Anytime you are creating content in any form, you need to ask yourself, “How many different places will this be used?”

When you are writing copy for your website, you are “keyword conscious”, right? Well, if the press release you are writing is going to be distributed electronically, shouldn’t you be keyword conscious there, too? Ditto for blog postings, Tweet’s, etc. Even emails. If a potential client is searching his email database and he doesn’t remember your name, if he searches for , , or in his saved emails, are you going to turn up?

I can remember a situation where a staffer in the marketing department at a client of mine bought some stock photos to put up on their corporate website. Some of the pix were gorgeous. The company’s owner fell in love with three of the shots and wanted to use them in fairly large format print campaign. The staffer had purchased low-res images only for the website, so they had to go back and purchase the high-res versions. Was it a ton of money? No, but it was a waste of time … the pix needed to be color corrected again, etc. Edit a picture once. Save it in as high-res, easily editable format as you can. Tweak the size and resolution and use it over and over with “Save For Web & Devices” or similar “export” functions. (Note: Be sure not to violate any copyright laws or use licenses for images you don’t own.)

When we talk to potential clients about website design, we talk to them about content creation and management solutions, and when we say, “content management” we don’t just mean a CMS system or WordPress back-end … we’re talking to them about outsourced content creation and re-purposing on an ongoing basis. Writing blogs and Tweets. Publishing newsletters. Making press releases. Creating email marketing content. Creating videos. Writing white papers (with customer’s input and assistance). Tweaking RSS feeds to improve relevance and quality. Manually creating prominent links to articles/news items of substantial relevance and import. This is integrated with a social media effort – tagging, following, recommending, etc. Creating fresh polls and putting them up each period. Small to mid-sized businesses typically don’t have the marketing resources required to pull this off. If they have someone who is going to be their “webmaster” he or she is typically wearing 10 other hats and is as likely to be a “techie” as a marketer.

After all, building an online marketing presence isn’t just about putting up your site. Certainly, the day your site launches or the day you add new capabilities are mileposts. But, they are mileposts that are quite near the start of the race … and the race has no finish line. Making sure you aren’t wasting time having to create multiple versions of the same content means you will more time to re-purpose content, to cast your net as broadly as possible.

The line between art and science frequently blurs. I can explain the science of the curve ball to you, but I can’t throw it with the artistry of a Jon Lester or Tim Lincecum. There is art in the instinctive application of the science.

Modern marketing is no different. You artfully design several different offerings for a product or service and then you scientifically decide which one works best. Maybe as a group your collective instincts can help you eliminate 2 of the 5 offerings and focus your ads on the remaining three, picking only the best for the major advertising campaign based upon actual results and not upon which offering was your favorite.

In helps the validity of your testing if the underlying process is without bias or deviation. If not, the bias or deviation needs to be considered/accounted for somehow. For instance, if your best call center staff works Monday-Friday from 8A-4P, then you better make sure that all of the different ads run during that time frame. You don’t want to pick the ad that converts the best because it was worked only by the best salespeople. Or, if your salespeople HATE internet leads but love phone leads, it is tough to compare the success of internet campaigns with a TV campaign or a newspaper campaign that results in phone calls and not web leads. (We’ll cover the difference between web leads and phone leads in a future blog.)

The bottom line is this: trust your instincts, but trust your data more.

I was sitting waiting in St. Pierre’s Barber Shop on Spring Street in Williamstown waiting to have my heretofore magnificent mane reduced substantially. Now that my band’s big gig is past, the whole, “I’m a musician, I need long hair,” is lost on my wife. BTW, she laughed at me when I got home from the barber yesterday. Laughed. Out loud. She even pointed. She said my mom will be pleased. Lovely.

Anyhow, there I sat reading ESPN: The Magazine and Sports Illustrated which I never do anymore. I have zero zip zilch nada magazine subscriptions at home and at work. The internet, television, and radio are my information sources in that order. We haven’t gotten a daily newspaper at home since we moved away from Minnesota in 1999. Just don’t need it anymore. 24 hour news on TV, instant access on the web … and there is literally a laptop with wireless at arm’s reach at home ALL OF THE TIME. How did we ever live without this stuff? As I sat there, I was struck by how effectively I could avoid the advertising as I read the magazine. I’m guessing most of us have conditioned ourselves to do the same. The only ad that I saw was the ad for the DVD of the photoshoot from SI’s annual Swimsuit Issue – for obvious reasons. Since when did paint applied directly to the skin constitute a swimsuit?

