Over the past two years, the rise in the number of people with Google accounts with has meant that more people are using Google for search logged in on a secure connection. With their distorted logic filter well and truly on, Google deem that as a privacy issue and do not pass on search phrases to Google Analytics accounts.

Hence, (not provided) appearing at the top of most peoples top keyword lists in their Analytics Account.

It used to get on my goat, until I realised that actually, it was a blessing in disguise.

Keyword Fixations

Like most areas of technology, by the time that most people understand something, the game has changed – SEO is just the same.

Even now, the feedback I get from clients and new prospects focuses on keywords that they have deemed to be incredibly important (because they use them) or they display a rudimentary understanding of how SEO “works”… from circa. 2005.

Sorry if this sounds arrogant on my part, but like I said, it gets on my goat. Fixating on keywords doesn’t work anymore – in truth, it hasn’t for a long time.

Ego

I have managed to get quite a few clients’ websites up to the giddy heights of 1 or 2 in Google UK only for them not to yield any traffic. Clients still want to see their website appear and I sometimes do it just to prove the point, but ultimately, I am keener to grow the diversity of search phrases.

This means that rather than focus on one or two words, the breadth and diversity of content are much more important. This usually starts with creating better quality content and refining existing pages.

Example

Some websites I start working on get found for very few phrases. Take this example below. Within three weeks, we managed to increase the diversity of phrases the website was being found for by over 300%  - which also means a growth in relevant visitors hitting the site.

How To Diversify Your Keyword Strategy

It’s okay to have a core group of keywords to keep you on track. But, most keywords needs partners – other words to give them added context. Eg. This page on my website is not about what I do… it’s about what I do for specific types of businesses – Double Glazing Websites and Marketing.

And, it’s not all about selling the dream – uou need to prove that you can do the business / prove that you are doing the business.

Write For Customers

The words your customers use and the things they want to know about (that relate to what you do) are probably different from the words you are using to selling to them. You must adapt your sales offering to fit what the customer wants.

That also means writing it using language that fits. (I have a constant battle with digital marketing vs. online marketing vs. website marketing and in truth, none of them deliver that much traffic in context).

Your words need to match the words that tick the boxes of your customer.

My Advice

• Forget about keywords and where your website sits in Google today. It’s a fourth dimensional moving target and will take away your focus on what matters – getting sales leads.
• Start thinking about your website as a way of offering value to customers. To some respects, forget about the sales approach when planning content. How can you better engage with your customers for their benefit?
• The journey is the destination. You need to measure and adapt and stay in the game with your content.
• Be prepared to strip content that dilutes your message.
• Diversify. Your content needs to have context(s) that match people who are searching. Remember, the web is made up of trillions of pages – How can you make yours relevant?

When it comes to creating a website to promote your business, the easiest thing is to follow the herd and tell the world what you do and how great you are. Unfortunately, you turn your sales offering into the preverbal needle in a very large haystack.

A much better route is to add some handles to your content - something for people to grab onto – and talk about what you’ve been doing for other people.

Can You Do It For ME?

I believe this is one of the key questions going through a potential customers head when they land on your website. And, they are looking for proof. Can you walk the walk?

What Is Success?

One of the best questions I ask when I am sitting with a new sales prospect is…

In six months times, what needs to have happened for you to look back on this project and see it as a success.

If the meeting is going well, and we have good rapport, I should end up with the focus points I need to make the sale, and to successfully deliver the project.

I know what THEY want!

Context

I used to struggle working for similar companies – I felt like was cheating. But, nine times out of ten, the client is glad I have industry experience. I can talk their language and add context to the conversation (not to mention deliver the job quicker and more effectively). The same is probably true for your business.

Adding context to your online sales offering is essential. It gives a random website visitor a ‘way-in’ to your service offering. They can understand what you have done for other companies similar to theirs.

Eg. In the past month I have picked up two new clients from this page about double glazing sales, one of which was a company looking to “rent a double glazing website”.

I still had to make the sale face-to-face, but it gave me the sales lead, which is about as much as you can expect from a B2B website.

