Here are some quotes from a recent conversation with a friend, who came up with these few quotes. Somehow we were talking about religion and after the conversation  with some reflection, I thought some of the quotes could be used as guides for internet marketing. So here’s my take on applying the quotes to internet marketing as a hold.
Quote 1 - “Perfect is one thing, wanting to be perfect is another thing”

When is the perfect time to launch your website or web application? The question shouldn’t be asking for the perfect time, but how to have a process in place to keep improving the website or web application. This is because the internet is in a constant change and websites who are able to adopt a culture to evolve constantly would only become stronger and better.

As for when to launch the website, it’s best to set a deadline, find the best cost effective solution (aim for the perfect solution) and as long as the project/website is within 70-80% quality control standards, just launch it. Refinement can come later during Beta testing and even as the website goes is out of beta.

This is a important rule of thumb for an internet business (Web 2.0), as change is constant and it happens almost instantly. If you wait for that perfect application someone will beat you to it.

But you must be sure that your web servers or application can handle a sudden surge in traffic as even if you have a great idea, slow laggy response would put any user off (look at friendster.com )

Quote 2 - “Many people tend to listen only to the easy part of Christianity but neglect the hard part”

With social web on the rise, internet marketers must fall back to a brick and mortar rule of thumb, which is “A customer is always right”, so make sure you have your ears close to them and listen. But listening doesn’t help if you aren’t going to act on the problem. An internet marketer has to assess the complains, feedbacks, suggestions and complements against the amount of change needed and equate the ROI to see if a change is worth it. In most cases, it is worth because satisfying your customers needs would only make them become your business evangelists (brand loyalty), something ad dollars can’t buy.

Quote 3 - “Consider the times we complain versus the times we give thanks”

How many times does your favorite store thank you for using their services? I don’t think it happens very often. So to succeed as an online business, it’s best to occasionally thank your customers for their support.

Put yourself in the user’s shoes and identify areas within the conversion cycle that you would like to have a token of appreciation. The method used can either be on site or off site. An example would be having text copy coupled with an audio playback thanking they for the conversion.

As an online business, its best to maintain communications and interaction with your users. What’s more, maintaining that channel during the buying process is easy, after all you can

Quote 4 - “Be sincere with your thanksgiving”

From above, it is stated that you should thank your customers, especially those repeat customers. But thanking them insincerely would a poor execution and would back fire on the good intentions. Because your customers would be totally turned off by the insincerity provided by your reward or gift.

An example would be a Singapore based ISP, which my long time friend Sersitiv complained about it’s ISP loyalty rewards plan was so crappy that it basically encourages him to go to a competitor. From a business and marketing point of view, it’s such a bad move to let a customer of many years to even contemplate if he should jump over to their competitors.

So lesson to be learnt would be to treat your long term customers better and provide an acceptable loyalty reward or thanksgiving gift.

Hope these quotes are of use to your internet marketing campaigns, remember “Resistance is futile, so why not join the revolution of change!”

Keep an open mind.