Leveling the playing field

The great thing about the web and electronic marketing is that everyone can play. You do not have to be a multi-million dollar company with a marketing budget to match in order to stay in the game. In fact, I have always believed that small companies have a nimbleness that makes them more adept at marketing and when you combine that with the great opportunities of the web, as a small company you may have more success than the lumbering corporate wheel.

Another benefit of electronic marketing is the correction factor. When I first started ThePowerXChange (not my first company), every bit of marketing we did was print; either a print ad, a print brochure, or a printed direct-mail piece. My nightmare was the campaign-gone-wrong. I remember one mailing we did where I used a stock image that a handful of our customers found objectionable. We were shocked because we thought we had developed a well-planned and artistic piece. I knew though, that if there were ten people who felt compelled to actually write a letter (before the days of email), then there were likely hundreds who were just as offended, and who didn't write. Having just sent out about 50,000 of these, there was simply nothing we could do.

Thankfully, those days are gone. This is not to say that an ill-received campaign doesn't have any staying power simply because it's electronic, but we do have the ability to send out a retraction, change the campaign, improve the offer, or even kill the campaign entirely. In fact, the beauty is that we "can" do that. We can send out four electronic campaigns with essentially the same message -- buy one, get one free, save 50%, get half off, or save $50 -- testing as we go. If we find that one particular approach is returning better results, we can replace the other three with the same messaging.

Having said that, there's also the downfall. If I were to send that same ill-fated, direct-mail piece today, what at the time was less than a dozen outraged customers could easily turn into many thousands. Depending on how offensive the message is, it could be passed through the electronic network like a pregnancy rumor through a junior high. If it really goes badly, you could make headlines... OUCH!

Assuming that you have developed a winning campaign -- with careful consideration for the stock imagery -- between your web site, an email to your customers, a press release, a news release, a story on your blog, and perhaps a well-place banner ad or two, you could be racking up the orders in no time at all. If the campaign is going well, with just a few clicks of the mouse, you can extend the offer, expand the range, rent the list of a partner, or even collaborate with a friendly company to create a soft bundle -- and you could make that decision today and have it in place by tomorrow.

Big companies simply cannot respond this quickly. Oh, they have the opportunity alright, but by the time they've held 37 meetings with all the stakeholders about the feasibility, the content, the IT changes, the web-page modifications, and the budgets, you could have already sold and shipped another gross of whatchamacallits.

I like the balance. I don't have the budget, but I don't have the burden either.

Use Site Maps to Help Your Rankings

One of the easiest things you can do to improve your search rankings is to create a site map. Google and other search engines prefer an XML file but since it's actually a computer-to-computer file type it's not really intended for end-user viewing. If you prefer, you can make an HTML file complete with links for site navigation. Depending upon the layout, your site map might be the easiest way for a visitor to see what you have to offer and how your different products are related.

If you're not up for the task of generating an XML file on your own, check out RAGE's Google Sitemap Automator. It's an extremely easy-to-use application and very inexpensive (under $30). If you are managing multiple sites, as I am, you can create site maps for all of them in just minutes.

Once your site map has been created, Google Sitemap Automator will even publish the generated XML files to search engines such as Google (you must have a webmaster tools log in), Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com. You can also predefine the importance of each page and assign meta data automatically. Most SEO specialists suggest that you submit your site map to search engines at least once a week, but of course, this will depend upon how often you actually make changes to your site.

While you're setting up your Google Webmaster Tools account, spend some time roving the Google options. There are lots of other applications that they offer such as analytics, product base, and site search tools. All of these can be key components to a robust search-engine optimization plan.

Job one of any new feature implementation, is to map out a system for measuring results. In the case of a site map, it's pretty easy to choose a few key words for which you wish to rank well and do a search, recording the page and position rank of each. Create and post your site map and check the same key words for a few days. You should notice an improvement, but if you don't it just means you have more work to do. 

