Archives for 2009

A more gentle approach to your Internet marketing

This is bothering me. People who set themselves up as experts, who suggest that they can tell people what to do when they don’t appear to be doing much of it themselves. How can that be? How can they possibly be credible when not joining in with the very people they are purporting to teach?

I understand all about aggressive sales and marketing methods, and that works well for many. But not me – I can’t do it and have no desire to learn. I have been tempted many times by some of the best in the land – but it’s not my way. Surely you would rather have someone gently take you through the benefits of what I can do rather than have me make you “feel your pain”. OK, so I won’t be rich, but I’m happy and enjoy running my business – and maybe one day my approach will be welcomed and customers will flock to my door…

A “for instance”: I find long long sales letters patronising, at best and my one attempt, several years ago, to do one of my own was an almighty flop – which is hardly surprising when I did not believe it would work anyway. I didn’t want it to work, preferring to believe that you’d rather be told what’s what, with no faffing about, and that actually if you needed to be told a thing half a dozen times then perhaps I’m not the best person to be working with!

One of the latest trends that can be useful for your Internet marketing is Twitter. I’m a fan; I join in many times each day and it has been good for my business. However I would certainly not suggest that I’m an expert – there are some excellent Internet marketers that have worked with Twitter and put together definitive guides, one of the best being from Nikki Pilkington – her Tweetmentor is recommended for everyone wanting to use Twitter for business. I am however someone that’s got stuck in with it, figured out and learned how to make the most of it, for me. Now this may not have resulted in more business than I know what to do with, but it has brought some excellent referrals and a valuable new network, one especially strong one being in Kent, my home county. And new friends, which I’d not expected – that’s been a great bonus.

Twitter – it is useful, it can bring you more contacts, business, attention – but you don’t need to be beaten over the head that you’re missing out if you’re not doing it – it is simply one aspect of Internet marketing that can work if you’ve the time and inclination. If you want to explore it, gently do so and follow people you want to, those that you can relate to, and like. More on this tomorrow – it’s very much in my mind just now as I’ve been asked to give a quick overview during a Twitter workshop on Wednesday in Maidstone. So a good time to gather my thoughts, sum up my experiences and to review my own research on the Twitter-scape in Kent. More on that through the week…

But back to my idea of a gentle approach – it boils down to figuring out your best Internet marketing strategy, I suppose – I usually return to that – which is not surprising, as it’s what I love doing best.

You need to know what works for you – bring together what you want to achieve, the resource you have available for that, and then see what aspects of the Internet can help you get there. Knowing the various options is good, indeed, but most small business owners are not going to need to use all of them to get what they want. So I think my point is that you shouldn’t be bullied into something that may not suit you and that may not bring you what you want. Not everyone will be good with everything – if you are, you’re not likely to be reading this, that’s for sure. So relax some and chat to people you know, like and trust before romping away with the latest newfangled Internet tool.

Keeping it current

Yet more inspiration today! I received an email from an agency whose owner I know, within which they were selling their blogging platform – of course this is of interest to me and to many that I work with, so off I popped, following their link. Only to find that while they may well be using the very platform they’re marketing, this included the dates of the most recent posts – November 2008! That’s over 6 months ago and really does not encourage me to follow up and find out more. It all looks very smart and professional, but really! Great design is there to support and lend credence to the actual content – and in the world of online marketing, something dated 2008 does not encourage trust! A case of cobblers’ shoes perhaps – I’m hardly one to suggest I’m setting an example, before anyone else might want to point that out to me!

Something for us all to remember – keep it current, especially if you’re directly inviting people to that very page!

ReTweeting on Twitter

I like to retweet the tweets of those I follow if I think they’re worth passing on and sharing. Of course we have to be prudent with this or else we’re likely to bore the pants off our followers, and likely lose a number of them too!

Today I was asked directly if I recommend the service/person that I’d just retweeted – a good and fair question. The original twit (and he won’t mind that moniker!) in question is someone that I’ve not yet met and know only from online (mostly twitter) banter, however we do know, like and trust several of the same people, people whose judgement I trust. That’s almost good enough for me, so I re-visited his website to see whether I would indeed use his service myself. I should, of course, have done this first, before merrily retweeting something and adding my, however small, stamp of approval to what he was offering. I’m glad to say that I was impressed with what I saw and actually would use him and his services – one of the few copywriters whose work impresses me. So I was able to go back and confirm that indeed I would happily recommend Bill, both his business writing courses, and as a copywriter.

