Web Marketing

Web Marketing Made Easy

November 3, 2013 by Mark Stamas

I’m going to let you in on a not so secret secret.

Please Don’t Tell Anyone

Marketing is communication. Communication is easy. Marketing is easy.

Communication is easy? Yes. Although communication can be a challenge, especially if your audience isn’t listening, if you say what you mean, and mean what you say, communication actually is very easy. (Those are two different things according to the Mad Hatter! ‘Why you might just as soon say you see what you eat as you eat what you see!’ Food for thought, that.)

Now, what you communicate is next. This is the not so secret secret . Communicating three simple things well, will make your web marketing easy. You need to effectively communicate:

What You Offer
Why Your Prospect Wants Your Offer
How Your Prospect Gets Your Offer

How you do that is where all the tools at your disposal come into play, from web sites, to business cards, from print media to social media. And there are very specific ways to make this all easy.

You Just Got Your Marketing Degree

Easy. Right? Yes indeed. But here’s the funny part. Most of us fail miserably. We either omit this altogether, or fail to keep these things in mind while writing copy or creating other media. These three basic elements of marketing are often overlooked and not shared.

Simply state what they get, why they want it, and then how to get it. Make it easy. What do we bring to the party? Why would anyone want to party with us? How to party, what’s next? This is the essence of marketing. (The party metaphor is a recurring favorite of mine. Party! Have fun!)

But Wait, There’s More

Of course there must be more to marketing than that. Well, no, not really. But John Carlton describes the final challenge well, triggering the take action impetus in the last “how” step. He says something to the effect that “we then have to get them up off the couch to buy”. The couch is of course symbolic. and not everyone is on the couch, everyone is different. But the concept is sound. How do we move folks to move? How do we convince them it’s OK to take action? That they can give themselves permission to act and try your offering?

That’s the part of the “how” step, the call to action, that takes that little extra connection. Carlton also points out what we’ve all observed time and again, from elections to selections, that humans constantly act against their own best interests. From what I can see, this is usually either due to laziness (the couch metaphor) or fear. Fear of taking risks.

And so it goes in marketing, even when you have an absolute perfect fit. Folks are lazy, or afraid, and just want to kick back and not take risks in general. Buy that perfect solution to my problem? I’ll think about it. So you have to overcome those barriers to risk-taking and get your prospects excited about you. You have to connect. You have to build their trust. You have to remove risk.

Get Them Off The Couch!

So what motivates that last step? Causes pulling the pin on that purchase that will solve that problem? Helping them fill that need and desire? Excitement!! (Ah the pesky exclamation point. Don’t overdo lest you appear phony.) Believing. Don’t go for the fake scarcity rap, “act now or forever hold your peace!”. We all know it’s bogus. And many times, very off-putting. Be genuine. Tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Be yourself.

I Just Believe In Me, You And Me

Enthusiasm. Joy. Lust for life. Yours and theirs. Enthusiastically and genuinely share your enthusiasm about your offering and they’ll get enthusiastic and want a piece of the action, your action. This isn’t manipulation. This is sharing. This is helping. This is connecting. Making that connection with another human being with a need for your help. If you believe, they will believe. This is the differentiation of your offer. You truly believe in your offering. You truly care about your customer or client. You truly want to help them. And they can feel you.

Having Fun Yet?

So this is the most fun of the “how” part, motivating your customers, existing and future, to get up off the couch and take the next step in experiencing the value of your product. Falling in love with your customers, and your customers falling in love with you. Getting them off the couch is easy by having fun, generating excitement, and sharing your absolute enthusiasm for your product or service. Show your prospects how much you love your offer, you love them, and you want to help them, and they’ll love you and your product too. Fun and excitement is infectious.

So Make It Easy

If you do these three things really, really, ridiculously well (damn you Zoolander!), communicating with the right people, marketing is easy. Web marketing is easy.

Marketing is fun. The whole stigma of marketing comes from a long history of con jobs. But marketing isn’t a con. Au contraire. Knowing your audience, finding that audience, keeping customers, reaching out to new customers, bringing back customers, making irresistible offers, all comes down to human beings communicating. And having fun doing it.

As easy as one, two, three. No joke. HAVE FUN! (Thanks Max. I miss you.)

Fresno Web Design

April 23, 2010 by Mark Stamas

Fresno, Clovis, Bass Lake, Yosemite, Oakhurst

Is your web site converting visitors to sales?

How do you know? If not, what is that costing you in economic opportunity losses?

Do you need a web site? Ready to market on the internet? Want your site to work from day one?

What is a web site that works?

This is the often overlooked question that leaves myriad, in fact the vast majority, of web sites essentially useless. Maybe that is the intent for 99% of the sites out there, but not yours.

So what is a web site that works?

The answer you already know: a web site that works is a web site that increases your sales and profits.

So you know what you want, and need help on how to get there.

This is where Off Media can help you reach that goal, the “how” of designing web sites and other online marketing media that convert to sales is our expertise.

Converting visitors to customers requires web content that reaches the right prospects and speaks to their needs. When your prospects find you have the answer they seek, along with the confidence to choose you out of your competitors, your web site will convert to sales.

Reaching the right visitors is critical.

For the most part there isn’t any “traffic” that just happens by and happens to convert. This is one of the first mistakes made, assuming that a web site in and of itself will increase your visibility and profits.

Google Isn’t Your Customer, Your Customer Is Your Customer

January 20, 2009 by Mark Stamas

At least there is a high probability they aren’t. If they are, well then disregard the specificity and pay attention only to the concepts.

