Accommodating Impatience

When I was a young designer, boardroom presentations consisted of storyboards, long nights of physically cutting and pasting paper, and long-winded projections on estimated market reach. Today the goal to market reach should be accommodating impatience. Laptops and tablets are flipped open, online analysis and comparisons are made at lightning speed and a table full of highly skilled professionals expects answers now and results tomorrow.

Technology and electronic access have just brought your entire market past and future…into the boardroom with you. They will decide what your next product will say and how it will respond. They will communicate mercilessly and hold the power of your product in the palm of their hands. But they can only do that if they can find you.

Digital Marketing is the exposure of your company or campaign by using digital channels. Although grandma still prefers the yellow pages, the “now” generation prefers speed before effort and results within seconds…Mobile technology and the rise of smartphones allow users to find almost anything immediately. The keyword herein is “find”.

If you are not visible online and if you cannot be found within seconds, you will lose an essential amount of revenue to competitors that are findable…

Many of you already know this, but fear the great unknown. You have built a client base via phone, footsteps, and sales staff for the last 20 years, but all of a sudden John Doe down the road is doing much better with the same product and half the knowledge.

So how can you improve your company’s find-ability? The basic steps in laymen’s terms are:

1. Paramount: Get online

In order for your product or business to be found, you must be out there; Get a website…Not just any website, but an optimized site. Search Marketing Guru, Li Evans says: “Content Doesn’t Win. Optimized Content Wins”. When someone searches online for your product, a potential customer must “find” you in the first 5-9 listings. Why? Research shows viewers don’t read further. If your site is on page 2 or 3, you have turned into an online ghost. A funny but true anonymous quote says: ” You can find a dead body on the second page of Google.”

2. Keep it relevant

Make sure that you send the viewer to a relevant page on your site. As much as home/landing pages create ambiance and business appeal, rather send the viewer to the product they were looking for. Find-ability is not just to your site, but inside your site as well. You have an average of about 3 seconds before they will close your site (bounce) and move on to another listing that will show them what they are looking for. Don’t send them to ankle boots when they search for water boots… or PVC when they search for Copper.

In his article “The importance of relevance in the online customer journey” Marcus Law says: “When searching for a particular product, I expect to see highly relevant results the first time I type in a search phrase. Whether I’m using my smartphone, tablet or laptop, if I ask for “men’s wool blazer,” then that’s exactly what I want to see – nothing more or less – especially if I’m on my iPhone and don’t have enough screen space to browse 50 items.

3. Keeping tabs

The great thing about Digital marketing is tracking. Google for instance can give you detailed analytics on who, when, and what device was looking at your site. The IT Donut says: “… to determine success, you must find a way to measure response.” If your bounce rate (viewers leaving immediately) is high – check your viewer stats. If your demographics show a younger or older market, change your tone accordingly.

This is where it gets interesting: Do not rely solely on Digital Marketing; make sure to have tactile initiatives in place. Make notes (annotations) when paper campaigns are released and see the visitor’s numbers spike on your site as a campaign is launched. Digital marketing does not make traditional marketing obsolete; it simply adds a quick and accessible channel to your company’s exposure with realistic target market demographics and measurable responses.

4. The art of listening

There is nothing more powerful than word of mouth. We would much rather phone a company that has a large amount of social media “likes” or retweets than a company with few. Social media has brought the consumer in direct contact with the business owner. Customer X can comment on a pleasant experience from the restaurant she is sitting in, and within minutes your business is exposed to all her friends…and their friends. Learn to listen to your social media chatter, the intonations, vibe, and interests – get to know your customers.

Francois Gossieaux says: “Social media allows us to behave in ways that we are hardwired for in the first place – as humans. We can get frank recommendations from other humans instead of from faceless companies.”

Communication does not have to be exclusive to Social Media. By keeping track and building a database you should have a few email addresses of visits that turned into sales/leads from your site. Stan App from MRM Partner Worldwide says: “In the 21st century, the database is the marketplace.” Email them with current information, always have links back to your site, and let them do some marketing for you by sending it to a friend.

To Conclude: 

Online Marketing is a journey, and if done correctly – your company or campaign will grow with your market. The initial importance of find-ability will allow you to have an online presence, gain credibility, earn trust, and eventually talk with pride. It all starts with a search box, a need or desire and you being able to make that click count.