I was reading Bill Bryson’s book Made in America the other day and stumbled upon something interesting. One of the chapters was about the development of advertising and showed a page full of tiny ads. For example:

I will make you a Human Gorilla
At home - In 5 days - No exercises

Emotional copy about being a small weakling that gets beaten up on the beach…yada yada yada…

Send now for amazing free book!

And this of course is followed by a form for your name and address to receive your free book. Does this format sound slightly familiar to anyone? Does it remind anyone of a free ebook offer you might find on a website? Put your name and email address here to receive xyz, called a squeeze page.

Why would this make you a slow Internet Marketer? Because the ad I’m quoting was written around 1920-30…and it wasn’t unique. So basically, we’re now using techniques on the Internet that were being used 80+ years ago in print advertising.

Now I’m not saying squeeze pages don’t work, I use them myself, but it got me thinking about where Internet Marketing is going in the future. The email opt-in is almost dead now, with the constant flood of email we receive, so where do we go next?

It just proves that Internet Marketing is really taking its baby steps now and as both technology and user behavior develops in this new age, the possibilities are amazing. I think it’s time to stop mucking around with your small business website and start getting serious before another opportunity goes flying by.

If your small business sells tiddlywinks, it may be easy to assume everyone in the world knows a lot about tiddlywinks as well.

This may come to a shock to you…but they don’t!

It’s easy when we live and breathe an industry that we just assume the consumers know what we know. The brand of tiddlywinks all the professionals use and the different air resistance factors that can affect a match.

But people don’t. So you need to teach them. And if you take a pre-emptive strike and answer all their questions before they’re asked…well you might just be on your way to building a relationship.

Why

In the physical world it’s easier to explain to a client why they should choose this product over that product. And if the client trusts you they will usually take your recommendation. If you say that X brand of tiddlywinks (really I just like using the word) is going to splinter and give you nasty thumb injuries, they’ll believe you.

The same needs to apply with your website. You need to educate your visitors so they can make an informed decision with your products. They need to walk away from the experience feeling they got the absolute best result for their time and money.

And if your products aren’t suitable for them, let them know! Nothing will impress a potential client more and gain more loyalty than pointing them in the direction of a different solution that will give a better result. Because the next time they need something from your industry…who do you think they’ll come to?

How

Write guides on how to select the best product for their needs. Teach them everything they need to know about the products they’re looking at. Those that want the information can go over it in great detail, while the rest can just get what they need and make the purchase.

Have solution assessment flowcharts, have product demonstration videos. Collect questions and make the responses into a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

Homework

Choose a problem your visitors face and write a guide to help them find the best solution.

Everyone loves to watch hilarious videos of people hurting themselves on YouTube. Now you don’t have to get accepted by your local “Funniest Home Videos” show to become famous. Just get hurt while someone’s filming and post the video yourself…because everyone will have their 15 minutes.

But if you sell bandages and medical supplies…those videos could even be good content for your small business.

Because content isn’t just for padding out your website, it’s for everything!

Why

Content on your website is important, but so is content that drives traffic to your website. Content can be used to sell your products and also to keep previous clients happy.

So when you think about content, broaden your mind to include all the possibilities. Since most of us are now immune to advertising and ‘push’ marketing techniques, we need to learn how to use ‘pull’ marketing by providing great content.

It can draw visitors in like bees to honey (I decided not to use the strangers and candy analogy…).

How

Articles that don’t go on your own website are an obvious one. We’ve already talked about videos that go on video sharing sites. Guides that help visitors and could be spread around their friends.

Have a look at the content you’re already creating and think about how you could use it to draw visitors to your website as well.

Homework

Explore a content sharing site like HubPages.com or YouTube.com to see how other people are using these tools in their marketing efforts.

 

 The future of marketing: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

What is the future of marketing? I’ve posted before about my beliefs that internet advertising is dead and marketing as we know it will soon be going the same way.

The problem is what people think of when they think of marketing. Marketing is usually linked directly to advertising, to newspaper, tv, or radio ads, and these methods are definitely in trouble. The concept of marketing as pushing product information at your customer is dead. With the internet, the entire paradigm is shifting, and many businesses will be left behind.

If you look at marketing courses in university, or the huge majority of marketing books out there, you’ll see all the traditional forms of marketing and how to put them into practice. The problem is, they don’t work anymore!

These days, advertising is everywhere, and every corner we turn, someone is trying to sell us something. We’re being marketed to constantly and have taught ourselves just to switch off.

As business owners, what do we do about this? Marketing is one of the key aspects of a successful business and if the traditional methods aren’t working, aren’t we all in a lot of trouble?

