of this until he was told by us and then he fixed his entire website.

We also told him to remove the auto-play video because it was a pain in the butt for us. He did as well which would be considered a compliance issue with our letter.

Conclusion:

We set this up for Michael because we wanted to educate the public and make sure that they understand what is going on in regards to "santa" and "Santa Clause". We made sure that he learned what marketing is. He then improved his website so we could take advantage of it. We told him to remove the auto-play video because it was a pain in the butt for us. He did as well which would be considered a compliance issue with our letter.

From this point forward, you are not getting free stuff from us. Instead, you are going to pay money to get your stuff faster than you do now.