Two years ago, I created the diagram that accompanies this post. I was preparing to meet with Joe Sorge to talk about how to leverage online activity to grow our respective businesses. On the surface, it might seem strange that a restaurateur and niche market software guy could have similar marketing strategies. The reality is that we do, along with almost every other successful online marketer I know.
The secret sauce of online marketing
It comes down to three things: connection points, engagement and story telling. Notice what is missing from that list: Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, blogs, SEO, Google, etc. Those are all just tools to implement a strategy based around connecting with folks, engaging with those folks and then telling your story slowly but surely over a long period of time. Almost every successful marketer does that in a similar way to what I drew two years ago. What gives me the right to say it’s a successful strategy is that the sales of my company have almost doubled in those two years.
Connection points
It begins by establishing where online the connection points are with your audience (potential customers). You may find your audience on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google+ or an industry specific forum. It could takes months of research and testing to find the channels that are most utilized by your target audience. It’s okay to reach out to your current customer list and ask them where they spend their time online. You can also grab a list of your top 50 customers and start Googling them. With a bit of hard work, they really won’t be that difficult to find.
Engagement
It’s not enough to just find your audience. You need to engage with them online. While engagement is a really cool 50 cent word, all it really means is to talk and listen. All those social networks mentioned above are nothing but communications mediums. They are the same as the hand-written letters, telephones and fax machines that came before them. Listen to what your customers are saying and respond with useful information to help them.
Storytelling
Your connection points and engagement should ultimately drive people to want to learn more about you. You can only share so much of yourself and your company on the social networks. Many of them are noisy and clogged with the marketing messages of others. (Marketing messages don’t belong there, but that’s another story.) Save the best bits of your story for your blogs. I’m a big fan of having a company blog for purely business stories and a personal blog for stories that reveal more about who you are.
The goal of your online marketing strategy
The thing Joe Sorge and I have in common is a desired outcome from the above activities. Joe wants folks to come sit down in his restaurants and eat a meal. Then he wants them to spread the word of how awesome his joints are. That’s the same thing we want. We want folks to land on ColorMetrix.com and inquire about or buy our products. Then when those products meet their needs we want them to rave about how awesome we are.
Take a look at the diagram again and it should make more sense with the context I have now provided. Now that I’m two years into this, can you see anything I’ve missed? It’s time to improve and refine the plan and I’d love to hear your thoughts.