Dr. Drew's Secrets for Online Marketing

Many mentees and clients call me each day seeking methods to increase their marketing success. Eventually, fundamentals contribute to success, yet there are motives that one can take to address concerns in the vast enterprise of the Internet.

Search Engine Optimization - Search engines such as Google and Alta Vista contain numerous methods that discover websites. While there is much banter on the subject and typically much ado about technology, SEO as it is technically named is an organic method based on algorithms created in searches for people to find you on the Internet. Think of this as a technological Hide and Go Seek. The value of SEO is that clients find you easily and hastily. The needed tactics include using typical words and phrases congruent with your industry. If you sell lawn mowers, the technique would be to use the words lawn, green, fertilizer, etc. on your website so that clients can find you. The more often the word the more often it is indexed by a search engine.

Free - Prospects, clients, you and me all love free stuff. Review your web site and decide how you might offer something of value in exchange for an email address that can be used for a future marketing campaign. If you sell paint, yoga, Pilates, stamps, suggest for an email address that you provide "10 Tips for Proper Relaxation". The more you offer the more traffic you will derive.

Differentiation - Seth Godin in his book "Purple Cow" suggests the use of being remarkable, nothing in marketing is further from the truth. Your website requires difference from competition and difference from the industry. Provide audio, video, downloads, product sheets, "free smells" whatever is necessary to create a buzz. Exemplars of differentiation and buzz are Facebook and YouTube. Believe it or not the more variety the more they speak about you.

Expertise - Prospects and clients are coming to you for your expertise. Provide articles; tip sheets and industry reports when possible. A recent client provided industry reports on the up coming golf season for his industry and gain an additional million dollars in business! Clients will find you for the value that you provide.

Internet marketing is not different from traditional marketing. Internet marketing is simply quicker and more malleable. Nascent ideas today might be next week's buzz. Yet, Internet marketing requires daily nimbleness and flexibility. Marketing that is hurried, rote or without meaning is useless. Prospects need to find you and you must maintain current on the ideas that bring your business to the next level.