Marketing Musing: Simplify
Welcome to the first of a long line of marketing musings from me, Martin Wales.
It’s my pleasure to accept Nic Gremion’s invitation to “think out loud” here on Site Reference’s Internet Marketing Blog. (Really cool as I’m under various restraining orders, in both democratic and communist countries alike, around the world.)
All of this got me to thinking….
We think too much. We make things complex in our marketing and in our business. We get so focused on the processes, like building a web site, copy writing, ad buying, running PPC campaigns and blogging, that we tend to ignore, forget, or worst, act blindly without having simple, clear objectives. A simple objective would be to have 10 new optins per day to my online newsletter. That’s simple. That’s measureable. That’s FIXable.
Think about the complexity of a Porsche and all the small, delicate moving parts and the price it takes to fix them - heck, even just to diagnose what’s wrong. Then compare that with the “people’s car” generally know as the Volkswagen Beetle. It gets you from A to B.
That’s what you marketing should do. Move the prospect from A to B.
From ‘not having a clue who you are or what you do’ to ‘having a burning desire to find out more about you.’
Note that I didn’t say, BUY from you in the first step. Just moving them from not knowing you, or caring to, to ‘wanting‘ to know more would be an incremental success. Get them from A to B.
Now,you can work on from B to C. Once they investigate and research a bit about you, then they might be more comfortable to move from prospect to customers - from B to C.
Many falsely think that because the Internet allows us to purchase immediately, to achieve instant gratification, and push the customer away from dealing with us personally (big mistake) that we should SLAM them with the sales approach, the big close or the buy now or die!
One true advantage of the Internet is the near free cost of continually communication and an infinite ability to publish, print or media, information. Use this revolutionary marketing advantage to keep a continual conversation going to get your traffic from A to B and then B to C.
Sounds simple but simple ain’t always easy, is it?
In closing, I hope to hear your comments, feedback and your own personal musings about marketing. Please do not consider me an ‘Authority’ but a ‘Curious Inquisitor’ seeking enlightement and assistance, like yourself. I look forward to serving you by bringing experts and specialists to share their opinions here, as I quiz them in my own simple laymen thinking and conversation. Question A. Answer B. 
Popularity: 56% [?]
March 24th, 2008 at 7:01 am
In a nut shell - one can take a single sentence from this article.
That would be “A simple objective would be to have 10 new optins per day to my online newsletter”
However; in this 5k race you are starting your series 1k into the race.
What good is adding opt ins if they aren’t coming?
My site is only trying to sell itself (for now)
It is a set of 5 forums.
I have gone so far as to open it up to free website link swapping.
So what do people in my situation do?