Whether you are new to internet marketing or you've been around
awhile, if you become a success, you are going to notice some
things about the “other side” of success. Particularly how the
rest of the market tries to feed on you.

Like the mother Praying Mantis says to her newborn young: “Of
course, most of you will be eaten before you reach maturity.”
The same goes for people who see some success with a product or
service who do not watch their backs and protect themselves from
market “gutters.”

There are people on the internet who are incapable of coming up
with good ideas for products. And if they do, they have no
clue how to MARKET their product without parasitic cloning of
other peoples' successful campaigns.

Here is how you defeat the cloners and “me-too” parasites who
would gut your business before you ever get a strong foothold in
the market. (If you let them.)

Hannibal was a master general for Carthage. He is best known
for defeating Rome time and again even though Rome always had
superior numbers. His battle tactics are studied to this day by
modern generals.

Hannibal did some amazing things on the battlefield that can be
used much the same way on the battlefield of online marketing.

He once employed a tactic to defeat a much greater force of
86,000 Romans (against his force of around 50,000) and turn the
battle into an absolute slaughter. In effect, he showed his
weakest forces in the middle of his ranks, drawing the Roman
forces into the middle where they sensed this weakness.

While the Roman forces were being drawn purposefully into the
middle of the lines, Hannibal's outside forces began to wrap
around the Romans, who were now becoming very concentrated in
the mid line. Eventually, Hannibal had the entire Roman force
surrounded and he pommeled them until no man was left standing
on the Roman side.

In online marketing, the best tactic you can employ from
Hannibal's battle above is showing your weak underbelly. Or
what your competition is supposed to THINK is your weakness.

An example of this would be to bait the cloners by talking in
public about your next great product upgrade or release. Only,
you have no intention of doing it the way you are talking about
it publicly.

Watch the clones of your business model and product come out,
then surround them, envelop whatever they do, and give it away
for free to your current customers. Thereby effectively
shutting the cloners down and closing that part of the market to
further competition.

You still have your customers from the original product and
services you launched with, AND you have won their loyalty by
providing something to them for free or much cheaper than the
guy who wanted to gut the market and steal your customers.

This has been employed in many different ways recently, if you
have been watching the developments of late with internet
marketing products. And sometimes the skill and cunning
involved in deploying this tactic by some pros is astonishing in
its effectiveness.

You have to protect your business by any means necessary. This
includes employing the bait and switch tactics used for
millennia by some of the most successful, tactical masters of
great battles past.

Be mindful of who typically clones your ideas and tries to under
sell you with your own product. Keep tabs on them, where they
are, and what they are working on by baiting them and watching
them play right into your hands.

It is better to be in control of this situation than to blow off
the sprouting knock-off versions of your service, software or
other product.

Let people know throughout your market that just adding
“Equalizer,” “Bot,” “Generator,” or “ology,” to the name and
changing a couple cosmetic features doesn't give them the right
to sell your product for less than its actual value.

Don't sue. That is pointless and costly. Simply stop them dead
in their tracks with superior Tactical Online Marketing. Jack Humphrey is the author of Power Linking 2005 at http://powerlinking2005.com/powerlinking2005. He is also managing partner at http://contentdesk.com.