Location, location, location.
Every new website is born in the dark back alleys of the Internet. No exposure and no foot traffic.
The site is a puppy. It’s a spring chicken with no authority or trust. No traffic. No buzz.
The sad thing is that your site can remain online for years without ever moving out of that dark back alley.
Meanwhile, the sites that are “doing it right” are on the main drag. They have put the processes in place to go from darkness to to the bright lights.
Step 1 – Get Your House In Order
Firstly, let’s understand the two qualities of these “main drag” websites.
All of these “main drag” websites contain:
- entertaining, informative, educational or inspirational content.
- the ability for target communities (not target markets) to interact with and share this content.
To get your house in order, create a content strategy and stick to it for a couple of months. Build up a significant resource on your site before moving on to step 2.
Notice that you don’t need to have the community in place, but you do need to have the ability for a community to exist.
Ask yourself these questions about your “back alley” website:
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In 1950, the short-lived comedy sitcom The Hank McCune Show introduced the American TV audience to “canned laughter.”
Most television viewers would describe “canned laughter” or “laugh tracks” as phony and obvious. But despite the scorn of TV watchers and critics, the laugh track has been with us since its debut over 60 years ago.
Why?
Laugh tracks work. And the principles that make laugh tracks work, can be employed to grow your business.
The Law Of Social Proof
Dr. Robert Cialdini, Regents’ Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University, has been studying “the psychology of persuasion” for decades and has published several best-selling books on the subjects of influence and persuasion.
In his breakthrough book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Cialdini introduces us to six laws of persuasion that are hard-wired into our minds as deeply as breathing, sleeping and eating.
The Law of Social Proof is simple:
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Chris Reimer is better known to most of us as @RizzoTees on Twitter.
Chris is a well respected social media expert in part because he is close to eclipsing the elusive 50,000 Twitter followers mark. But while his follower count is impressive, it is the deep connections and relationships that Chris builds on Twitter that have moved the needle for his T shirt business and his career.
For the two years that I have been “following” Chris, he has gone from being a CFO for a local St. Louis company to the Vice President of Social Media for the marketing firm, Falk Harrison.
In this 40 minute interview, you will learn:
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Randy Jackson says "Drink Coke Dog!"
The secret that television networks, magazine publishers and newspapers have understood for decades is…
if you want to make money, you need to build great content. When you build great content, you can sell ads, products and services around the outside of the content.
So, they put awesome content out there like The Honeymooners, Dear Abby and The Forbes 500. And around the outside of this content they sell soap, cars and diapers.
It worked then, and it still works today. Great content draws attention and products/services are sold around that content.
Your Strategy
A good Internet marketing strategy includes the creation of content with stand-alone value that is housed on the businesses website and distributed through social media channels and email.
Although you may never be as funny as Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton, you can still provide value around which you can sell products and services. In fact, the best value to provide as a business is often not humor but:
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The fact of the matter is that most of the people that are coming into contact with your business are not ready to buy now.
They aren’t saying NO, they are saying maybe. Not now, maybe later.
Unfortunately — most business don’t have processes in place to stay in touch with these people until they are ready to buy.
Do you have a process to “bleed” a marketing message on prospects until they become a YES.
How Big Bucket Bleeds
As tiny business owners, we sometimes make the mistake of copying the methods of our corporate competitors — Big Bucket, Inc.
Big Bucket, Inc. bleeds on its prospects through advertising. They put a branded jingle, logo, tagline, etc in front of their prospects as frequently as possible. And it costs big bucks.
Big bucks that tiny business owners don’t have.
How A Tiny and Mighty Business Owner Bleeds
Savvy tiny business owners have realized that the Internet has made it possible to “bleed” a message on their prospects for almost no bucks at all.
Here is the process good tiny business marketers have been implementing for almost a decade now:
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Get more hits on the website!
Get more foot traffic by the storefront!
Put more eyeballs on our ads!
Widening the funnel at the top to bring in more prospects and leads is certainly one way to grow a business. But often, not the easiest way.
Chances are, you already have some website traffic, foot traffic by the storefront or eyeballs on your ads.
Are you squeezing the most value out of the attention you are already getting? Is there a plan for those that are already in the funnel?
Ask For Permission
One of the secrets that Internet marketers have understood for over a decade now is that success is correlated to the size and quality of the permission based “lists” that you grow.
A list could be in any number of channels:
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For the busy tiny business owner the following can be dreaded words:
“I’d like to get together with you to pick your brain.”
The first thought that may fly through your mind is
“So…. you would like to get together with me for free to find out some information. I don’t think so!”
Firstly, Be Flattered
They like you, they really like you. You shouldn’t be angry, you should be flattered that people are requesting an audience with you. They want your advice and they are reaching out to you.
You have proven yourself to be approachable and worthy of attention. And, in business, attention is the sincerest form of flattery.
Stop Playing the Blame Game
Here are some of the reasons that people are asking to pick your brain (for free):
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Partnerships are good. Abbot & Costello, Fred & Barney, Batman & Robin, Ike & Tina Turner (ok maybe that one didn’t end well but you get my drift)
As tiny business owners, we know that forming partnerships is critical to growing our organization.
Here are just a few of the ways that we can benefit from partnerships:
- As a referral source — forming a network of partners that refers business to each other is a very effective way to get sales.
- To expand your offerings — Finding partners that will “white label” their product/service offerings will allow you to offer a wider range of options for customers.
- To create joint ventures — Joining with a partner to create a new product/service/business is often a good way to increase your capacity and compensate for weaknesses that you have in your business skills.
But we don’t partner with anyone unless that someone can bring some value to the table.
That value comes in one of three forms:
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The social web is powerful but only if you play the game correctly.
Create content that will be shared.
Create content that will be interacted with.
Case in point. Which of these two “tweets” will get shared? Which of these two tweets is worth interacting with?
TWEET #1
TWEET #2
80% (or more) of your marketing communications on the Internet should follow TWEET #2 and the rest can be self-serving like TWEET #1.
If all you do is talk about you, you, you —- no one will be listening. Create value.