I have to admit that a number of the tools I use are made by Google, but that's because they are easy, most are free, and Google provides a better-than-average support network. I encourage most of my clients to at least start with Google and then, if they need more features, graduate to something really expensive later. 

The great thing about SEO and SMO is you really can be quite effective and spend very little money. Oh sure, you'll need a budget for placing banner ads and paying designers, that sort of thing, but many, many of the SEO/SMO tricks that I will talk about will be completely free -- except, of course, for your time investment...

Is a web site enough?

These days it's quite rare to find a company without a web site, and that may be even more true of our industry. Most of us have made a hefty investment in our web site: the design, the content, the graphics, and maybe even in video presentations to keep our customers engaged. In fact, look around and there are probably few customer-facing projects in which you've made such an investment and that nearly every one of your customers has seen. Surely that's enough...

While it's true that web sites can provide your customers with a huge variety of information about your products, web logs -- blogs for short -- are a great complement to those efforts. Blogs provide a level of communication and interactivity that is impossible to achieve with a web site alone.

If your web site is well-rounded, you have service descriptions, product descriptions, trouble shooting FAQs, press release postings, company information, and perhaps a form for requesting contact, but where can your customer actually interact with you, ask a question, or even disagree with you? All of these are basic functions of a blog.

Though you may not have ever considered a blog, there are lots of companies today who have foregone the traditional web site and only provide a blog. This may not be the best path for you, but one thing is sure: you would not be worse off with a blog, you could only benefit.

If you'd like to tour a few blogs to understand the possibilities, try Technorati, one of the better blog search engines. It's easy to search and find topics in which you are interested. Once you've bookmarked a four or five, visit them regularly and jump right in with comments on those stories that have commenting enabled. It won't take you long to decide that you're ready to strike out on your own.

This blog is powered by Google and if you're new to the concept of blogging, it's a good place to get your feet wet. Navigate to Blogger and register. You'll find lots of help files and FAQs in case you need assistance in getting up and running.

Once you have your blog rolling, be sure that you include links from your web site to the blog and in the blog back to your web site. You'll also want to send an email out to your customers and let them know that you now have a place where the can contribute, comment, complain, or search for more help; a place where you can post video and audio help files, instructional how-tos, or demonstrations. As your customers begin to contribute, you can mine the content for great customer quotes or become immediately alerted to a customer problem -- before they begin to complain to other customers.

The commenting feature can even be monitored. If you are concerned that some comments could be detrimental, turn on the monitoring and review comments before allowing them to be visible to followers. Don't be overly concerned about customers posting a complaint. This is usually a fairly harmless method to blowing off steam and your timely responses show all followers that you care when your customers have a problem and that you're showing the issue the utmost consideration.

As customers post comments, you can even go back and edit your original posting, modifying it to accommodate the comments. For instance, if you receive multiple comments that request more information, you can edit the posting to include additional resources, links, or product descriptions that are posted on your web site.

With your web site and blog firmly entrenched in bidirectional promotion, you'll get the added benefit of improved validity and relevancy rankings for both forums.

When I consult with companies on this topic, there's never any question that this is a good idea -- everyone agrees that it is -- the problem only comes when we discuss the commitment needed to keep blog content up to date, relevant, and changing. Unlike a web page where you can make the investment up front and tend to it only as your product line or service offerings undergo a change, a blog will only be successful if you contribute -- regularly.

I don't really expect that you as the CEO, CIO, or even GM have time to post to a blog every day, but it would benefit you greatly to post to it regularly -- or even every now and then. Assign someone on your staff to tend to the daily postings, but the higher up the corporate ladder you stand, the more customers appreciate hearing from you. Your customers have built a dependency on your company's products or services and this blog can be an easy-to-use forum where you can post relevant and timely information. Hearing from c-level leaders will create good will and build relationships.

So, let's review: easy to set up, easy to contribute, builds search-engine recognition, provides easy forum for bidrectional communication with customers, and fosters good will. How can you possibly go wrong?