Virtual Impax

Effective Strategic Digital Marketing

Marketing Magic

Brian Gardner’s one smart cookie….

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I met Brian just before the Colts went to the Superbowl.  Brian’s not only a talented Word Press blog theme developer, he’s also a Colts fan who happens to live in the heart of Chicago Bear (the Colt’s Super Bowl XLI opponent) country.    Are all great minds Colts fans, or is it just an amazing coincidence?

Anyhow, Brian has since quit his day job and struck out on his own and he’s hit the ground running!!!  Last week, he launched an affiliate program where he pays commissions on sales of his premium Word Press themes.  Yesterday, Brian has announced his own version of March Madness…. offering fabulous prizes to his top affiliates in the month of March.

The promotion works on two levels:

a) It’s a great way to promote affiliate sign ups.

Sales is a numbers game.  In affiliate programs, 20% of your affiliate will generate 80% of your sales.  The more affiliates you have, the more sales they will generate.  It’s just that simple.

b) It’s link bait.

Not only must you sign up as an affiliate to join the contest, but you must also link back as well!

GREAT JOB Brian on crafting a compelling contest to promote your new affiliate program.

Are Google Adwords the answer?

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online advertisingVarious questions seem to pop up in groups within my practice. This past week, the topic that is poking its head above ground like a crocus in early March is the topic of Google Adwords.

To the casual observer, the Google Adwords program appears to be the key Effortless Marketing Magic.

  • Not enough web site traffic? Google Adwords is the easy answer.
  • Not enough sales?  Again, Google Adwords is the easy answer.
  • Need a tighter target?  Google Adwords is the easy answer.

I have clients who are inquiring about Google Adwords before their web site development has begun.  Clients who have yet to provide documentation on their anticipated product and service offerings are already signed up for Google Adwords!

Like any other marketing tool, Google Adwords is the GREATEST THING since sliced bread when it’s used correctly.  When used improperly though, it is a recurring nightmare which will run up your credit card balances faster than a lovesick teen racks up overages on your cell phone bill.

For example, I had one client who signed up with a self proclaimed “Google Adwords  Gurus”.    Long story short, my client ended up with a HUGE Google Adwords bill and not a single product sale or even newsletter sign up as a result.    Unfortunately, her experience is NOT unique.

In order to run a successful Google Adwords campaign, you have to have a clear target audience in mind.  You must already have mastered everything from writing compelling and selling content to meticulous order fulfillment.  You have to have a GOOD idea of what keywords your current visitors are using when they arrive at your site.   Only then are you ready to launch your Google Adwords campaign.

Even then, you have to THINK about where you want those ads displayed!  Long ago, when you signed up for Google Adwords, you were signing up to have your ads displayed worldwide.  Now, you can target your ads to a specific geographic location.  Some one should have told Arizona Furniture’s Adwords manager about that feature.

Backstory: Last weekend, I lost it.  My 14 year old cat compulsively chews on the pads of his front left paw.   (I blame myself as I had him declawed 13 years ago, shortly after he adopted us and made short work of my drapes!)  About once a month, he causes the pad to bleed and leaves a bloody footprints everywhere he steps.  (We’ve tried bandaging the paw, but it just makes matters worse.)  My tile floors clean easily, but my 2 year old beige microfiber furniture is stained beyond repair.  (So much for that scotch guard crap!)

Last Saturday, after I tried to spot clean the latest deposits… I had reached my breaking point.   I headed to my computer to begin shopping for leather furniture.  (Interesting note:  The cat is the reason we didn’t purchase leather furniture in the first place!  We feared he’d tear up the furniture with his hind claws.)

Back to Google Adwords and the Arizona Leather Furniture Company.  I head to Google and type in the search terms “wholesale leather furniture”.  Because I haven’t ignored Adwords ads for this search, I am presented with three sponsored links.  The ad’s content reads: “Quality Leather Furniture: Custom Made Leather Furniture To Fit Your Home & Lifestyle”

I arrive at the index page of the site, where I am assured that they ship nationwide.  Good, because when I click on store locations, I see their stores are clustered in the Southern California/Arizona area.  Since I’m in southern Florida, the headline encourages me to continue onward.  Then I click to see their offerings.  Well, the furniture is lovely but there’s no description of the product dimensions… no product description…. no price!  Suddenly, it dawns on me.  This site was designed to allow the Southern California resident to “pre-shop” the store from the comfort of their home.

Such a site is a GREAT idea, especially in highly populated areas where traffic congestion makes “pre-shopping” a necessity instead of a luxury.  However, displaying that ad to me, as I pre-shop in Southern Florida is a waste and an unnecessary waste at that!  How many shoppers residing in Maine, Missouri, Kansas and Virginia have clicked that ad?  What a waste and an unnecessary one at that!