Your Challenge

There’s a very good chance that you look at your competitors websites on a regular basis – probably moreso that you look at your own. The question is, hand-on-heart, is yours offering any more REAL VALUE to a visitor who has stumbled across it?

• Does it prove anything above and beyond your competition?
• Does it prove that you have real-world experience that you are so confident in that you don’t mind talking about it?
• Do you attach sector-relevant (or geographical) context so that people can find a way in to your service offering?

Examples

• Sector specific sales pages
• Sector specific case studies (and brand related if relevant)
• Relevant value add content and/or tools for your target audience
• Market insight

If not, take a step back, ask your clients, or get someone like me in to audit your website and show you the sales opportunities you may be missing.

As 2012 draws to a close, it doesn’t take an economics expert to pronounce that it’s tough out there for many people (and businesses).

Cash is tight for many, the future is still uncertain and the positive growth forecasts from the “experts” keep getting pushed back.

When it comes to sales and marketing, you could be forgiven for thinking that some companies are running out of ideas, especially when you add technology in the mix.

But, I have an paradoxical issue with technology and marketing…

It’s so easy to do, that most people think that it’s easy to do.

And herein lies the problem.

[Not So] Social Media

I set up a LinkedIn Group in the early days of the social network for business, called “Basingstoke Business”, and, because I got in early doors, it has grown to become the main local business group on LinkedIn.

Luckily (and this isn’t me blowing smoke up my own arse) I police it regularly to keep it on topic. A growing occurance I have seen during 2012 is the growth in people posting banal links to even more banal content, which is basically a sales-driven message with low (if any) value attached for the viewer.

Don’t get me wrong, I love social media and I absolutely love it when some some brands get it right, even with advertising (see below).

But, so few companies do get it right, even though there are great opportunities online.

Are You Missing The Point With Social Media?

In early 2010, I was part of a panel at a conference for the Urban Land Institute – the Social Media session. The first speaker (part of the business) was all excited as he showed the very tired “Social Media Is Here” video, which probably got him more excited than the audience.

Wow, such a great opportunity for us all!

As he was talking I checked out his personal Twitter feed, and guess what, his 36 followers were being treated to utter irrelevance.

When it came to my turn to speak, my advice to everyone, as it still is now is this…

Get Your Own House In Order

Don’t chase the social media ‘revolution’ because it’s really an evolution  Concentrate on your main business portal online – your website. Create good content and people in the social space will share it… because it deserves it.

That’s what branding is all about – creating a sharable message which people will invest their own social capital in sharing. ie. You make them look good for sharing your brand, rather than look stupid when people then go on to have bad experiences.

Capitalise On Content

Social media revolves around content, most of which is “user generated”. Many small businesses (either owners or marketing departments) don’t seem to grasp this simple fact.

They also don’t get how [great] content can be leveraged on their own websites – when potentially creates even more relevance.

You Already Have A Great Source For Great Content

If you need to create great content, it takes planning, time and effort. You also need to pull back a bit and recognise:

• Why you need it and what you need it for
• Who is best person / people to create the content
• Who speaks the right language at the right time for the right purpose.

Why explain, when I can demonstrate…

Example

I have a client who offers employee services for business, such as HR, Payroll, HEalth and Safety. We had a website running which outlined the core offering of the business.

In November, I persuaded the MD to let me interview some people from within the business – the people who actually delivered the services.

It was fascinating. We discovered three key opportunities for content in less than half an hour:

• Payroll is being transformed by Real Time Information (hot topic).
• Auto Enrolment Pensions (hot topic).
• Case study for manual handling for specific industry (funeral directors) to demonstrate the bespoke nature of their work.

Summary

Because you work within your business, you probably take a lot for granted about how good you are. If you can (hand on heart) genuinely say that your business is very good, you will be creating opportunities for great marketing content everyday.

You only need to read the news each day to see things that can be spun into opinion pieces.

