Your Web Strategy? Do It Yesterday.

By Guest Blogger Doug Mitchell, Chief Brand Amplifier at createWOWmedia

Where will your firm spend its marketing dollars in 2009? If your company fits the trend, it seeks higher returns on marketing investment, reduced upfront costs, high impact and measurability (psssst we've just described Web marketing). 

But few firms are equipped with the knowledge and tools to be effective online marketers. The resulting heads in the sand will likely net scattered results from new glossy (and 100% useless) brochureware Web sites and expensive flash videos that really look cool but do nothing for the firm. (Retraction: Those videos do something for the firm. They make marketing departments feel like they're doing something valuable.) 

My advice: Stop and take a breath. Accept reality. Develop a true online marketing strategy with measurable goals and realistic expectations.      

If you're still wondering where to put your marketing bucks, do yourself a favor. Ask everyone in your office, "Where's the first place you go to look for information about a product, service or person?"

Now, do the same survey at home with the family, and call your relatives too. Cover as wide a demographic as your network allows.

What did you find? I'm hovering at 99% "I Google it."

Now, if your ad hoc focus group produced a near 100% answer pointing to online marketing, please tell me why you're still designing brochures, putting ads in phone books, and letting your brother-in-law make once-a-year updates to your Web site (the one he built free as a hobby in 1995).

Look. Most people don't know HOW to create an effective and affordable Web strategy. Most don't know where to begin, but they're certain it's expensive and leverages voodoo dolls and black magic. 

Wrong. 

Stop making excuses. Become findable where 99% of your focus group TOLD YOU THEY'RE LOOKING FOR YOU! 

Get help wherever you can. Start by reading blogs about the subject and determine how much you should do on your own vs. what you should pay for, i.e. calculate the opportunity cost of becoming a good Web marketer. If you need to hire someone, do it yesterday. 

Comments

[Fred Solomon]

Doug, I agree! You can make money in today's economy if you just change your old ways and do what works for others. I always say, if you don't change you are saying you don't want to make more money! You have to be indexed on google. The Yellow Pages is out.