Google Adwords is a GREAT way to issue “virtual invitations” to discover your business.  If your business is limited by the constraints of geography, you can limit who sees your invitation thanks to Google’s ability to target geographically where your ads are displayed.   In other words, the Arizona Leather Furniture Company could have specified that their ad only be displayed to people logging in from IP addresses in the SoCal and Tempe areas.  The only value I can see in not limiting the geographical locations for the ads’ display is so that some marketing firm can report big numbers to their client… with an equally big Google Adwords bill on the side!  (That’s what happens when you pay your agency a % of spend instead of on a % of results.)

Without a marketing plan in place… without a well defined, tightly targeted audience… well… Google Adwords then becomes just another way to drain cash from your accounts.

Need help with getting inside your target customer’s head?  Pick up a copy of my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results for a step by step process you can follow to figure out the who, what where and most importantly WHY customers buy.

Business Reality: Email Newsletter Delivery and Economies of Scale

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Recently, I’ve had a couple of clients express a desire to purchase/create their own email newsletter delivery software to run on their own hosting account. I’ve also had more than one client pass through my practice having pursued that path previously, with disastrous results.

In college, I picked up a second major in economics because I discovered that I had taken most of the courses required for a major without trying. I just really loved both micro and macro economics and what I learned in those courses have served me well, even two decades later.

In my course of study, one of the concepts covered was that of economies of scale. According to Investopedia:

Economies of Scale: The increase in efficiency of production as the number of goods being produced increases. Typically, a company that achieves economies of scale lowers the average cost per unit through increased production since fixed costs are shared over an increased number of goods.

It’s this economic principle that comes to mind when solo entrepreneurs decide to launch their own newsletter delivery/email broadcast service.

Quite simply, Marketer’s Choice (a.k.a. 1 Shopping Cart/Professional Cart Solutions/Kickstart Cart, etc.) is able to leverage economies of scale in their favor. For only $29 per month, you can subscribe to their service AND let them handle all the headaches that come with managing your own email newsletter list.

OR you can pay several hundred or even thousands of dollars (one client reported a quote of $3000) to have a custom application built for you.

The problem, as one client of mine discovered, is that the initial creation/launch of the software is just the tip of the iceberg.  Today’s effective email newsletter software is tomorrow’s invitation to hackers to find the security holes in your system.

Some of the biggest names in the internet marketing use either a version of 1Shopping Cart or Aweber to deliver their email newsletters.  Hopefully, some day, newsletter email will be a thing of the past thanks to RSS feeds.  Until then,  most web site owners would be better served to use the above mentioned services than try to develop their own.

Marketing with proper form….

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Last December, I joined a local gym. I had made a commitment back in June to add weight training to my exercise regiment… something that wasn’t happening on a regular basis, thus the gym membership.

Slim and trimDecember is a great time in the gym. Everyone who is working out at that time is “hard core” and committed. You don’t have to wait for machines in the off hours and the staff gets to know your name rather quickly.  Then, the calendar switches and suddenly… it’s a whole new ball game… for about 3 weeks!

I spent the first week of the year on the opposite coast… but when I returned, I saw a gym filled to overflowing with ‘New Year’s Resolution” people. As a result, I didn’t need to bring my new MP3 playerto the gym… there was PLENTY of entertainment to be had by watching the over zealous newbies throw themselves into achieving their fitness goals.

I watched on gentleman literally flop around on various machines which are lined up in front of the treadmills.  As I watched his arms flail loosely, I found myself wondering if he had taken advantage of the two introductory sessions with a personal trainer that every member receives.  Surely he hadn’t, or he wouldn’t be flopping around so.  I then briefly thought of my acupuncture client and made a mental note to discuss ways my client can reach the gentleman I’m watching who will certainly be sporting SOME sort of soft tissue damage in the near future.

I then began to think of all the people I’ve heard utter the words, “I’ve tried advertising for my business, but it just doesn’t work!”  I realize that this gentleman will soon be uttering his own version of that phrase, except his will go, “I’ve tried exercising but all I got was a shoulder/elbow/knee injury.”

Make no mistake, advertising and marketing WORK when done with proper form.  When you understand the underlying principles, then it’s actually easy to pull together a marketing campaign.

If you need proof, look no further than the pharmaceutical industry.   Thirty years ago, it was UNHEARD OF for a drug company to advertise directly to patients… now, drug manufacturers spend BILLIONS running ads to educate the consumer about the “solutions” offered by a particular medication.

