What is all this for anyway. The reality is we all want people to buy something from us, either a product, service or both, or we want them to donate to our cause. In the case of an e-zine or blog, we want them to read the thoughts that have been added to the site and hope they click on an ad so we get paid. Making a living as a blogger that isn't selling some system or high dollar product, can be a tough gig.
There is a critical step missing here that the system selling bloggers understand. What I notice is most websites are nothing more that fancy brochures that stroke someones ego. What the website is supposed to be is a call to action. Go to any of the big bloggers websites and you'll realize it is nothing more than a cheap infomercial. You want the person looking at your site to do something.
For instance if you are a BMW Sales and Service shop on Beach Street, you want a person in the area to call and schedule service or buy a car. Somehow this concept is lost. In reality this is two very different businesses under the same roof and should be treated as such. What that also tells us is we are looking for a very specific web surfer, someone with a BMW that is in need of service or someone that wants a BMW. Notice the difference? They are different people, one might become the other, but while they are searching, they are only one person in one frame of mind.
Make your website like an infomercial and include a call to action. In order to do this well, the BMW shop would need two websites and two ad campaigns. One for Sales and One for Service. Yes the sales web page can highlight service and the service web site can highlight sales. Each is unique and the internet needs to know that you understand that to do the best work for you.
Just as Chris Anderson talked about the long tail in marketing, we can talk about the long tail of search. Lets use the example of a service company specializing in Porsche vehicles. We can advertise to the brand, which is BMW or we can narrow it down to Porsche and Service. Even adding service to Porsche as our keywords and search terms we are still at the fat end of the tail marketing to everyone. There is another problem, let's say you add BMW service. BMW is a trademarked name and can not be used in the ad itself without permission adding a degree of complexity and frustration.
This type of blanket campaign can be a very expensive and frustrating. Like net fishing and ending up with tuna and endangered turtles when you really wanted Salmon.
What the business needs to do is figure out exactly what makes them different than every other BMW service center in the area. Then they need to figure out exactly what makes their customers different. Using an internet marketing company is like the fishermen using spotter planes to find the right fish.
When you know exactly what your business does, and who it does it for, internet advertising then becomes a fantastic tool. You can either net fish or fly fish on the internet. Net fishing is expensive and catches everything that goes by. Fly fishing puts your ad in front of the right fish. The ad is a call to action, and if the fish is hungry he'll bite. If he doesn't bite, you don't pay.
Unless you are GE, stick to your business, and your customer and use fly fishing on the internet to catch the right customers. They'll be happy they found you, and you'll be happy they did.
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