One of the biggest challenges I have with digital marketing for clients is eeking out content opportunities, and sometimes all it takes is me, in a room, with the right person, for less than an hour.

So, rather than concentrating on the pot of gold at the next social media ‘revolution’, why not get your own site brimming with good, specific, relavant content that engages the people that matters – your customers.

Merry Christmas.

One of my personal websites is a Blog about my experiences of running a Beauty Salon. Although I am not looking to earn lots of money from it, I do run advertising on it to help understand more about affiliate advertising (not an area of expertise) and help contribute towards my hosting and domain costs.

Back in the Summer, I decided that I wanted to change a few things to see if I could exponentially increase traffic.

Domain Name Change

The website was called beautysalonmarketing.co.uk but I wanted to appeal to a much larger global market and wondered if the .co.uk would restrict this. I also wondered about making it more about salons in general, which could encompass the much larger salon market of hair salons.

In the end, I decided on yoursuccessfulsalon.com as it would give me the choice at a later date. It also offered the opportunity to write about other things other than marketing (the initial name restricted the topics).

Hosting Location Change

One thing I have been led to believe is that the location of your physical web server can help your geographically targeted listings in search engines. The US has a much larger market than the UK, so I decided to move the website to some US hosting.

Summary of Changes

So, in July, I changed the name of the website and moved it to new hosting. I set all redirects up from the old site to the new, to make sure I still benefited from any existing profile the website had.

Initial Results

During August, the website took a small drop in overall traffic (see below). I expected this. In fact I expected it to last around three-four months. But, within three months, the traffic continues to increase.

In terms of where that traffic is coming from, I am keen to grow my international market, initially the United States. Although I do not Americanise the content, it seems to be making progress from this initial burst. 

Summary

When people ask me about SEO, technical considerations are often scoffed at – after all, it’s an additional expense that doesn’t make much visible sense. But, with the freedom of a personal project, a demonstration of effectiveness can be made.

I have worked on a number of website with an element of localisation that have capitalised on physical location for hosting and feeder websites to specific audiences.

The web is a very big place and getting your piece of it is getting harder and harder. But, if you slice the cake up and focus your efforts, what seems like a lot of hard work can create a profitable marketing channel.

I love doing local SEO in Basingstoke. Mainly because I know what to do (I’ve done it a lot) so it is quick and cost-effective for the client – and profitable for me.

That said, more often than not, I take complete control in terms of website platform and content delivery transferring the sales proposition into a flexible platform:

• New website created using WordPress
• Load off-the-shelf theme (design applied if the client has the budget to develop their brand online)
• Keyword research for their specific offering, local opportunities and any specific vertical markets that are relevant
• Basic content creation (put meat on the bones from client discussions)
• Ensure local profile is enhanced with relevant Google Places optimisation and directories
• Over time – add content and links if relevant

When you have the flexibility of a website CMS system like WordPress, you can really enhance the local SEO on the website, the result of which is increased profile (often very quickly) and the seeds are sown for a sustainable website that will bring in sales enquiries.

But, I currently have an interesting challenge with a small builders in Basingstoke who have a website created using GoDaddy.

The platform is somewhat restricted and we only have five pages to play with but I love a good challenge.

I will report back in a month to see how this local SEO project runs, as it’s just as interesting for me, as it is exciting for the company in question.

The most important element of the phrase “social media” is the word social – A point that  seems lost on most marketers, who just focus on the word “media” and see a way of reaching people at low cost.

They pay agencies to create a fancy Facebook Page and Twitter profile then proceed to spout meaningless drivel one-way that doesn’t engage anyone.

(Some marketers seem to forget how they use social media platforms as a person when it comes to marketing).

Look At My Fur Coat!

These self-same marketing gurus then begin to measure things that are for their own personal vanity (or job security).

We’re up to 100 Likes now on our Facebook Page Mr Sales Director!

Of course, any employee with an ounce of commercial awareness would challenge the purpose of social media as a marketing strategy for their business.

B-oring!

