Even though I have a college business degree with a major in marketing I'd hardly call myself a professional marketer. As my LinkedIn page suggests, I've had many W-2 sales jobs but no one has ever hired me as a W-2 marketing employee.
But in some ways I might be the world's best marketer when it comes to getting the best results for marketing my own business while spending almost no money doing it. Everything I know about marketing my own small business I've learned through trial and error on my own company. I've actually had other small business owners seek me out to replicate my results with their company.
It's tough to teach "guerrilla" marketing though. I've literally told a 100 different people all the marketing tricks I've done for my own business over the years only to have the people I'm talking to glaze over and then go do whatever they they had in mind to do before they asked me my marketing opinion.
I thought I'd give up ever trying to teach anyone else what I know of marketing but the other day I was debating the merits of various marketing techniques with Mike Saxby (who knows a thing or two about media marketing) and we began discussing various ways to maximize traffic to a website. Mike turned me on to an example I could try out that easily proves the theory and substance of online marketing that any small business owner needs to clearly understand.
I'd heard about this marketing example before from others but I never tried it. With Mike's reminder though I did try it the other day and it worked so simply and beautifully that I decided to share it here on the blog because it distills everything a business owner needs to know about online marketing down to one word - "Viagra".
Do the "Online Marketing Secrets" example yourself as follows:
1. Go to www.TMCnet.com
2. Type the word "Viagra" into the "Search TMCnet" search box in the top right hand corner of the page and click the red "go" button
If your result from the example search looks like my result then you found an article with the word Viagra in it on the TMCnet website that looks like the one below:
What Does This Mean?
Those of you who have been studying online marketing for awhile are likely saying, "Viagra? OK, now I get it!"
For those of you new to online marketing, following is the whole secret in just two easy steps:
1. Make a list of the telecom related "keywords" (like Viagra) or telecom related business problems (like "erectile dysfunction") that people are typing into search engines while trying to solve their telecom problems where the solutions your business provides are the answer.
2. Put articles on your website that contain the keywords that show how your business is solving specific telecom business problems like the example we're showing above.
Why Put "Viagra" on a Telecom Business Website?
Like I said above, I'm not a professional marketer so I can't exactly say why other people do what they do. But I am an experimenter and with this blog I now have the word "Viagra" on my website.
We'll see how much traffic this pulls and/or how many people call to ask me if I have a "little blue pill" I can prescribe for their broadband Internet connection that simply is no longer powerful enough to get the job done.
Seriously Though...
Some marketers want millions of visitors to their website without regard to the relevance of the visitor while other marketers only want highly qualified prospects to visit. I'm sure both types of marketers think their way is the best.
No matter which "visitor quality" philosophy you subscribe to though, both philosophies agree on the same secret to online marketing success. Make sure you know what your key words are and make sure you have fresh, "problem solving" articles on your website so search engines around the globe will send searchers to you to learn about your problem solving expertise.
Got an online marketing secret you want to share? Please leave a comment!
While I understand this concept, I feel that companies should exercise caution with this form of marketing. A brand is easily impacted (for better or worse)by its online presence.
Questionable content posted solely for the purpose of acquiring eyeballs could jeopardize a brand that a company has invested significant time and money to achieve.
Posted by: Greg Plum | 10/14/2010 at 08:07 AM