All you hear from the internet marketing gurus these days is video, video, video.

While video when done right can be highly effective and something I don’t use enough, there is also the danger of overuse. And that is certainly seen in the internet marketing space.

These days hardly a day goes by without receiving an email urging me to watch a video explaining why I have to buy X product. Sometimes they look tempting and I save them for later, but the fact is I rarely have enough time for video and if it’s too long I’ll start multitasking and will miss something vital anyway. It’s also one of the big problems I had with Traffic Secrets 2.0 recently – if you want me to watch video send me a DVD, otherwise audio is far better.

If you’re going to target me you really need to do it through audio, as I will take the time to load it up and listen at the gym, which in a normal week amounts to 4 1/2 – 5 hours. Outside of this timetable I will often set aside time away from the computer to listen to something if it’s really worthwhile – unlike video, where I give up on many presentations, especially when they’re 50 minutes or more.

I guess these gurus are testing, but I can’t see how anyone can devote so much time to watching videos when we’re all being bombarded with them and I have really missed Ed Dale’s podcasts.

Anyway, I mentioned in a previous post about Internet Marketing This Week, a weekly podcast by Ed, Paul Colligan, Lynn Terry and Michelle Macpherson and it hits the nail right on the head. Ed has been saying how podcasts are coming back bigtime, but I don’t really think they ever went away – it’s just that the next big thing arrived.

I’ve been thinking of producing a podcast for one of my niches, but there is a podcast in the niche and it’s not hyper profitable, but on the other hand I half feel like doing it for the hell of it.

I seem to have been busy with everything except doing any real work for a while, and the lack of new posts on my blog is indicative of that.

One thing I have done since the summer though is to go through John Reese’s Traffic Secrets 2.0 and Stompernet’s Stomping The Search Engines 2.0. As a reminder, TS 2.0 cost $500, caused me a few problems and had lousy customer service, STSE 2.0 cost $10 or $20 postage when I subscribed to The Net Effect, Stompernet’s new magazine, so while there is no contest in terms of price it is interesting to compare them side by side.

Traffic Secrets 2.0

I must admit I was expecting big things from John Reese, as I’ve benefited from some of his pearls of wisdom in the past dispensed in interviews etc, but TS 2.0 didn’t do it for me. There is far too much filler and quite frankly I couldn’t concentrate on the videos for long because of that. The content was added to the website in MP3 format, which at least allowed me to listen at the gym, but still, it is all too vague and lacking the killer content I was expecting to find although maybe I’m not who it’s aimed at, so perhaps there are people who have genuinely benefited.

I also got a couple of DVDs from Frank Kern with Traffic Secrets 2.0, which are quite something. If you’ve come across Frank in the past you’ll pretty much know what to expect, but he really holds your attention and has a completely off the wall sense of humour.

Stomping The Search Engines 2.0

I’ve had issues with Stompernet in the past and for me they come across as being far too corporate for their own good, but I thought I’d check out STSE 2.0 anyway – for that price I’d have been stupid to miss it. I had listened to the original course, so had an idea of what to expect. The course is far more compact that TS 2.0, and better for it IMHO.

Among other things it really gets down to the nitty gritty of keyword research, on page factors, off page factors and a very strong section on link building by Dan Thies. I’ll also say that I had no problem with the order process and delivery of The Net Effect and STSE 2.0, although there are many people who have had issues and are really fed up with Stompernet for it – one of my big complaints previously.

Why is good customer service so elusive?

It seems to be a common problem for internet marketing companies to have extremely poor customer service, and I don’t know if it’s genuinely because they are taken by surprise by the number of orders they receive, poor planning, scalability issues, they’re let down by delivery fulfillers or they just don’t care, but one essential piece of the marketing jigsaw is customer service – get this wrong and it can crucify you.

And I’m amazed that it isn’t talked about more, until just recently I came across Lynn Terry through Internet Marketing This Week, also with Ed Dale, Paul Colligan and Michelle Macpherson. Lynn’s big bugbear seems to be lack support for both customers and affiliates, the latter of which resonates with me as I have been unable to sort out an issue with the Immediate Edge affiliate program that I first raised in September. To be frank, that is pissing me off and I really hope that it is sorted soon and while I value my membership of Immediate Edge, I certainly won’t continue to promote it, let alone push it more.