No. People like us aren’t in trouble, we’re in a position to benefit the most from these changes! The people that aren’t prepared to change, to seek out new ideas, to constantly improve…they are the ones in trouble.

So get excited, we’re going to start talking about the new form of marketing, that has been named ‘Social Marketing’ by the experts. I have faith that you’re probably doing some of this marketing already. You just may not be aware of it, or just not taking full advantage of it yet.

It’s time to start creating the future of marketing ourselves, and take our businesses to the next level.

Internet advertising doesn’t work! Bold statement, I know, but I’m willing to back it up.

First, let’s get clear about what I mean when I say ‘Internet advertising’. I’m talking about those annoying banner ad type things that destroy too many good sites. I’m not talking about Pay per Click as served by Google. That’s a whole different article for the future.

Now we’re clear, I’m basically talking Internet advertising in the form of banner ads. They can be static, they can be dynamic, and they can pop-up when you visit a site, but they can’t give you a good return on investment. I think of these as being Internet advertising because they follow the same rules as offline advertising. You put something in front of a potential customer and hope they respond to it.

The problem with this form of advertising is there’s simply too much of it. How much do you actually pay attention to this old fashioned form of advertising now? Sometimes a TV ad will catch your eye but does that mean you know what the product is or you will actually buy it. Cast your mind back to earlier this year with the Bruce Lee “be like water my friend” ad. What was it selling? From my quick investigation about 10% of people get it right, despite everyone knowing the ad.

So take this phenomenon of ignored advertising and apply it to the Internet. You’ll find even more people ignore your Internet advertising campaign over other channels. The Internet is user driven, and users never wanted to sit through endless advertising. Hence, when they have control, they simply ignore it all together.

The way you pay for these ads is by how many times they are served on pages i.e. how many users they are displayed in front of. So if your ad is shown to 1000 people, and everyone ignores it, how many sales do you get?

The solution, stop paying for this type of Internet advertising! Invest your hard earned money in new generation marketing and advertising techniques. Pay per Click (PPC) advertising is currently the trend on the Internet and I’ll be talking about that more in the future. But don’t dismiss the other, more time consuming techniques, such as Search Engine Optimization and Viral Marketing campaigns. If done correctly, these can pay off big for some initial investment and continue to pay off long after you opened your wallet.

So remember, Internet advertising is dead! So look for other methods of driving traffic to your website. And don’t forget to do something with it when it’s there!

And by the way, the Bruce Lee commercial was for BMW…in case you were wondering.

 

 Unique Advertising Ideas: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Last night, I was thumbing through a newspaper and looking at the ads. Something I hardly ever do since I think most of us are now trained to ignore these advertising messages. I was looking at a page and realising how similar all their ads were. Where are all the unique advertising ideas?

We have the same problem online, the same websites selling the same products the same way. How dull!

What is the purpose of your advertising? To get a potential customers attention. To make them notice you. Then you start them on the sales process with your compelling offer. You don’t get noticed by being the same as every other business.

I saw one unique ad in the newspaper, a restaurant that put it’s advertisement upside down. Now that gets your attention and curiosity. I’ve actually noticed their ad before and remember it because it was printed upside down. Maybe with a few more impressions I’ll actually work out what the restaurant’s name is and go there. In their case, they got my attention but didn’t have a compelling offer, even though I think they’re an Indian restaurant and I love Indian food!

So first, use an unique advertising idea to get your potential customers attention, then give them an offer they can’t refuse!

I recently started working with a client in a very competitive industry. As I started to examine the competition, I realised something amazing: all the competitors were the same! Every single one of their websites had exactly the same links, the same boring information, and they were promoting on the same competitive advantage.

If your business markets itself like everyone else, how does it plan to get business? The answer seems to be luck. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t sleep very well at night if my entire business’ future rested on luck to attract customers.

The world is changing, business is changing, and you need to be changing too. Gone are the days when you can just throw out some marketing and hope it sticks. And soon doing the same marketing as your competitors will sink you as well.

It’s time to make a plan, it’s time to make your marketing different, it’s time to make your website stand out!

I’m talking about banner ads here. Anything that is simply serving your ad in front of visitors and charging you for it isn’t worth your marketing dollar. No-one pays attention to TV advertising anymore, even fewer people pay attention to web advertising now.

What’s the answer? Pay per Click, Search Engine Optimisation, Viral Marketing, and out of the box thinking.

Welcome to the new world of marketing, it’s hard, but the payoff is worth it!

[This has been expanded into a full article on Internet Advertising.]