There are many legalities in doing business online. It shocks me just how many people are unaware of the laws they break online. I have spent well over a decade learning laws relating to the Internet. There are laws dealing with credit card handling; laws to address copyright; industry-specific laws for things like medical records, legal records, and etcetera; and of course, laws to deal with SPAM.
I believe it is time to consider a list of important Internet marketing laws. They may seem elementary, but I think these are still laws worth addressing. So here is the short list, but of course there are many more. I just want to start you off with eleven Internet marketing laws, and you can add your own comments.
Internet Marketing Law One: Typographical
If you think it has not already been done, you probably just made a typographical error. Google it again. Somebody else already does that.
Internet Marketing Law Two: Urgency
If you think it can be done better, hurry! There are many people who agree with you, and they are already working on it.
Internet Marketing Law Three: Correctness
If you think you have done everything flawlessly and nobody can fault it, blog it, Facebook it, and tweet it. You were probably not as correct as you expected.
Internet Marketing Law Four: Persecution
People will persecute you, but if you do not receive an occasional death threat or flame-letter, it just means you are not reaching enough people. You probably suck at Internet marketing. Give up now, before you anger me. You will not like me when I am angry.
Internet Marketing Law Five: Client Errors
Client errors only happen to new or inexperienced Internet marketing people. Fire them and start over with new ones (but give them my number).
Internet Marketing Law Six: Delegation
If you think somebody else can do it better than you, delegate it. Pay somebody else so you can get back to working on the things that delight your customers. This will save you a lot of headache and lost opportunities.
Internet Marketing Law Seven: Perfection
You are not perfect. Somebody can always do it better than you. This is the Internet for Pete’s sake. See Internet Marketing Law Six. You know what to do.
Internet Marketing Law Eight: Expenditures
Internet fame and fortune will not be yours for the taking with just a couple hours per day when you pay only $299 for the magical out-of-the-box online business. That dude is lying! If he was extremely convincing, it is because he is still really wanting to recoup the $299 that he spent on his magical box. Don’t you think that if it was true, corporations like Google, Microsoft, McDonald’s, WalMart, and Pepsi would have already purchased all of those magical boxes? Well, they didn’t, and that means the one holding the box is a sucker with a few hundred less buck to waste on their next blue sky failure.
Internet Marketing Law Nine: Success
There is no magical pink pony ride to success. Just ask somebody who has done it. Live with it. Success will not be as easy as the job you left. If it was easy, nobody would call it success. They would call it … hmmm … oh yes, they would call it average.
Internet Marketing Law Ten: Public Exposure
If you get really great at Internet marketing, the traditional sense of “public” can be a frightening place. Those people talk, think, look, and act different than you remembered. All that time basking in monitor-glow has made sunshine a creepy notion, and you forgot that offline cash registers actually still make sounds (so old-fashioned).
Internet Marketing Law Eleven: Time
If you are going to make it with Internet marketing, you had better stop wasting time on silly junk like this and get back to work. Just don’t forget to pass it along to all your friends so they don’t get too far ahead of you.
If you make your price the first priority in a cost to value comparison, you may want to reconsider. Cost is a fast way to get a lot of public attention, but it can also provide a negative net return. Showing a low cost has a solid place in some markets, but consider evaluating the cost and value propositions you present to your market. If you are building upon only an audience of “glancing prospects”, you may miss your best customers in the process. What I call glancing prospects are the ones who are out for cost, and that is the primary factor in their decision making. They glance in your direction and give little consideration to anything but how much it will cost. You may like these customers if you are content to offer the lowest cost, but they are also often not return customers or loyal to your brand. It is not just because you didn’t provide value, but because value is not what they were seeking. Thus, they never realized your value.
There are different kinds of buyers in any market, and there are still many who consider value over price. Even while shopping for identical products, many people will consider the value of buying it from somebody they trust or find other benefits from. It takes more effort to find value-shoppers than to find price-shoppers, but they are worth every bit of it. They will be back, and they will tell their friends.