Advertising works best when you tightly target your message and keep the end consumer in mind.  Drug companies do a WONDERFUL job of this.  Anyone who has watched more than 15 minutes of football can tell you how Cialis differs from Viagra.

Advertising at its worst is accomplished dancers who twirl and spin with the hopes of enticing you to purchase the tires made by the company whose logo appears at the end.   They would have been better off giving away $10 bills to everyone who waked into their dealer’s stores nationwide!

If your marketing isn’t working… take a step back and begin with identifying your target customer.  If your answer to that question is “everyone”… then I encourage you to pick up a copy of my book, Beyond the Niche.   In it, you’ll not only learn why you should tightly target your customer but ways to identify and target those customers.

Do you need more than a virtual brochure?

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If you’re like most business owners, your current web site is acting like a virtual brochure.  A virtual brochure is like a paper brochure … only instead of paying for printing, you pay for hosting!

opportunityMost business owners would think you were crazy if you told them to take all of their brochures and lock them into a back room, with the instructions to the staff that the brochures were ONLY to be distributed to people who came in and asked for a brochure.    That kind of arrangement kind of DEFEATS the purpose of a brochure! However, that is exactly the style of web site MANY business owners maintain and then wonder why their business web site isn’t doing more to create more business for their business!

Unfortunately, the most common “offenders” of having a “set it and forget it” style of “virtual brochure web site” are the very types of individuals for whom a virtual brochure is virtually worthless: those independent  service professionals who are engaged in making a Major Sale!

Here’s an excerpt of an email to just such a business owner:

If you’re looking for a “set it and forget it” web solution… then don’t bother with the Acumen Web Services solution.

Right now, your current web site is acting like a virtual brochure.  Everyone who goes there is someone YOU have sent there.  You’ve done the leg work.  You’ve passed out your business cards…. you’ve made the networking connections…. and your web site is acting like a virtual brochure in that it provides your contact information, an overview of what you do and the assurance that you are a “real” business  to the few visitors that you have directed there.

traffic In a sense, it’s a billboard erected alongside an isolated dead end road, and at the end of that road is your business.  Almost all of the traffic on that road are cars you have personally sent down the road.    Your web site is just a way to assure those travelers that they are indeed on the right road…. that your business does lie ahead.  If that’s all you want your web site to do, then your web site is doing all it needs to do.

However, if you want your web site to do “more”…. you’ll need to create a different kind of web site.  If you want your web site to act as an CLIENT ATTRACTION MAGNET…. as a way to attract interested passers by… as a way to begin building enough of a relationship with people that they will reach out and contact you… then you’re going to need to plan on investing some time building a blog.  You’ll also need to invest time in creating a newsletter.   (RSS feeds are nice, but 96% of web visitors don’t know how to use it so I strongly recommend clients make their blog content do double duty as a fodder for their traditional email newsletter!)

To build the kind of “trust”  it takes to get people to take a chance and contact you… you need to develop a LOT of content.  You’ll need to create a whole body of work so interested parties can tell by reading your entries whether you’re the type of professional they want to put to work for them.  You can do that with your HTML web site, but it will take a lot more time and a lot more effort than it does with a blog.

Also, a blog will allow you to create other kinds of content such as audio and video clips which you can post to your blog.   Those are even BETTER ways of connecting with potential clients!

Your Acumen Web Services blog will be search engine friendly… that means you’ll have to fight like hell to deal with all the spam you’ll get if you make the mistake of listing your email address “out in the open” on your blog.  What that also means is that when you create a blog post with the right “keywords”…. those being words someone uses when they’re looking for the services you offer… that they will be more likely to see your site returned in those results.   However, most importantly, your Acumen Web Services  blog will allow you to make a “connection” with potential clients.

Last May I converted my HTML web site to a blog to promote my book, Beyond the Niche.  I was AMAZED to start getting phone calls from people who had read my blog posts and wondered if perhaps, I could help them.  Prior to my blog, new client contacts began with, “I’ve been talking with your client [name here] and he/she says you’re the best!”  After my blog launch, I started getting, ” I was reading where you said….”  Since converting my HTML web site to a blog, I have personally become my own best referral source!

Now, is maintaining a blog more WORK than maintaining my “set it and forget it web site”?  YOU BET!   However, I’ve never had a greater return on the investment of my time.

Are you frustrated that your web site isn’t doing more to create new business for your business?   If you’re making a Major Sale… then you really need to invest your time and energy into creating ways to connect with your target customers.  Your goal should be to demonstrate that you are worthy of that trust… and there’s no better way to do that than through your blog.