(Newswire.net — February 13, 2014) Chicago, Illinois — Imagine you look at your inbox and see orders, business and inquiries. You hear that people are calling in wanting to buy your product or service. You check and business is coming in. You open the doors and customers fill your store, restaurant and office. Business is good. Life is good.
The Golden Age of Information Based small business websites.
When we entered the 21st century a little more than a decade ago it was a time when a small business could get their website up, be found easily and people would place orders. We could say it was the Golden Age of information based small business websites. With only some tweaks and work you could be number 1 on search engines.
Websites were still a novelty.
If you had one for your small business you were ahead of the trends. You stood out from your competition. If people could do business right online you were a star. Information drove everything and we were in love with it.
Then as more business came on line it became harder to be found on search engines.
We saw the rise of SEO, search engine optimization, the battle to gain position on Google. An industry was born. How can we work with or beat the system so a website would rank higher.
We still want to be easy to find. Right now there is someone looking for what you do, have or offer. You want is to make it easy for them to find you and become your customer.
There was a time when just getting good search position was all that mattered.
SEO became more than an industry it became the Holy Grail. If only you could be Number 1 then everything else will work. Business will flow in like magic. That was initially true but things have changed enormously.
Websites are no longer a novelty. Anyone and everyone can have one. There are hundreds of millions of websites. There is so much information that people are overloaded. Many strategies being used are from 3, 4, 5, 8 or 10+ years ago.
Hit them harder with more information.
First hit them with more information or dazzle with technical proficiency. If they don’t pay attention just hit them harder with a bigger hammer. Doesn’t work? Why? When you hit a person long and hard enough they become numb. You want to reach their feelings not numb them.
Now we have social media.
Social media is a wonderful thing. It connects people in a more natural way. Social media for business has a cultural quirk in it. Many are on social media to increase their business. In our culture self promotion is seen as offensive. The only person that could blatantly self promote is Mohammed “I am the greatest” Ali and we love him for it because it was true.
Self promoting is bad unless…
In our culture it is OK to self promote if it is done with paid advertising. Take the exact message and put it in a social media stream and on a paid advertisement and you might be banned from the group and the website will encourage you to do more. Self promotion is fine when paid for.
What this means to small businesses is that big business dominates. They have huge budgets to dominate the advertising and perpetuate the stigma about self promoting. A way around this has been for people to form groups on a topic where their real purpose is to promote themselves, which is OK, but you had better not promote yourself there.
We then look for a bigger social media hammer to pound harder. We want to have bigger numbers and “He who has the biggest numbers wins”. That may be true but where does that leave small businesses, entrepreneurs and solopreneurs?
Ahh.. A fresh look..
Maybe it is time to put the hammer away. Maybe it is time to come out of the almost trance like state of more information, trickier strategies and having more people that don’t care about what you offer.
Multi-million dollar real estate agents have this worked out.
When they have a $2 million home for sale, they are not looking for 10,000 views. They are looking for that one buyer. This level of real estate agent knows their clients. They know what they like or might like and how they feel. They do not hammer them but are astute at understanding their clients information wants and needs and their emotional wants and needs.
What is missing is not information but emotion.
Are you asking what your clients and customers really care about? What moves them? People choose emotionally then give reasons to back that up. If you want to stand out then your message needs to be emotionally based. You move people by connecting to your “Why” and to their “Why”. That is how someone becomes a great leader, inspiring and moving people. This lights up and transforms your marketing.
Imagine seeing your business light up with business.
You have more customers, clients and orders from happy people. People that are happy they found someone that showed they understand them and care about them. Imagine you walk by some people and overhear “Have you been in (insert your business or name). I would go back in a minute. I don’t know what they did but I felt like being there. Look at what I bought. You should check it out.”
Great writers are artists.
Like musicians, singers, dancers and chefs they moves us. We feel it. First, find an artist for your business marketing and then apply that with SEO and Social media in an influential campaign as..
The best marketing is only as good as the message…
Imagine an article about you and your business here. Move people with your message. Contact:
John K Arnold
JKA Marketing, Inc
910 W Van Buren # 340
Chicago, IL 60607
Ph: 312-802-1208
Ph: 407-592-0311
www.jka-marketing.com
Email: john@jka-marketing.com