Let’s see here … fewer and fewer people are buying print media and those who do have become experts at filtering out the ads. So, why are people still buying magazine and newspaper advertising? Good question.

If you still are, it better be because you have measured its effectiveness and have determined that it is creating prospects, leads, and sales in a cost-effective manner. If not, you need to start measuring today.

Sitting here on a Sunday at 6:50AM working away on getting this business started. I’ve got Nate James cranking away on the PC with the subwoofer. Caffeine is bad for you. Disco is so much better. Maybe even get up and dance for a minute here … nah.

As I’m trolling around the internet, I’m struck by how many people there are who claim to know how to do that thing we do when we do what we do … competition will be stiff. How to differentiate?

Like most start-up businesses, I need to hoard my working capital. That means I can’t simply buy my way into prominence with a Google PPC campaign (tempting though that may be).

What to do? Well, the way to get a business like this off the ground is to focus on networking and using personal relationships, barter, etc. to get your initial stable of clients. Provide amazing customer service and value for their dollar. Under promise and over deliver. Make it happen. Turn them into testimonials … no, too weak of a word … turn them into veritable evangelists for the power of your knowledge, capabilities, and integrity.

Use the experience gained and the insights learned to razor-hone your presentation … what makes business owners tick? What to say? And (maybe more importantly), what not to say? Also, what are our true strengths and weaknesses. Frank assessments matter here. You need to be candid with yourself. I love doing web design, but if I can find someone who does it better and cheaper than I do, then I need to be out drumming up and delivering rock solid billable hours in our consulting business not sitting here trying to solve another JavaScript mystery at 330AM. Yawn – more FUNK!

So, if I know that I have to go the word-of-mouth route to be successful in the early stages, why am I expending the energy to build a kick-ass website and underlying marketing automation for our business? Because, if my own site and its foundation in a well thought out sales cycle doesn’t reflect the POWER OF THE PROCESS that I am preaching to our customers, then why should I expect my potential customers to listen to me? Right? Isn’t this obvious?

I think my enthusiasm will help. I am flat-out excited to deliver the combination of the technical majesty that is the web/crm/email in all its wonder along with the beauty of well designed graphics and well written copy. It is simply created, instantly delivered, and capable to be PERFORMANCE TESTED like never before. The fact is the web and all of its accompanying tools (email, texting, Twitter, blogs, Google analytics, cookies, etc.) give business owners, executives, and marketing professionals an opportunity like never before to understand where there customers are in their buying process. You don’t have to wait for them to pickup the phone. You don’t have to wait for them to walk into the store. You don’t have to wonder if any of them read the flier in the paper this weekend. You KNOW how much activity there is and where everyone is in the process. You KNOW how many people might respond to a coupon or special offer and you’re able to deliver that offer CHEAPLY via email or social media to a targeted list.

The hard work is up front … building the right process from, picking the right foundational tools, etc. That’s where we come in.

Maybe some Jamiroquai now …

Go get’em!

It is fascinating to work on starting this business up – trying to create a web site and a sales cycle for a business whose specialty is designing websites, designing sales cycles, etc. We need to nail this because it is kind of tough to be credible as an “expert” if your own efforts in the area are substandard, know what I mean?

The secret is to focus on the process first, the content second, and the “bells and whistles” last – the same as we would do for any client. At the front end, our basic process is to use SEO/SEM and social media marketing to generate traffic to our landing pages where we will offer free content (like white papers and short educational videos) to entice conversions (aka “prospects). We are then going to use auto-responders, html email templates, and additional interactivity like webinars to nurture prospects into qualified leads. At that point, the direct sales effort takes over and we start to interact with those qualified leads on a one-on-one basis.

After we run for a bit, we will be able to look at key performance metrics and then start to adjust our marketing appropriately. We’ll start to get a feel for how much traffic it takes to generate a prospect, how many prospects it takes to generate a qualified lead, and how many qualified leads it takes to generate a client. Understanding those factors will allow us to start adjusting our advertising budgets and to modify the offerings on our landing pages. We’ll test various approaches to see which work best.

That’s the beauty of implementing a process … it allows you to adjust individual variables to test and measure the results.

Ignite Marketing Strategies works with business owners and professionals who want to grow their business and need measurable results out of their marketing and sales investments.

We help you fix your marketing process and maximize marketing efforts.

• we help your business get found on the internet by the right prospects
• we help you convert those prospects into qualified leads
• we help you turn qualified leads into new customers
• we help you nurture relationships with customers increasing lifetime value