Note: I would love to hear your opinion about the current state of online marketing in the comments below. This is an incredibly important topic. Please share your thoughts after reading my intro and explanation here.

I’ve long felt that marketing is a necessary part of succeeding in business. Most who follow the “if you build it they will come” philosophy languish in obscurity.

I learned this the hard way back in the early 2000s with my first attempt at building an online business. It failed miserably for a number of reasons, not least of which was my complete lack of understanding of how to get the word out about what I created.

In this case, I’m defining marketing as promoting your products, services, or your work or business in general. It’s the act of getting the word out and telling the world what you have to offer.

But the act of getting the word out can take many forms, especially online.

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Somebody needs to say this, so I’m just going to jump in.

There are two schools of thought online who will try to suck you in. I’m going to tell you why you shouldn’t listen to either of them.

First, there are the marketing douchebags.

You know who I’m talking about. They’re the people who have “lists” and send you 3 different emails a week pitching some product they’ve never actually used. They’re the people with the yellow highlighter sales pages and the crossed out prices and everything else that sets off your B.S. meter.

These people study all the hard core pushy sales techniques to the max and some of them make a TON of money. Like millions a year money.

That’s the thing about marketing, it can be almost magically effective. Marketing can sell the most wretched crap sometimes while hardworking people with worthwhile contributions to society barely scrape by.

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Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Nonconformity taught me a first class lesson on why caring about people is so important for your business last week. Find out how Chris can draw a crowd in every state in the country and why he asked me to speak at his San Francisco Unconventional Book Tour event in this video.

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Another guy who’s putting the caring strategy into practice is Tyler Tervooren from Advanced Riskology. He’s built a thriving audience around his new blog this year by being helpful to people who want more from life and work. Tyler has put everything he’s learned about influencing people and building a successful blog into his new Guerrilla Influence Formula (which launches today). Don’t miss the “1000 subscriber guarantee” and special interviews with other successful bloggers including Johnny B. Truant, Erica Douglass, yours truly and more.