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by Zsolt Kerekes,
editor - February 5, 2010 |
Users want to buy enterprise technology
stuff. Vendors, like you, want to sell it.
So why can't users just click
and find your products?
Pay
Google some money...
the web marketing's done.
Isn't it?
You know there's more to it than that.
...Long ago a product
marketer (or company founder) had to:-
- anticipate what users might want today...
- get funding and resources to develop the new product,
- educate users to understand they will need it (before they know it
themselves),
- create brand awareness to differentiate the new offer from competitors,
- set up manufacturing and distribution channels,
- create a compatible infrastructure / ecosphere of complementary partners
for the parts and services your company doesn't do best (or doesn't want to get
involved with).
While this was going on - 20, 50 or 500 other wannabe
competitors were busy doing exactly the same thing
The result is that
users have to wade through a confusing mish mash of billions of marketing
messages to understand what you're saying (everyone says the same thing
differently) to learn what you do (you didn't know it yourself not long ago)
and to understand what they need (your competitors are telling them a completely
different story).
Maybe the simple answer is to delete the competitors?
Or
go into a market where there is less competition.
But that means either
there's less business (smaller market) or higher barriers to entry.
There
are no simple web marketing answers.
If there were - your
competitors would clone them too. The only thing you can do is try to ignore
stuff you don't need to know about, understand the bits you need to do better,
work hard and be lucky. |
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| more
articles - here on MarketingViews (or related sites) |
- Customers
Search Differently - customers (who want to find suppliers and buy
stuff) search differently to marketers (who want to promote their companies and
sell stuff). That's why most search marketing misses the best targets.
- What's a
Good Click Rate for a Banner Ad? - what you learn from testing banner
ads - often results in you having to change the way you talk about your company
in other places... your web site, your PR. Leaving this important task in the
hands of graphics designers is lunacy. ...Later:- in 2010 - I updated this
popular article to compare how banners compare to Google ads - in the
same publication and with the same placement.
- Think of Web Ads
as Signposts - they can lead the right people to your destination. But
give them a credible message so that the brain follows the mouse click for
sound business reasons. Ideally the ad should also signal to the wrong type of
customer they can filter themselves out at this point and not waste their
time and yours by following this path.
- Rethinking the
Banner Ad - remember it's a guaranteed communication and doesn't have
to be an ad. There are 2 sets of viewers who see you banner ad, and you should
cater for both. The most important are the 94% to 99.5% who are
going to see the banner, but not click on it (at that moment in time). What
impression are they left with after seeing the banner?
- Press Release
Errors I see every day - as an editor - I have to disregard zillions
of press releases, which vendors have paid good money to their agencies to
write and distribute. Here's why.
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