Traffic Quality versus Quantity – Qualitative versus quantitative thinking
Content
Conversion

Here’s the point, people buy, not some statistical number known as traffic, not high rankings, not Google. That isn’t to downplay “traffic”, or as they said back in the day “hits” (you aren’t talking about “hits” any more are you?), but traffic alone isn’t going to drive sales. You need quality traffic. Your product is bought by real living people who want your product.

1000 visits with no sales or 10 visits with one sale.

There is a conventional wisdom out there in online marketing that places great emphasis on web traffic. The concept or belief is that copious traffic will mean copious sales. Not necessarily true.

Being on page one is only relevant if you are on page one for the searches made by the people you want to reach.
You have copy that gets into their heads and answers their need and solves their problem.
You tell them EXACTLY what to do next.

So what’s the gist? Google doesn’t buy from you. (See above if they do.)

The meaning here in the internet marketing realm is that qualified targeted prospective buyers, people, are more important than statistics, or being on page one of Google’s rankings if your site sucks.

Search engine optimization has swept the internet marketing realm with thousands, so it seems, of SEO “experts” (many times with really bad English) hawking their “guaranteed” rankings and so on. The reality is far different.

The reality is that all the traffic in the world is worthless if that traffic doesn’t buy, doesn’t increase your profits.

Rarely, if ever, will you find an SEO expert offering to increase your sales, they simply offer to increase your traffic. This is actually quite easy to do. What isn’t so easy is to make your site sell. Well, actually, it is, but that is the most overlooked part of internet marketing, copy that converts.

So being on page one for the wrong keyphrase, or an almost never searched keyphrase is pointless, but more pointless still is having a web site that does not communicate well and simply fails to close the sale.

Targeted traffic + top quality copy = increased profits.

Traffic used be called “hits” and then eventually as the web became more humanized we started realizing that actual humans visiting was the important metric and we now track “absolute visits” or people. This hasn’t alleviated the fixation on traffic, but clarified what traffic is. Good.

So dominating Google rankings for your “keywords” is great, if and only if, the people looking for the information, products or services you offer are searching those keywords. That’s step one.

Step two is that these people then actually convert to customers in whatever form that takes, making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, whatever.

Knowing your keywords is logically the first step that is all too often botched or not targeted enough. In other words, you can rank for the wrong keywords, get tons of traffic, and your bottom line sees no change at all. Be sure to target the right keywords.

Remembering that driving sales is the goal, not just driving traffic, will keep your eye on the prize and not divert you into a meaningless numbers game.

Why The Web?

April 13, 2008 by Mark Stamas

This is one of my favorite topics simply because this question has stumped many a web developer and marketer. “Because it’s cool” doesn’t begin to justify putting hard earned marketing dollars into what many used to feel is a dubious proposition. Why not? is a valid answer, especially today, but doesn’t really answer the question does it?

The web has changed the power of communication so much that “why the web?” has largely been answered by the fact that a web site can be a central hub for ALL of your business, ease communications, keep customers updated, provide interaction and market your products all in one feel swoop 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Still, why the web?

All of the above benefits aside the real answer is sales. Sales. You want what a web site that works can do for you. Increased sales. Increased profits. You don’t want a web site, you want increased sales. You don’t want a web site, you want better customer relations. You don’t want a web site, you want to communicate your message clearly, all the time, open 24 hours a day. You don’t want a web site, you want your customers to know why they want your products and to contact YOU, not the other way around. You don’t want a web site, you want SUCCESS.

You get the point. Why the web? To create and build a successful thriving business at a much lower cost than dictated by “traditional” sales and marketing.

Until next time,

Mark Stamas

Your Web Site Must Be In Synch With Your Marketing Goals

December 31, 2007 by Mark Stamas

Well, maybe not literally so, but if you are serious about marketing, you are probably serious about business, which means you have a plan. This business plan, with its goals and objectives, includes a marketing plan, with its marketing goals and objectives, these are your web site road map.

If you want your site simply to be informational then this won’t apply to you necessarily. A web site can be a “gravestone” advertisement like you see in the back of magazines, like a book, static, unchanging, read it or not.

More importantly, your web site can be so much more, a critical component of your corporate or business objectives, your marketing goals, your marketing plan, and can help get you there. You want your web site content to communicate, to speak to your customers, to elicit a reaction, a reaction involving action, the call to action.

Once you’ve done your research, discovered who your prospects are, gotten them to your site, you put yourself in the mind of your prospects, and give them what they want, in specific steps, leading the way to the ultimate objective of the site, to meet your corporate goals yes, but in the short term, to provide your prospects with the information, service or product they desire, your products. Without this specific plan with specific prospects your web site will be fishing in the wrong pond, catching, if anything, the wrong fish.

Keep your web site project well connected to your overall business goals and the web will become the anchor of your business, providing the tools and conveniences your prospects, and you, want and need.

Web Marketing Made Easy Launches

December 12, 2007 by Mark Stamas

Off Media has “officially” been around since 2000.

Today the “Web Marketing Made Easy” blog launches, keeping the focus on the “web” “internet” “online” aspect of marketing more so that just marketing in general.

However, the intention here is to expostulate on all marketing as well, what it means, what it really is, how to do it effectively and easily.

What is Marketing? What, therefore, is easy marketing?

Answer: Marketing is reaching out to prospects., taking a product to the end user or consumer. Easy marketing: Doing this correctly without hassle.

You’ll get answers to all the questions imaginable about trade, commerce, marketing, everything marketing does, is and can be at Web Marketing Made Easy.

Thanks,