First and foremost, most businesses are boring. They’re not sexy consumer brands; they are functional – reactive to a need… And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But, some idiot walks into the office delcaring that “everyone is into social media” and “our competitors are doing this so we need too” and so they embark on an episode of the blind leading the blind.

It’s like watching your embarrassing Uncle dancing at a wedding, winking at you saying, “Look at Me… Still got it!”.

Please Be My Friend

After the first few weeks of friends and family ‘liking’ or ‘following’ your social media profiles, what next? Maybe, you start coming up with “great ideas” to get more? I stumbled across this message on a local LinkedIn group recently…

Using my sarcastic powers of reading between the lines, what it actually says is…

I’m not creative enough to engage people and my profile is boring. But, if you please, pretty please, like my sad and sorry profile, I’ll like yours back. There won’t be any value whatsoever in doing it except that we’ll both end up with a pretend friend each that we can brag about, but I am too lazy to put in the effort of how to engage the people behind the profiles after I ran my initial AMAZING idea of having a competition when I reach X number of followers/likers.

*People* Are Social

Social media is about people. It’s not about brands or marketing. Engaging stories and actions are required that make people stop and check you out, which is easier said than done.

They Like To Gossip and Impress

I’m no psychologist but I’ve noticed that people like to get attention. It’s no longer about Stiff Upper Lips and Keeping Calm and Carrying On… We have the need to keep talking about it to impress or get some attention.

Motivations behind why people do this are vast and varied but the more you understand about the people you have the potential to engage with, the more likelihood you will achieve it.

I love what my friend Michelle has done on Facebook making Bags for people and making the business all about being social. Would it work for a lawyers? No! Would it work for a digital marketing company? No!

You need to discover what you have – or what distinguishes you in the way you deliver it – to engage your audience.

Are You Even Social?

If you do not want to engage, if you have nothing of value to add to the conversation, or if you have to ‘find time to do it’, simply sit back and watch. Your business DOES NOT NEED SOCIAL MEDIA whatever anyone says. Sometimes doing nothing is a good thing.

If, however, you seriously want to engage people on social media platforms you need to make sure you stick to the basics and go in with the agenda of ONLY creating a persona (personal or branded) that is worth connecting to… One that offers value for the other person.

Open Networks

The final point that I’d make is this. You can’t push people to do something they don’t want to and the web was designed to allow people to connect to the millions (now billions) of websites and web pages out there without getting closed in.

Be magnanimous with what you say. Share other peoples links as well as your own that offer genuine value to your connections.

Make yourself central to a topic by increasing your relevance and usefulness as a ‘place’ online. Other people will realise that because they are interested in ‘X’ and you offer good insight into ‘X’, your profile is worth following as it has lots of useful information.

The web is a very, very, very big place. The more vague you are, the less attention you’ll get.

Personally, I think that for most businesses, social media is like The Emperors New Clothes…. Time Will Tell.

A Brief Evolution Of Web Marketing

First, we had “It’s your shop window to the world”… So we all started creating websites.

Then it was all about “Content is king”… So we all started Blogging and adding White Papers, creating big clunky websites along the way.

But, now the key to a good website is to make sure your content is potent, and that means following the mantra of Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Too Much Content

Social media and cheap entry into website creation has given us a massive problem – too much content on the web. Meanwhile, in marketing departments, execs are scratching their heads about how to get noticed online.

SEO still has value, as does a good social presence, but if you don’t manage your online presence, your juicy content might get lost in the mess… Even worse, it may get ignored.

Website Unplugged

What we need to be doing is hiding or deleting some of our content. That article or service page that we thought would be huge, when all it really does is dilute the good pages on our website.

It’s Time To Strip It Back.

If you go to Google and type site:www.yourwebsitedomain.co.uk (eg. site:www.click71.com) you will see the pages that Google has indexed for your site. What you will sometimes notice is that pages you don’t expect to come high in that list do, and those pages you thought would work really hard are way down the list.

The key, is to hide or delete the pages that get in the way.

Hiding Pages That Are Not Needed

In WordPress, I use a plug-in called Platinum SEO for adding meta data to my posts and pages. I also use it to noindex pages and sections which I think may dilute the rest of my website.

