How to Cut the Confusion out of Internet Marketing

Promoting a small business over the internet is the Wild, Wild West. Excessive choices, not enough time, and it all sounds like it will do the job, right? Here’s a way to muddle through the confusion and maintain your peace of mind while noting outcomes in internet advertising strategy.

Un-Scientific Poll Results

About a month back I ran this poll on how business managers are using internet marketing to drive their company.

The conclusions are a long way from scientific but tell us something. 44% of respondents, with a rather stable mix of ladies and gents and the bulk over the age of 30, not business novices, either don’t know, don’t use any or see mixed success. Blogging and developing good subject matter seems to have moved the needle in second. Due to the number of participants the quality of Social Media Marketing, PPC and Video as responses is statistically suspect.

In other words, most small business managers don’t know what works or haven’t yet discovered the key to that vault of internet gold. Nearly half of people responding are simply uncertain what the heck to invest in, if anything. Here are some suggestions.

Make a Plan

This comes off as condescending but it genuinely isn’t. I had a conversation with a couple of small business colleagues of mine a few weeks back on the PPC (pay per click) technique, and they were arguing about where to focus their efforts. These were two successful brothers who have done considerable amounts of traffic to their website with transformations to sales not being what they wanted them. I share their problem. One brother argued that they should pull all their PPC and discontinues blogging efforts and bore into editing their website around conversions. The other worried that ending content generation was not a very good concept, that a void would open up and it would be doubly hard to garner up that movement again.

My answer? Right!

Just remember this. Any monkey can purchase PPC on Google Adwords and bounce their traffic, and if traffic were the objective, that monkey would be in success city. For the bulk of us, it isn’t, traffic is a means to an end, and that generally implies more sales or some progress in the selling process (like they subscribe for your mailing list). Answer the question, “What exactly do I wish to happen due to my online marketing efforts?”, and be overly detailed. Get a reality check from those competent in the art, as in business mastermind group colleagues who are flourishing with online marketing plans. Now you have an apex of focus to start against.

Decide Who Does What, and Where

Contracting specialists can be costly to be certain, yet understand this. None of the tactics in the survey above are worth doing poorly. Each needs a lot of work. If you want to do them all on your own, you are fooling yourself. As a small business CEO, you really don’t have the time to accomplish them all on your own, so if you want to start small and try it alone, just choose one category, one technique within that category to excel in, and a secondary gadget to learn and do OK. That’s the choice you should make.

What do I mean? Well, let’s consider Social Media. That’s in vogue lately. There are so many social media websites available you cannot truly keep up with all of them. Websites like YouTube, by the way, are social media websites, along with a lot of Social Bookmarking outlets like Digg, etc.

For my business, consulting and professional services, it made sense to me to focus on LinkedIn and learn it to the maximum. So I did, and have become professional enough that business professionals pay me to get their traffic to their profiles up and the queries coming. As I blog a lot, Twitter made sense as a way to at the very least promote the blog, so I am learning and getting better at that. My approach is a bit like this:

• Classification: Social Media
• Master: LinkedIn
• Learn: Twitter

But Karl, there’s 600 million folks on Facebook? Yep! I know little about Facebook. Oh, I do have a profile and post my tweets to it using some automated devices, but I am not the best at it as a tool for my business. In fact, an associate of mine after seeing 3 consecutive write ups on my professional page remarked that he didn’t think it was conceivable to take the fun out of Facebook, but I discovered a way to do it. Facebook is mainly about photos and real socializing, joking, personal content for me to see a way through it for B2B success (mind that Facebook is getting manipulated initially in the B2C arena). I’m not saying given more time I couldn’t master and use Facebook for business technique and economic profit; I just have decided to allocate my energies elsewhere.

You can definitely leverage your time with selective outsourcing.

Outsource Properly

If you are going to outsource, there are loads of individuals around you can outsource too who are better than you, but precious few who will actually move the needle on your company Geiger counter. Check out this post I read and posted on LinkedIn by Zach Weiner on just that. This applies to more than Social Media; it applies to virtually any marketing method. Check people out, consider their references and work samples where they have been productive elsewhere. LinkedIn is fantastic for this, because LinkedIn recommendations are at least legitimate with links to those users (see my technique for receiving Great Recommendations on LinkedIn).

The advantage to outsourcing your advertising endeavors for your business is that you can take a well balanced assault given enough resources, meaning cash. You can get some results utilizing web video, make a social media explosion, boost traffic with PPC and even outsource your blog for fantastic content. Most advertising folks of any sort, comprising of traditional print, radio, TV types, will tell you that a mix is important to cover the bases of how people desire to be marketed to. Given, of course, that you don’t suck at any of the devices you use, else better to drop it.

A suggestion: Much like you don’t have the time to be perfect at everything, be a bit cautious of the person who claims to be a specialist in every bloody thing, regardless if it is web design or social media or anything else. It’s difficult to be great at all things. I do LinkedIn effectively, but wouldn’t think to hawk my services on anything else I am not a pro at other than technique on what instruments to use. I do web video, but a particular kind of web video called Executive Video Interviews that exploits my vocal talent and lack of technical acumen with all things high-priced video. If a person you are considering to outsource to is claiming he is an A to Z specialist (what you really want), be sure there is a firm with numerous employees who niche themselves in the particular tools of the trade.

Monitor Results and Adjust

The cool thing about online advertising is that it is much simpler to keep track of results than other means, which have constantly had a problem tying in concrete perks and have promoted the rationale that if it spreads your name out there, it must be doing ok. Everything that you get through the internet has stats you can check out (translating them can be a challenge) and make adjustments. For instance, I just cut down on and changed my Google Adwords campaign based upon what I realized that was working and getting clicked on, AND what areas on my website were receiving visitors without the results I hoped for. In only a few months I can figure out where the weak spot is and react to remedy it.

Just remember to keep your target in mind. For example, most internet advertising landing pages will have a set of pages that the user must click on to forge ahead in the process. This is done for no small cause to be able to oversee involvement degree of the sales process that is occurring. Statistics show that every subsequent page has its percentage of attrition, however those who run the gauntlet are now extremely certified customers that are more likely to transform to sales. Internet marketers can tell who got to the page, who ordered the free report, who downloaded the video, and consequently, who put a product to the shopping cart. This assists you as a business owner know that of your traffic to the website, a certain percentage take the next step in the sales process. If you want that to be higher, alter the landing page.

What are Your Methods to Navigate the Internet Marketing Seas?

Write your comments on what you’ve done to get the most out of your advertising, what devices you have settled on to become specialists or at least familiar with, and if you have been befuddled to this point, what you plan to do next. You’ll get a link back to your website and may get mentioned in a future article.

About the Author:  Karl Walinskas is the CEO of Smart Company Growth, a business development firm that helps small to mid-size professional service firms builds competitive advantage in an online world of sameness.  He is author of numerous articles and the Smart Blog on leadership, business communication, sales & service, public speaking and virtual business, and Getting Connected Through Exceptional Leadership, available in the SmartShop.  Get your FREE LinkedIn Profile Optimization eBook & Video Course, Video Marketing video and course, or Mastermind Groups e-course & video now.

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