Marketing Pilgrim

Sarah Haskins is part of InfoMania’s line up of commentators that pokes fun at mainstream media. Sarah’s biggest contribution is her recurring segment “Target Women.”

“Target Women” is a video commentary that takes a satirical look at television adverts that target women. As we can see above Sarah doesn’t hold back when discussing the rather broad generalizations that these commercials assume.

Watching a satirical commentary on television adverts exposes one of the major contrasts with broadcast media and the internet. Broadcast media is riddled with assumptions while the internet by its very nature is void of assumptions. Take for example the ads discussed above, they are completely based on the assumptions of the ad executives that created them, and as a result they fall victim to the risk of being irrelevant, ineffective, and annoying. Now, don’t get me wrong, mainstream ad agencies spend millions of dollars on market research, and demographic studies, all so they can make calculated assumptions. But, in the end they are still assumptions none the less!

So you want to be a famous SEO?

You want to be a Social Media guru?

Want to rock the socks off of affiliate marketers?

Awesome! Want a little tip on how to start?? Don’t start blogging! So you might be thinking What? Don’t blog? Are you crazy? (I am not sure) But, here’s the truth. Almost every “famous” or well respected person in their industry got to where they are by doing good work, not talking about it.

Nathan Hangen tells us that all you have to do is squelch your fear and step into your role. Sorry, Nathan but honestly there are a lot confident people that give bad information and lack real substance. As a result their confident facade looks fake and untrustworthy. You have to produce a good product and be confident in its delivery.

So you got your client on the front page of Digg. With your SEO skills you pushed them to the top of the rankings for all their key terms. You have optimized their PPC campaigns and have drastically improved their ROI.

You are a rock star and everyone knows it!

But the question now is, what’s left? Don’t get me wrong there is never an end to internet marketing, it’s always an ongoing process. But with all of your mad skills are you missing something? There’s got to be something that you don’t know but if you did, it would drastically improve your services. What is this one thing that I am talking about? Public Relations.

The other day I was on Twitter and saw a tweet that really summed up social media marketing. OK, so I know that James is talking more about SEO here, but truthfully, giving your audience something to talk about is at the heart of social media marketing. Bonnie Raitt knew this secret in 1991–way before our modern conception of social media existed!

When folks are talking about your content they are talking about your brand. When folks are talking about your content they are sharing your ideas. When folks are talking about your content they are linking to your site. When folks are talking about your content they are strengthening your brand by contributing to the dialog. When folks are talking about your content they are making you money.

If you are following me on Twitter or a friend on Facebook you might already be aware that I am a heartless b@st@rd. OK so maybe that’s a bit extreme but the truth is, I think a lot of what mainstream social media users take part in is a waste of time. For example I don’t thank people for retweets, I don’t participate in follow Friday, and I don’t join every Facebook fan page that comes along. Why don’t I do all of these things? Because quite honestly they do very little to help promote my ideas and the people I believe in. And more importantly they add more noise to a medium that is already saturated to the rim with useless content.

So, a few days ago I was on Twitter and a friend of mine asked her followers how much she should pay a designer for a new logo. My response was, “well, pay them what ever they invoice you for.” She then explained that this designer didn’t know how to price his logos and needed help. I remember when I first started my business I had no idea how to price products. I used to spend days analyzing the market, comparing other products and thinking of different marketing options. And then one day I realized how simple pricing really is.

So the other day, I was talking to a client about a new project they want to begin in the next couple of months. From their mindset this project is going to be huge and may redefine their organization in the coming years. As part of this new project they want a sophisticated web presence. They read off a list of different social networks and services that they want their new site to engage. My first thought was Wow I am going to bill them out the ying yang for all this! But, then my conscience kicked in (yes, I have one), and I had to ask, “do you think all of this is necessary?” They were kind of surprised with my question and responded, “well yes, why wouldn’t it be?”. I then asked them, “well. what are your goals with each service?” They didn’t really say much after that.

As I write this post, it is my birthday, and there is a White Russian with my name on it, after this post is done. So you will have to excuse me if today’s column is a bit short, but I have a party to go to!

Even though all of the data says something different it is clear that the life span for most small businesses is incredibly short. Yep that’s right, people fail all the time.

If you ask most defunct small business owners why they failed, they will point towards one or two key areas of their business. Some will say that they didn’t have the right marketing mindset, others might say they didn’t have the right product. And all of these reasons may be true. But one thing that many won’t even recognize is because their business wasn’t flexible.