By doing this I can specify which pages are their for search engine potency, and which are just their to add to the user experience (ie. they are there for when a user is moving through my website to get them to the next step of the user journey).

So What To Delete?

It’s worth going through your website content to understand what’s not performing. In your Analytics program you can identify how your pages work. Eg.

• How many views does each page get? If you page doesn’t get looked at, does it add any value to the quality of your website whatsoever?
• How many Entrances does each page attract? When someone searches in a search engine, your individual pages have the power to attract traffic by themselves. Although some pages will attract more that others, if a page on your website is not working hard, it may be dragging down the quality of your website.
• What is the bounce rate of the page? If a page gets visitors and then they leave your website, you can either assume that someone has got what they need from that page, or it’s simply not engaging anyone. If that pages gets lots of traffic, it needs to be adapted, if it doesn’t, it’s getting in the way.

By being brutally honest, you can begin to manage your content, managing which pages are relevant for search engines and which are not – then decide if you want to delete the page or just noindex it.

Choice Is Not Necessarily A Good Thing

When people have less choice, it’s easier for them to remain focused, and that includes a visitor to your website. A good web pages is focused in two parts:

1. Relevant & Engaging - The content is relevant so as to draw in visitors from search through high rankings (ie. Search Engine knows how to index it). This applies to natural rankings as well as paid search.
   The words and sales messages then keep that person on the page, rather than a disinterested visitor heading straight back to a search engine through lack of relevance. Your bounce rates should give you a good indication if that is the case.
2. Driving Action- If the aim of your website is to get people to call you, then you need to focus on that. Your content and call-to-actions should be designed to make that happen.

Time To Reorganise Your Shop Window?

Reviewing and re-purposing stock is an essential part of retail – responding to the changing needs and wants of customers. Your website is the same – managing what you have versus what you need is essential as search engines (and users) develop their processes.

If you aren’t getting the results you want, a website audit is a good place to start so you can begin to understand what your website, and its contents, are actually achieving.

Then, we may be able to refine the often quoted Field Of Dreams statement “If You Build It, They Will Come” , to a more realistic “If you manage it, the right person will find it”.

What can happen if you don’t have strong foundations

I met a company a couple of months ago to talk about working with them. They were already signed up with a large UK SEO agency who were advising them, but after April and a subtle little Google update called Penguin, their website tanked, so they were after answers.

Listening to the advice they were working from, then, looking at the SEO company’s website and seeing some of their services, I have to say I was somewhat gobsmacked that a large SEO company in the UK was selling some services which had caused the problems in the first place.

Yes, some of the services they had implemented around buying links were exactly the same things that had been affected by the Google Penguin update.

Same Dog, Different Fleas

I heard last week that the advice the large SEO company gave to dig them out of their hole was to duplicate the website onto a new domain (I can understand that if the existing website had poor authority – which it didn’t), then (and this is the bit that leaves me flabbergasted), create permanent 301 redirects from the old site to the new one!

All they have created is a conduit for the bad links.

The Way Forward

If your website used to be successful, it’s worth persevering. Start thinking about your website as something that needs managing… the current SEO industry buzzword “website curation” sums this up nicely. (I will be creating articles for each of the below, but here is an overview).

Merge Or Perge

Which pages on our website to you really need? Check your Analytics to determine the power of each of your pages, whether they attract traffic, and if they keep it or lose it.

Removing Bad Links

Use a tool like Majestic SEO to see your back-links. If they look like bad links, they probably are harming your website. Try to get them removed. Although this is a long and laborious task it may help bring back some authority to your website. Alternatively, it might actually be easier starting a new website from scratch.

Concentrate On Quality

Re-read your web pages. Are they any good? Do they inspire and engage? Are your Blog articles worth sharing socially?

Stop Thinking About Search Engines

The latest Google algorithm updates are hurting a lot of businesses (especially small businesses). Arguably, by making it harder and harder to rank a website (unless local) Google are driving people to use their advertising model – perhaps that’s the plan.