So what am I wittering (goodness – the spellcheck system picked up on that and actually offered twittering as an alternative – now there’s a sign of the times!) on about here? Just to remind us all (myself included) to be confident about the inferred approval you’re giving to anything you retweet.

Happy twittering!

Vanity SEO (search engine optimisation)

Following on from an article written elsewhere at the end of 2007, about the insistence of some “experts” that they are achieving top listings on Google for a particular search phrase, I was today astonished that still this is highlighted as successful SEO activity. And while I suppose it is successful at what it was created to achieve, it’s wasted effort by missing out the fundamental step of knowing what your customer is actually looking for!

It bothers me that this is being promoted as the way to carry out SEO. Such vanity is really easy to pander to – especially when nobody else is trying to achieve the same – so they are happy bunnies. It’s not something I will enable or carry out for my clients or friends unless there is a sensible reason for using phrases that nobody actually searches for.

It could be that I’m missing something, but I suspect not – funnily enough there’s a good reason why I focus on Internet marketing strategy. I do wonder if perhaps I should stop being quite so insistent on giving thorough, results-based value, some of which is not what people want to hear, and make money out of what I can do. However, to my mind, giving clients a false sense of success is dishonourable and downright unethical – the result of this is that I have to dodge the occasional sideways swipe at my reputation from dissatisfied ex-clients, but I can live with that. I’ll stick with being authentic in my marketing.

It may be that the chosen phrases are intended to be contentious and not meant to be of value from a business point of view, other than to point out to people that they have achieved a high listing on Google for this particular phrase. And they do generally provide relevant content for that phrase, they are doing the right things from that point of view, but just imagine how powerful and beneficial it would be for their business if they’d researched and chosen phrases that people actually use. Of course the whole point may be to score points somewhere along the line – fair enough – but to actually label it as successful is inaccurate, incomplete. The point of SEO is to be an active contributor to your Internet marketing, surely.

If you’re going to bother, why not first discover what your intended visitors actually search for, and whether they do even look for you on the web. For some the Internet is not the route to market; it can support the route to market, but some sectors and services just may not be using the Internet as their way of finding out about you. Of course taking action now is going to reap rewards, but to celebrate an empty achievement is vanity, nothing more.

If you’re going to make the effort to try to attract people to your website, find out what those people are actually searching for. It’s not rocket science, but is fundamental. So time to get busy practicing what I preach and show those of you that want more business how to achieve that through the Internet.

We’ve never had it so easy…

I’m not one to use punchy, attention-grabbing headlines, but couldn’t resist this time. What I’m referring to is that it’s never been so easy to “chat” with our customers online. And while I have seen a similar sense of things in other areas of marketing – offline networking, for instance, I’ll stick with what I know for now…

So maybe I am mainly referring to those customers that are comfortable with using the web for business, but there are few of us now that don’t at least have access, and indeed if you give those less keen on all this “Interweb” nonsense something friendly and simple to engage with, they will be glad to be gently introduced to how useful it can be.

I am talking about blogging, of course. And within this I include Twitter – that micro-blogging system of 140 characters each time – great for quick updates, keeping people aware of what you’re up to – the uses are many and I’ll explore those with you another day.

The most successful business blogs are:

– easy to read
– short and sweet
– worth reading

Any blog that we read, and especially those that we then subscribe to, should:

– make it worth spending our precious time reading them
– be relaxed and in a style that appeals to your readers – your customers
– not be written in a voice other than your own

It’s yet another area in which you should apply your own standards – what do you actually bother reading and subscribing to? Apply that thinking to your blog – put your reader, your customer, first – write with them in mind, but be yourself. People buy from people – we hear this a lot these day – a cliché indeed, but for a very good reason – it’s true!

So have a think about your blogging – if you’re really not sure if you can, or how to go about it, then have a chat with someone like Mark White – he does courses on Business Blogging. You do indeed want to be realistic about what it can do for you (if anything) and how much time you can allocate – blogging is really taking off this year and finding its place as a valuable Internet marketing activity, and so essential to consider.

Have a read of Ian Lurie’s Conversation Marketing book – a wonderfully easy read and vital for anyone’s Internet marketing strategy.

Let me know if a chat would be useful – this may be something for a group live chat – I’ll set something up…