STOP Marketing… and Think

I conduct a monthly executive dialogue with members of the Retail Merchants Association in Virginia. Business owners attend a lunch session that we call Smart Marketing, and I have the chance to watch and counsel them in their responses to our ailing economy. These days, the decision making patterns of most of them is so consistent that I find it hard to contain myself.

When the economy slows down, the ad sales people crank up.

Like your stock broker who started telling you what a great time it was to buy… buy… buy on the day after the market dropped 777 points, people selling advertising of all kinds are telling marketers that this is the time market like crazy.  The rationale – this is your chance to gobble up market share while your competitors wallow in self-pity.

Don’t take the bait. While there are cases in which it actually does make sense to increase your marketing investment when times are slow, this is far from a good rule of thumb – especially in this downturn. (more…)

Dissecting Your Site’s Conversion Problem

Surround yourself with smart people, and you can’t help but get a little smarter yourself.  I participated in a conference call between a couple of Web marketing experts – Shell Harris and Alyssa Duvall (President and VP of Strategy for Virginia SEO firm, Big Oak) and Howard Kaplan, one of the big wigs at Future Now (the thought leaders in online conversion).

It was a simple revelation, but one well worth sharing here. The problem that most of refer to simply as Web conversion, “I want to increase my site’s conversion rate,” is actually a symptom of two separate and distinct issues. What are those issues you ask???

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Discussing Growth With Your Clients – Smart or Stupid?

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know my position on the importance of cultivating referrals – particularly for smaller businesses.

This is a realm of marketing that is commonly overlooked… typically botched… and arguably the highest return marketing activity a company can invest in.  Literally… Infinite Return Marketing when executed properly and consistently.

Yesterday I had breakfast with the owner of a small service business.  As is typically the case, he is not only the owner and manager of the business, but the chief client relationship manager and evangelist for the firm.

The topic of referrals came up, and I was struck by a confession he made. So much so that I wanted to quickly offer up this brief post for anyone else who may also be hindered by his fear. (more…)