But in doing so they are also alienating themselves as a viable search engine. In the UK, especially, Google still dominate, but as it becomes harder for people to find things, I think the man and women on the street are having to become better at search, which will start to drive them to search engines where they get better results.

If you manage a website, the answer is to ignore SEO to some respect and concentrate on the basics – the best content you can create, delivered in an engaging way on a strong technical platform.

If your website is hurting, I would also suggest engaging with an SEO Professional. Having seen the example above though, I’d tread carefully.

I apologise for the dramatic title, I was having one of those moments.

I’m fed up with hearing about companies offering number one spots or front page listings in Google and can only assume they are only interested in fleecing clients without giving a damn about the results.

SEO is a moving target, as is the method (and usefulness) of getting your website on the front page of Google. It’s not 2005 anymore! The way people interact with the web, using a range of Apps and devices, has changed things.

And, there is no single Google front page anymore…

• People use multiple devices, some of which are mobile and use geographically targeting which Google can deliver.
• Social interaction plays a part – as much as it can in B2B but especially in B2C. What other people say about you affects your rankings (and how many companies are worth talking about?)
• Your Google is different to my Google which is different to their Google – we all have a very personalised experience.
• On a computer screen Google is grabbing more and more screen space for advertising meaning that the natural listings have less impact.
• Last but not least (but possibly most ground shifting) is Google itself, changing the rules of ranking. 2011 and 2012 has seen some massive, impact-ful changes for many companies, and not for good reasons.

Yes, we have Bing and we have Yahoo but are they even worth it? I rank highly in these search engines across various sites and rarely get a sniff. In fact, I see more from search on sites like BBC, Sky and BT.

Life After Google

More and more it’s about a complete digital marketing approach, not just a Google focused search optimisation programme. I recently read an interview on EConsultancy the other day about the future of SEO and the Technical Director of 3 Door Digital mentioned…

Notice we don’t call ourselves an SEO agency (we used to), we are a Digital Marketing Agency offering more than just search engine optimisation.

I don’t know this company and assume they are bigger than Click 71 (what with it being just me) but their ethos looks very similar – results driven digital marketing.

You Still Need SEO

Optimising your website for search engines is a given these days, it’s no longer anything special. Keyword research and specific content delivered through a technically sound website with the addition of interesting and relevant content / tools over time creates awareness and online profile.

I still think my SEO book from 2008 is relevant four years later when it comes to the basics of search engine optimisation.

But, with all the content in the world, there is one vital thing to remember…

Your Business Is Boring

There is a very high probability that what you do, especially if you sell to other businesses, is actually quite boring.

Above and beyond building a website that talks about what your boring business does, is there much point in wondering how to get to “number one in Google” by telling people what you do if it doesn’t engage people?

Does your audience even care?

There are ways to make your boring business more interesting by adding content but it needs to be something that matters to people who may well spend money with you. Contextualised case studies is a good example. The added benefit being that you have sales and marketing material to leverage in other ways using a cohesive digital marketing mix.

The Digital Marketing Mix

Business content on the web is often pretty lame with more “bespoke commercial solutions” than you can throw a Google search at.

But, by taking your boring services pages and making them specific, and by adding in some relevant news content – along with some relevant white papers and case studies that mean something to your customer-base – you can create authority online and build assets you can leverage. Examples…

• Email Marketing – Point people to content additions on your websites, registering what is the content that people are interested in and developing lead nurturing campaigns.
• Social Media – Focus your time and effort into the social spaces where your customers are. Social media works best when it is people – do your sales team get stuck in? Even better, do your support team? They will garner more trust than a corporate social media profile. Share your content in the right social spaces and make sure your website allows people to easily share it to their social networks.
• Advertising – Advertising online can be incredibly focused. Why not make the most of that and work to generate multiple sales pipelines (using your quality web content) with fast / slow burn campaigns and specific purposes for lead generation and customer retention.

