The internet works in very quick cycles. In 2008, the buzz phrase for internet marketing was "be everywhere online". At that time, Facebook only had 100 million users (compared to 1 billion today) and Twitter only has 1.3 million users (compared to 500 million today). Myspace was still the king of social networking.As part of the "be everywhere" idea was that you needed to somehow have your store name appear everywhere you could possibly put it so your customers would find you no matter where they were. From my own recollections I remember trying to help customers use the following "be everywhere" methods:
1. Google Maps
2. Google Places
3. Google AdWords
4. Facebook profiles
5. Twitter accounts
6. YouTube
7. Myspace
8. Press releases
9. Ezine Articles
10. Micro site spinning
11. Squidoo
12. HubPages
13. Video submissions to random sites
That list of 13 is all I could remember from all the methods attempted back then. This all seemed like a good idea and at the time they were the standard, but the items shown as 7 through 13 were nothing more than abusive tactics that took advantage of Google's search rankings. Over the last 5 years all those methods have become defunct because Google figured out how to stop the abuse.
In 2010, the buzz phrase for internet marketing changed to "be where your customers are." Everyone was struggling with the recession at the time and the amount of man hours it took to maintain the "be everywhere" process was simply not producing the return on investment. From a marketing point of view, it always makes sense to spend your marketing money where you will get a return.
The "be where your customers are" methods from 2010 included:
1. Google Maps
2. Google Local
3. Facebook Places
4. Google AdWords
5. Facebook Ads
6. Mobile Apps & Websites
7. YouTube
8. Twitter
9. Press releases
10. Ezine Articles
If you were involved with these 10 internet marketing methods in2010 you probably experienced better business success than your competition. But 2010 was still a financially tough year for everyone and marketing budgets were very low for most people to feed into these 10 methods.
Now we're at the beginning of 2013 and I'm reading a few bloggers now talk about "diversifying" your internet marketing methods. Sadly they didn't get specific and I found myself being frustrated by the thought of 2008 methods coming back to life again in a poorly planned cycle.
My feeling is that your marketing strategy should concentrate on methods where your clients will encounter you message in a reinforced way.
Many large brands attempt this in city/urban locales by unleashing waves of identical ads on billboards, bus stops, on the sides of busses, inside trains, sidewalk signage, TV commercials, radio commercials, newspaper ads, magazine ads, email campaigns, AdWords, Facebook, and of course on their own websites. Large brands can afford to flood the marketing with their idea of "being everywhere" with the same visual marketing and phrasing.
I don't believe you should be diversifying your marketing if you cannot afford it, but you should have a unified plan for your local marketing. Assuming you still have newspaper, direct mail, or billboard advertising, you need to take those marketing visuals and headlines an include them in your online campaigns.
Here's my suggestion for a 2013 unified marketing campaign:
1. Offline marketing
2. Website landing pages
3. Email campaigns
4. Google AdWords Remarketing
5. Facebook sponsored posts
6. Google+ Page posts
7. Google +Local
8. Blogging using Google Authorship
9. Mobile Website
10. YouTube
11. Twitter
In tomorrow's Daily Nugget I will explain each of these 11 items in detail. I've listed them in the order you need to use them for each fully fleshed out marketing campaign that you would use throughout your 2013 marketing plan.
More details tomorrow...