I will use my industry as an example, but it is important to consider this in any industry. I sell marketing. In my case, value is all that really matters. Return on investment (ROI) is what makes sense to my clients. What they spend is not what matters but rather what they will receive for their money … which is more money. Profit is what my clients want, and they will do what it takes to get it. At the same time, I also attract a lot of “glancing prospects” and “lookers” without any intention of seeking value. Do you want to guess which one I consider important? That’s right … I want the ones who want the ROI and look closer to understand the value of my services.
Cheap Marketing and Low Value
Business people are cost-conscious, and more now than ever. Ironically, this often leads them to mistakes that sabotage their business efforts. As a reaction to their fears, companies will often drop their prices and subsequently drop their value. Marketing is the easiest cost to cut, but also the fastest way to reduce profit and go out of business. I watch companies all the time that neglect the value of their marketing, and try to use a cost proposition in place of a value proposition. It is a short-term cashflow bandage that becomes their undoing.
You can call me crazy, but I am smart enough to get dressed before going to the grocery store. In fact, I can be pretty downright bright, on a good day. I guess I am not smart enough to see the “wisdom” in some people’s reasoning of comparing cost above value. Some will try to weigh the cost with value, but often use completely flawed metrics for comparison. I see people all the time who do not understand how dangerous bargain hunting can be when it comes to their marketing, or with other purchases.
How Valuable is Marketing?
Marketing is what makes companies money. Marketing is how customers find companies and companies find customers. Marketing, in some manner or another, is the only way a company will earn a profit. Marketing should not have a net cost, but rather a profit gain. Marketing should be viewed as an investment, and not an expense. Seeking the lowest cost for something so value-driven seems like the absolute absence of logic. Looking for value, on the other hand, is brilliant.
Do People Really Seek Cheap Marketing?
Yes, a lot of people ask questions about the cost of marketing and rates for marketing-related services. At least that is what my website visitor logs show me. Perhaps you see the same in your industry. I am including a list of cost-related things people searched for and found my blog. Some of them are pretty amusing. People even found my blog searching to find how much it costs to join Facebook.
One of the first things a person in my field often hears is “how much will it cost?” I weed these out fast, because when cost is the question and value is secondary, usually the person asking fits into one of two categories as follows:
They do not have enough money to afford quality marketing. If they do not have the money to do things right, they will never be pleased … ever. It is the same kind of client who tries to tell the consultant what to do rather than accept the consultation they pay to receive.
They ask about cost because it is the question they know best. They assume that a lower investment comes with a lower risk, but this is really not the case. This assumption places the value equation completely backward. Without value, the cost of marketing does not matter. It is not worth it at any cost, and can often have disastrous results.
Similarly, in your line of work, you will likely find that if your prospective customers recognize the value of what you offer, they will often find a way to deal with the cost.
Marketing Value and Cost Consideration: Do You Buy Price Tags?
I have never bought a price tag, but I have purchased a lot of things with price tags on them. Sure, some people buy price tags … literal price tags. What I mean is whether you look at an item and decide that you want it and then look at the price tag, or do you look at the price tag to decide whether you want it. Think about your customers and how they may address this same question. Value-seeking customers will decide whether they want or need something, acknowledge that they want or need it, and then look at the price tag. Cost-seeking customers will look at the price tag and if the price is “right” decide whether it was something they were even interested in buying. They love to look, but they hate to part with money more than they enjoy what they receive in return. NOTE: For this customer, the “right” price is highly subjective to poor interpretation.
Cost, Rates, and Value: Lookers Are Everywhere!
Glancing prospects are very easy to lure. I can drag them in by the truckload. Just have a look at these recent searches people performed to land here at my blog, and then consider how many of these I will likely do business with. Don’t get me wrong, because I like when people ask about cost. It is a buying sign and tells me they are in the market. The fact remains that when somebody asks me about cost before understanding value, I normally tell them kindly that they are simply not ready for what I offer. What I offer is profit!
There are enough people asking about cost, but it is funny to find that a comparatively few people ask questions of value. Those are the people I want, and I hope you can see the value in this, too!
