I’ve just recieved a mailshot from Barclays Bank introducing me to their new website www.barclays-skills.com where they apparently offer “free small business skills training” in association with Mindleaders. As I’m obsessed with learning I thought I’d give it a go and picked the course about “Finding and Keeping Customers”.
Given I’ve spent a lot of time working on a building Internet businesses I was drawn to the Internet Marketing course. Sadly it was very quickly apparent that it was unlikely to be any use to anyone, as the first slide/page tells you it’s copyright 2000. Come on guys it’s 2007 now and Internet marketing changes at an amazing pace. Never mind I thought I’d take a look as it might still have some good wisdom, after all the mantra “content is king” has held true since before 2000. However by page three, which is the first real page with any course content I was presented with this absolute gem of advise:
Attract Traffic
Want to get traffic really fast? How about a good scam?Seriously. One of the best ways to get traffic is to create the equivalent of an Internet urban legend and then let it loose on the world and capitalize on the traffic.
No really it says that, here’s a screen shot:
The emphasis is mine. Not just that but they’re really serious about this their next slide suggests:
Ok yes they’ve all been done, as has auctioning off your wife, boyfriend, virginity etc, but they are not techniques suitable to building a long term, credible business. Obviously a bit of sense crept into the author as a later slide asks:
Is This Ethical?
Some would argue with the ethics of creating false stories to generate traffic, and there are a number of pitfalls in this concept.
So there you have it Internet marketing advice from Barclays Bank and they wonder why banks have such a bad public image…
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Just shows you how far behind the times they are, or that they have someone who knows a little about the subject but not enough to beat an amoeba in an GCSE IT test.
Do you think they meant ‘viral campaign’…
I think that will come back to bite them… unless, it was a viral campaign of their own. Give it a few weeks and some bright spark will come back say, “our scam suggestion was in fact a viral campaign to prove our point. Just look at all the traffic from sites referencing our ‘error’
Yeah right… I wouldn’t touch Barclays with barge pole.
It’s definitely not a viral campaign, this is their “advice” to businesses.
I meant to imply that their “web guru” (probably straight out of college), had over heard something down the pub whilst sipping his shandy (being not old enough to drink yet), and confused the concept of a “scam campaign” with a viral campaign.
i.e. not knowing his arse from his elbow…
I don’t doubt what you say, or what the article suggests… I just can’t see how anyone with an ounce of web development/skills/management/SEO etc etc would even call it what and how they called it…
Gave me a chuckle..
(ps. Thanks for the article by the way)
Chris
Chris,
Sorry I misunderstood. I’m amazed that Barclays have put their name to this… to top it all off you can only access the site with Internet Explorer.
Now that we know Barclays promote scamming potential customers, I’m going to give them a telephone call, to see if their excessive bank charges are just part of some viral marketing campaign
No their excessive charges are to cover the excellent customer service that the banks offer us
Yeah.. right… I applied for a mortgage in March and was told it would only take 2-3 weeks… still hasn’t completed even now!
I was being sarcastic
I know
Nothing like a good rant every now and again though!