Increasing Brand Awareness With Pull Marketing

The very first post that I wrote for MarketMe was Pull Your Customers With Your Online Marketing.  In it I talked about how many of the online marketing strategies, namely social media, in use today are pull marketing strategies.  This means that you are putting yourself, your message, your business out there on the net and your potential customers are able to pull information about you.  Recently UKSmallBusiness left a comment on that post and something that stood out to me was that he referred to branding as push marketing.

My first instinct was, “Yes branding is push marketing.”  But, then as I thought about it I realized that is not entirely true.  When most of us think of ‘branding’ we may think of direct mail, television commercials, or billboard type advertising with a large and in your face branding approach.  However, branding also exists in online pull marketing, it just may not seem as obvious.

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The Key To Successful Business On The Internet

Welcome Freedom800® Freedom To Succeed™ Readers!

It is often easy to think that the technology alone will drive our business. This is wrong and has always been wrong. It will be wrong in the future. The key to successful E-Commerce is not about the E, the Electronic part. The key is the R-Commerce, the relationship on which the commerce is based.

When small business owners look to get established online, their focus is often on the technology. They contemplate which hosting plan will be best for their website, how their going to access their email, how their market and promote on search engines, etc. But what they tend to forget in this process is the importance of the relationship with who it is their selling to.

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Analysis Paralysis In Internet Marketing

One piece of advice you will find very frequently when it comes to Internet marketing is to analyze everything - analyze your site, your traffic, your responses, your CTR, your ROI, etc. ad infinitum.  While all of this analysis is important in order to gauge what is going to bring you the most success, it is possible to get analysis paralysis.

Analysis paralysis occurs when you get so caught up in the numbers, data, charts and graphs that instead of using them to make the right decisions, you can’t make any decision at all.  There comes a point where you have to stop analyzing and take action.

When you feel that the numbers are starting to overwhelm you and you don’t know which way to go, take a step back and consider these things:

• What will most enhance the customer’s experience?  One of the things that can get lost in all of the numbers and graphs is the customer experience.  Although what the numbers are showing you are the customers reactions to what you are presenting them, many people forget that human element.  Take a step back from the data and think about the people to get a better grasp of the big picture and make a decision on where to go next.
• What is the worst thing that can happen?  Many times people get analysis paralysis because of fear.  Fear of making the wrong decision will stop people in their tracks.  Many of the changes that come about due to data analysis of your ad campaigns, landing pages and the like are small changes.  It is not likely that by moving a graphic from the top left of your landing page to the top right of the page that your business will go bankrupt.  However, it is possible that you will see enough change that you can optimize your landing page for the best results.  Don’t let fear stand in your way of success.
• Take it one thing at a time.  The sheer volume of information coming at you can give you analysis paralysis before you even get started.  Don’t try to tackle it all at once.  Take one report on one aspect of your marketing and work it start to finish before moving on to the next thing. 

Analysis is a very important aspect of Internet marketing success because it allows you to continually optimize your marketing to get the best results.  That is if you can avoid the analysis paralysis…

Savvy Marketing in the Information Age

Last week we received an email that read “Please review my site www.HotelBookingPro.com. Would appreciate an unbiased honest opinion. Be gentle”. Although I’m not really in the web design consulting business, I have been at this for quite some time now and noticed some things I thought might be of benefit to anyone looking to start a business online.

My first impression, before I even looked at the web site, was that the request is very vague. When asking someone to evaluate your work, whether it’s your business plan, stationary, brochure, logo, website or whatever, make sure you’re specific in asking what it is you’re looking for. If you just drafted a logo for your business, don’t ask “What do you think?”, but rather, “Do you feel this logo represents my business? Why or why not?”. Ask with a purpose. Help the person evaluating know what it is you’re looking. This way the person evaluating can focus in on your goal and give you more constructive feedback.

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What Writing A White Paper Taught Me

Back in December I told you about a book I had read called Writing White Papers by Michael Stelzner and that I was going to try my hand at doing just that.  Well I am finally done.  Writing this white paper was different than writing anything I have written before.  During the process, I learned a lot about how to write a white paper (thanks to Stelzner’s book) and I was also reminded of an important lesson that should be applied to any writing that you are doing - you must identify your ideal reader.

The first thing I had to do in writing this white paper was to identify who I was writing this paper for.  What was interesting about this exercise was that I did not identify them in a general ‘this group of people is my target market’ kind of way.  I actually imagined the one person that would be the most qualified lead that I could generate from this white paper - my ideal reader.  In doing so I could ask myself what this one person was like and what would be important to them.  I could identify the benefits of our service that would most appeal to them and make sure they were highlighted in the paper.   This process was very helpful to me.  It allowed me to really focus on what information should be included in the paper and in what tone and manner it should be presented. 

The difference between identifying your your target market/audience versus identifying your ideal reader can be seen in this example:

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