Marketing Has Changed, Just a Google-bit
By Morel Hudson | Hornet Marketing

A little word called Google™ has and continues to revolutionize the world of communications faster than any form of communication known to man. The capacity for 6 billion on the planet to access any topic that you can think of by simply typing into a computer is truly extraordinary. And it’s all happened in just a few years.

If you need any proof of this growth and marketing power just look at the profits Google™ achieves. How does 1 billion plus every 13 weeks sound? In simple math that’s over $450,000 profit every hour of every day of every week. Every 13 weeks! So what does that mean to you? It means that if you’ve not embraced the new online world to date then you’re going to miss out to smarter competitors moving forward, if not already.

From my daily experience I find many small to medium businesses (SME’s) simply don’t understand the processes, the technicalities, the suppliers, the uses, the strategies and tactics that the online world requires. And unfortunately many SME’s still rely on salespeople selling them alleged benefits without providing much real substance for their marketing and sales strategy implementation. And what’s worse is that SME’s often don’t do their homework simply because they don’t understand the new jargon and it’s all too hard. The big downside to this is loss of hard earned profits and poor growth of the business.

Before speaking further about this Google™ world I would like to make the point that traditional marketing absolutely has a place in the 21st century. The most important asset still is the customer. Your customer provides your most profitable sales and sales growth. Why? Because repeat purchase has zero sales cost. Word of Mouth sales has zero sales cost. Word of Mouth customers will provide more word of mouth, zero cost of sales growth.

In marketing the 4 ‘P’s still count. Product, Price, Position and Promotion are critical. However, there is now a ‘G’ that goes with the 4 ‘P’s. So now it’s 4 P’s and a G. G for Google™ the most powerful search engine in Australia with over 85% market share for all online searches.

Not maximizing the new Google™ Word fundamentally starts with not understanding where to go to get your various services so that you can execute the strategies and tactics that you should have formulated to incorporate the online marketplace. Websites, Landing Pages, Email campaigns, Pay per Click, Browser Page positioning, Natural Listings, Search Engines, Vertical Search Engines, Keywords, Google Campaigns, Meta Tags, Page descriptions, Hosting and so on. What does this all mean? Where do I start?

Ok you need a website. The biggest mistake you can make is to decide that you need a website and that you can get all of your online marketing solutions from your web builder. Then the second biggest mistake you can make is to find the cheapest price provider. Then thirdly you throw a lot of non information to the cheapest website builder you’ve found and then wonder why your website ends up being a nice looking waste of time and money. You should absolutely be incorporating an online presence into your marketing mix but then take it as seriously as you take your product quality.

Let me use an example to illustrate my point. Assume you have a legal problem and it’s imperative that you solve this problem quickly as the implications have serious consequences to your business and general livelihood. So what are your options? Do you ring your mates, colleagues and family and spend hours getting subjective, non professional advice? You’ve probably spent hours working through the problem with speculation and ‘your side’ advice to save yourself some bucks. Well smarter operators will have gone to a reputable solicitor immediately, provided a thorough briefing of the problem and taken the advice and direction of the appointed solicitor as the solution provider. Sure it’s cost you more money, but you’re getting a professional that knows how to fix your problem as quickly and as effectively as possible. Marketing requires the same approach. Your first step is to work out your marketing strategy. Then work out the tactics that you will employ to meet your marketing objectives. Now the real hard work begins with working out your communications strategy. Great, you’ve laid a platform to start the whole process. Now you just might be ready to start working on your website. So you’ve now got a brief and some intelligent input for your website builder.

Your website builder is not a marketing or sales expert. They are either an IT specialist with some design skills or working with a designer. Or they are a designer with trained software skills to build a website and will work with an IT specialist to make sure your website functions properly. They are not marketing managers, copywriters, search marketing experts or your sales manager. If you can provide your website builder with an intelligent communications brief you will go a long way to achieving a website that can be a marketing and sales tool and not a simple pretty, digital brochure. There is no point in your website being like camel in the middle of the desert that nobody knows about. It will survive but for what reason.

So in this simple and fundamental example of building a website you can see that a combination of very specific skill sets are required to execute this platform for your online marketing activity. From there comes the execution of online marketing strategies and tactics.

Get into the 21st century but understand that you need a marketing expert to partner with you in order for you to get your best return on investment and growth into your business. Your marketing expert is your first step in a successful process. Yep it’s going to cost you some extra bucks in the short term but done correctly your returns will be much higher.

Morel Hudson is a marketing and sales specialist, owns and runs Hornet Marketing, a marketing services firm servicing SME’s across Australia. Morel is degree qualified in marketing and economics, has run small to medium businesses across various industries including 5 years with Pizza Hut Australia back in the 80’s. Morel provides online and traditional sales and marketing expertise, services and solutions for SME’s and can be contacted on (02) 9929 4015.