If you’re a marketer like me, the phrase “Get the word out!” still slips from your mouth. Habits like this are hard to break. In the first part of this article, we considered a whole new mindset made necessary by a huge shift brought on by the Internet, a shift from business controlled to consumer controlled marketing.
The big question
So how does one move forward in light of this shift?
The first thing to say is that it’s not easy. To shift from this way of operating to a way that defers to consumer control requires not just a whole new mindset, but also a whole new way of developing strategy.
Business controlled process
Consider the business controlled process. Some call it the HiPPO mentality—Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. Typically, it’s a three step process:
- Develop the product
- Develop the website
- Develop the marketing strategy
Changing from this business controlled to a consumer controlled process usually involves a crisis. The HiPPO plans fail. Fortunate is the business that understands the failure early, and is willing to try something different.
Consumer controlled process
Step 1: Set Goals
Strange as it may seem, the consumer controlled process begins with business goals. Not with products, or websites, or marketing strategies, but with the business plan on a spreadsheet. Not terribly exciting, in fact some consider this part like barbed wire! I like to think of it as re-bar, the reinforcement rods that hold the marketing foundation together.
The spreadsheet I recommend begins with your projected monthly revenue. This is the number that counts. All else is smoke and mirrors, unless this value is achieved. No excuses! And the resources it takes to get to this number are an investment for return. If you’re spending more than you can reasonably expect to get back, bag it!
With business goals and internet marketing sub-goals in hand, it’s tempting to get going. If you’re about to build something, a website or a Facebook page, STOP! There are two more steps before you’re ready to build.
Step 2: Listen
Creating demand is hard. Filling an existing demand is much easier. Don’t finalize your service or product, then seek someone to sell it to. Find an easy to reach market—define your customers—then rethink your product or service in terms that will meet or at least begin with their needs.
Define your niche, and personas (a few representative customer types within that niche). With your personas defined, you are in position to develop your keyword strategy. Keywords are how things are found on the web, so don’t skip over this or leave it for later. Build a keyword seed list now, based your persona(s). How will they search to get their needs met? Use this worksheet to prioritize your keywords according to their potential value for your business goals.
Having found your highest value keywords you can set up a social media listening station to find out where there are conversations and what are the needs related to your area of interest.
Step 3: Offer
You have now defined your personas, listened to their conversations, and have a pretty good idea of their needs and the language they speak. Ready to sell? Not yet. First, create an offer that is low cost to you, yet has high educational value to your persona. Content is King! Get someone who can create compelling content: must-read white papers, keyword-heavy blog entries, compelling PowerPoint presentations, e-mail newsletter articles… Content is your best marketing investment for 2011 and beyond.
Step 4: Convert
Now, at last, it’s time to build something. But before you build your website or your social media presence, build a diagram of the ideal path you would like your persona, or prospect, to take from first becoming aware of you through conversion to a lead or a customer. Typically, a conversion path includes awareness, consideration, conversion to a lead, and/or conversion to a customer.
Do not start with a fancy website graphic design. More often than not, design heavy websites get in the way of simple, straight forward navigation to the task your visitor wants to accomplish, and a successful outcome for you. Consider the success of Google’s design.
Step 5: Deliver
Now, here’s where the real change in strategy begins. The Internet, and particularly social media, have democratized the marketing process. If the goods are delivered, and people form a favorable opinion the web presents an unmatched opportunity for consumers to promote you. If the goods are less than promised the appropriate opinion will form along with unmatched grumbling. On the social web, it’s all about delivering the goods.
One of the best ways to insure that you delivering the goods is a simple tool called the net-promoter score. Ask people who use your products and/or services one simple question:
“On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means ‘no way,’ and 10 means ‘absolutely,’ how likely are you to recommend us to your colleagues and friends?”
Track their responses, fix what needs to be fixed, and make it easy for people who talk about their experience. Experiences that build trust will richly reward you. Positive word of moth builds trust. Trust drives preference. Preference attracts qualified traffic to your website. And qualified traffic predisposes visitors to buy your products and services.
Step 6: Analyze and do it again
This last step knits everything together, tells you where you are going awry, and where to get back on track to your business and internet marketing goals.
You joined the gym. Now it’s time to work out every day! Internet marketing is like a treadmill, and the treadmill doesn’t run by itself. Marketers who thoroughly implement this methodology while regularly using a web analytics program achieve steady growth in traffic and conversions.
The internet is particularly well suited for analysis, because everything happens with clicks. And every click is captured and recorded on a computer somewhere. The trick is to translate those clicks into useful insights for action to continuously improve your internet marketing.
In order to analyze your website’s performance, you will need a web analytics program. Such a program will help you gather information about how visitors are interacting with your website and other internet marketing programs, so you can gain insights and make decisions that move your business forward online. Hosting services typically offer analytics packages. But these are not robust enough to give you the kind of information you need to make useful decisions.
Google Analytics is free and one of the most powerful web analytics programs available. Provided it is installed and configured correctly, it can help you make important decisions to grow your business online.
In sum
There you have it, a six step process to help you build on your new marketing mindset and change your strategy for today’s web.