Modern Marketing Ideas… Do What Works

I started in business in 1986. Since then I have tried all sorts of marketing initiatives. Before the days of the Internet, the best way to attract new clients was to advertise in the Computer Services Directory section of the Monday Washington Post. I had a small ad with my “Frustrated Man” logo and it cost me over $1,000 a month. But it was worth it because business people across the city took that section to work on Monday and used to help them find a solution to their business problems during the week. If you were in business in the mid to late 80s, you probably very well remember this section of The Post.

I have also tried mailers and radio and I even made a TV commercial. All of those outbound marketing techniques worked in the past. But they don’t work very well any more. The Computer Services Directory is gone. It disappeared after the Internet became the preferred method for finding technical people. Now, the Internet is used to find just about everything. Do you think people are not looking for you on the Internet? Imagine a potential client. Do you think they might do a search in Google for what you do? The vast majority of business are answering YES to this question.

But it really isn’t as simple as just having a website. The site must be searchable which means it must ranked by the search engines as a prime site for valuable and relevant information within your industry. How does that happen? Well, Google has over 200 parameters for rating a site. 200! That not only includes the quality of the content but also the size of it’s social network following too. Even simple things like having a domain that expires in more than a year is important. But the most critical and effective means to getting traffic to your site is to have ongoing, fresh, original content added to your website. The content must also be search engine optimized (SEO) so that the search engines will have a better understanding of what is in your content.

Finally, you must also have social media pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, MerchantCircle and all of the other social and business networks. Managing all of these sites can be difficult. But their are ways to have your website but a properly designed and managed website can simplify the process. Nothing and everything has changed. Marketing methods are totally different these days so do what works to bring in new business.

Do you need a better marketing plan? Do you want your website to actively attract new visitors and then convert them to potential customers? If so, contact us and we will gladly assist. We can design a site that includes content management and we can also write fresh content for you. All you have to do is read it and press “Publish” in your content management system  to make the content active.