Web Designer, Web Developer, SEO and Google Adwords Qualified Internet Marketing Consultant in the St. Lawrence Seaway Valley and Northern New York

When I started out as a web designer in 2003, I was overwhelmed by the complexity of the technology. It felt as though there were innumerable ways to complete every task. Which one was best? In the face of such complexity, there were two choices. Paralysis by analysis. Or, diving in and trying things out. I dove in.

After making mistakes, I discovered a third option, finding thought leaders within the world of web development and learning from them. I read books by Eric Meyer , Molly E. Holzschlag, Dan Cederholm, Jeffrey Zeldman, and more. These were the thought leaders in the web development market. They helped me understand and define my role as a web developer.

Fastforward to 2009. It’s become clear over the intervening six years that web design and development, as important as they are simply do not lead to success in small business marketing on their own. I’m sure this comes as no shock to anyone else, but it took me a long time to re-orient myself and my business around this point.

So where are the thought leaders in this domain? A few years ago, I began reading books by Robert Scoble, Seth Godin, and Jeremy Wright. All these authors are excellent and definitely worth a read, repeatedly.

Through reading and experience, it didn’t take long to learn that people visit websites for content, not interface design. But creating content that attracts visitors and also contributes to the bottom line of a business is not so simple. The critical missing link is to create content by starting with the needs of our customers, not our own perceptions.

As David Meerman Scott says in the book that inspired this article, “What works is a focus on your buyers and their problems. What fails is an egocentric display of your products and services.”

But how can we do this? I pulled these points from The New Rules of Marketing & PR:

1. Identify your organizational goals
2. Build one or more buyer personas
3. Research words or phrases your personas use to talk search for your products and services
4. Think about how you want to position your product. What do you want your customer to think about your product?
5. Develop an editorial plan to reach your buyers with focused content in the media (text, video, audio) they prefer

The main point of The New Rules of Marketing and PR is that with the proper research, you can create content that leads prospective customers into your buying process naturally.

Scott covers the following media as tools that can be used to reach prospective customers with relevant content:

• Blogs
• News Releases
• Audio Content Delivery through Podcasting
• Forums & Wikis

Scott discusses how to use these tools, and others to reach potential customers and create a viral marketing response. He then gives an overview of search engine marketing and search engine optimization that is well grounded. In other words, he doesn’t offer quick ways to get on the first page of Google (usually these tactics involve smoke & mirrors).  He wraps up the chapter on search engine marketing by saying, “The best search engine marketing comes from paying attention to and understanding your buyers, not from manipulating or tricking them.”

I recommend this book to my small business clients regularly. It is written in an engaging and authentic voice with a balance between big picture analysis and practical advice. I think it’s the most engaging and practical resource available about small business marketing.

Related Resources

• The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly (New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs,)
• David Meerman Scott Author & Lon Safko The Social Media Bible Interview