HOW TO AVOID A TRAGEDY If you have a website, you need website hosting. Hosting is the service that provides a computer (web server) that holds your website, connects to the Internet and serves up your site to people who want to view it. When you type in a website address (URL) you’re telling the… Read More »
If I seem to spend a lot of time criticizing other marketers, it’s because there’s a lot to criticize. Really, I have two motives. 1. To warn you.2. To do everything I can to make clear to you that we aren’t like those other guys. We just don’t want to be put in the same… Read More »
Trust is the second most important word in marketing. Visibility is the most important. If you aren’t getting noticed, everything you do is wasted. But given your message is getting out there, if you aren’t trusted, you may as well not be communicating. For you could be saying all the right things, even in all… Read More »
This is a major trend in on-line marketing: to force people to do things. Let me give you an example. POP-UPS I’ve been doing online marketing for 19 years and pop-ups have been with us almost that long. You know what I’m talking about. You’re navigating a website and a “box pops up” on your… Read More »
WHERE ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS? It starts with the simple question: “where are your customers?” It certainly doesn’t end there. But we’ll get to that. Right now I’m just talking about where in the world are your likely customers to be found? Obviously, a dry cleaner in Baton Rouge is not getting customers from Sacramento. This… Read More »
WITHOUT TRUST, YOU HAVE NOTHING Anyone can say anything about themselves and how wonderful they are. And people do. I’m sure you see the same kinds of things I do. Emails starting out “we are top-rated website designers.” Says who? If you are going to get any traction with your marketing, you have to get… Read More »
There are five pillars to Internet Marketing. A book could be written on them. This is just a summary of what they are and why each is vital. ORGANIC SEARCH Organic search results are EARNED positions on Google (or other search engines) results page. They are the general results that once were the entirety of… Read More »
It has been estimated (by more than one person) that at least 97% of all individuals and companies doing Search Engine Optimization are incompetent at best, if not downright frauds. Just imagine if 97% of all new cars didn’t work right. Or 97% of all engineering degrees don’t teach someone to build bridges that won’t… Read More »
Last week I wrote in detail about two ways misinformation can profoundly affect your online marketing. There are others that are useful to know about. Let’s explore more of these. INDUSTRY REPUTATION Completely aside from deliberate smear campaigns, many industries – or segments of industries have reputations. Not all of them are flattering. There are… Read More »
In the last few years, there’s been a lot of attention on misinformation in the news, in politics, and in relation to the pandemic. People are fact-checking the fact-checkers. Who are you to believe? But this is a subject far from unique to politics or public health. Let me talk about a couple of ways… Read More »
One of the most important questions a marketer must answer is: who are their customers? If you really understand your prospective buyers, you can work out how to sell to them. If you don’t understand your prospects, your chances of success are severely diminished. There are a lot of angles to this, which we are… Read More »
It is important to realize that how to market different businesses can vary wildly. One of the things I think that distinguishes what we do from many marketing agencies is that we operate strategically. We try to understand the individual client’s situation and how we can realistically make a big difference for them. This blog… Read More »
I wanted to take the time to give you a big picture, 30,000-foot level view of internet marketing. The goal of internet marketing is that of all marketing – to get you more business by connecting you with prospective customers (clients, patients, whatever they may be called in your business). There are really only a… Read More »
The first big thing you have to face up to about marketing: YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO IT Of course, that isn’t really true. Many companies survive for a long time without doing marketing. What makes marketing a necessity is ambition. AMBITION Do you want to grow your business? Not everyone does. Are you happy… Read More »
Testimonials are hugely important in all marketing – and certainly in online marketing. Why? It has basically to do with TRUST. You probably have people you trust, people you don’t trust (been burned), and people you don’t know about. Are you going to buy from someone you don’t trust? I suppose some people might, out… Read More »