Tools Need A Purpose

The digital marketing toolbox you have available to you is abundant and the costs are low. But, like any tools…

• Can you use them well to craft something worthwhile?
• Do you even know what you are trying to build?

Digital marketing needs strategy, based on a realistic approach of what is achievable, otherwise you are sailing somewhat rudderless. You can’t necessarily force specific results, but you can see if you are heading in the right direction.

The problem is, there are a million and one rudderless digital marketing campaigns being delivered by people who can’t sail a marketing rowing boat, let alone a ship. Which brings me to my last point.

What’s So Special About You?

You don’t need to come up with the next big digital viral campaign that gets people across the world talking about your brand – you just need to be better than your competitors – whether that’s sector driven or location driven.

If you focus your digital marketing strategy towards your specific market you will get better traction and also build a platform which can grow outwards. That doesn’t necessarily work the other way.

But, you need to offer something that people (your customers) notice; something that makes you different and stand out from the crowd.

The good news is that it’s not as hard as you’d think; partly because not many people put the effort into understanding their online brand proposition and how to engage their customers in the way that they want.

Summary

My digital marketing speciality is working with smaller service businesses (£0 – £10 million), I don’t pretend otherwise, and my experience is geared in that direction.

It amazes me how many agencies (of all sizes) do not get how the pieces go together, or even how to see the finished picture when it comes to marketing online.

My advice for small businesses looking for a digital agency I would suggest:

• Ignore anyone who talks just about search engines, no matter how convincing they sound – they are building your marketing strategy on shifting sands.
• Avoid anyone who suggests social media is ‘where it’s at’ as well. Social media is just one part of the mix.
• Understand what your dream scenario would be in terms of measurable results (KPIs). They may not be realistic and expect your digital marketing agency to challenge them in an authoritative manner.
• All the information (and tools) to market your business online is freely available. But, it doesn’t make you an expert. It also doesn’t mean the companies offering these services are either.

Have a budget, have a set of goals, and set some expectations. Don’t get anyone to tie you in to an annual contract, that’s a life time online. A good digital marketing agency needs time to deliver but they should also offer a pathway of achievable goals with time-related goalposts in place.

Challenge them!

As much as people like to think that business decisions are based on solid financial and practical decisions, in my experience I have seen far too many subjective thought processes drive a final purchase decision.

Consumer brands (and some b2b brands) advertise and market themselves because brand recognition works.

How many times have you caught yourself signing the tune from an advert? Even if it is incredibly annoying like Go Compare? I even found myself remembering the words to a very old Kinder Egg advert from my childhood recently!

My Point

Consumer brand, marketing and sales tactics have a place in the business world.

If you are going to tap into the emotional responses of your clients, you need to engage them and make your brand memorable for all the right emotional reasons. A key part of this is to make sure your customer goes away feeling clever and justified with their purchase.

Reasoning

The emotional sale of a business purchase is usually justification for the person making the buying decision.

I still remember an old client of mine from a few years ago. It was quite clear during conversations that they weren’t really sure what they were doing when it came to marketing. Ultimately, we were there to make them look good internally. Take that justification a step further and it makes their boss know they made the right hiring decision.

What’s Do Your Clients Get From You?

If you can understand why a person within an organisation needs your B2B service or product and what it means to them and their role within the business, you can start to create multiple marketing messages that solve their problems. This is especially important now more than ever with increased pressure on people wanting to keep their jobs.

Really Craig, Emotional Decisions?

I have recently been reading a lot of books about the banking crisis from 2007/8. What struck me was that banking and financial experts branded any detractors of ongoing growth as deluded. The louder they shouted, the madder they were – even with any proof they had.

And look at the mess we ended up with! Some companies were still buying toxic products even as the truth was emerging. These are [so called] experts making rational decisions? I think not.

Everybody Has a Problem

Whether we would admit it or not, every business has a problem or two to contend with. And, even more importantly, the people working in the organisation each have their own problems within their company and pressures to face.

Tap into the emotional issues (however repressed they may seem) and you hit a rich vein of opportunity.