Note that my list of “What Cheap People Search For” is based on actual terms people typed into a search engine and clicked on my blog. I couldn’t make this up if I tried. You may not be as amused as I am, but somebody actually wanted to know “how much does a sheep cost” … really, a sheep. Darn, I don’t sell sheep. You can bet that if I did sell sheep, they wouldn’t be cheap sheep.
Car dealers are infamous for their marketing short-sightedness, so they make a great social media example. New and used car sales organizations live or die in short bursts of business, and it creates huge anxiety for them – but this is not just about car dealers. This principle applies to many industries. I’m just using our auto-peddling worst nightmare as an example so we can all relate.
In the auto dealer scenario, as with many other retail industries, the inventory is often financed using a “floor plan”, and if the inventory is not selling, the bank will make it very uncomfortable for them. This creates a challenge that is not so unlike the urgency felt in any other businesses. The sales must keep coming, or somebody is going to need some creative answers.
It causes a lot of companies to focus more closely on an eight percent increase in new business and overlook the eighty percent increase they could achieve if they look ahead and give people reasons to buy from them.
Topeka, Kansas has fourteen pages of car dealers and related automotive ads in the telephone book Yellow Pages. I had to ask my wife if we have a telephone book, and I was delighted to find that we actually do. I do not know how many car dealers still advertise in the Topeka newspaper, because I do not subscribe. The last time I saw a newspaper, it was a lot thinner than it used to be. The auto industry was hit hard by the economy in the last few years, and car dealers sought a better way to reach their market, just like everybody else.
It is not surprising that there are at least half as many results for car dealers in Topeka, Kansas returned in a Google search than there are residents of Topeka. A car dealer without a website would be like a car dealer without cars for sale.
Everybody knows that the Internet is where people buy things, right? The automotive industry caught on, and all of the sudden the job of Internet marketing shifted from the part-time receptionist to the “Internet Sales Manager”. That is often the fancy title for the guy who fiddles with a computer all day and tries to sell cars online. He emails his buddies and asks them to come and test drive a car, just so he looks busier. He is afraid for his job, and it is really important to show the boss that the Internet is a good investment.
After a few more doughnuts, he will put the latest finance rates on Facebook. After lunch, he will plan to tell Twitter users how he can save them a ton of money if they get there for the big tent sale this weekend. The successful car dealers are on Facebook. At least that is what they said at the last Car Dealer Internet Sales Manager’s Convention. Wait, maybe it was LinkedIn … I forget. In any case, getting the latest advertised specials out to the people is of the highest importance, right?
This Marketing Style is Not Limited to Car Dealers
This mentality is not only about car dealers, so make no mistake. I am just using them as a fun example. If you read carefully and think about this, you can probably relate it to many other industries.
What drives me absolutely crazy is that I watch far too many companies treat their business like my example of the Internet Sales Manager urgently trying to get the boss off his back. They do all that they know to make their advertising visible and be sure that everybody knows their name when they are looking for a car.
Companies frantically try to shorten their sales funnel while the importance of brand recognition and brand loyalty lose ground to immediate needs.
You could blame the Internet Sales Manager, but much of his focus is imposed by managers above him, the general manager, or dealership owner. Dealers are car guys, not marketing guys, and not Web Guys. Under the pressure of a competitive market, they completely lose sight of what motivates people to buy things.
Following the car dealer theme, many companies will look at the Internet the way they look at the big inflatable gorilla and colorful balloons dealerships put out on Saturdays to make passing traffic do a double-take (and if they are lucky, crash their car right out front). These are all fine and dandy, but they lack the sustainable value of social media.
These companies usually have about 90 friends on Facebook and perhaps 14 Twitter friends to tweet stuff to. They are so wrapped up with search engine optimization (SEO) that they never understood how SEO and social media are inextricably paired with the more challenging factors of understanding what their customers want, need, expect, deserve, and demand.
They neglect that social media makes SEO a whole lot easier and more effective. They do it the hard way and just know that with enough SEO, the Internet will deliver more hot leads and they will sell more cars – and it will, but it lacks forethought.
They try to learn from their peers who are making the same mistakes, and then wonder why it did not work – while overlooking what their customers are already trying to teach them.
Is Your “Car Dealership” Being Creative?
Thinking is often underrated and undervalued. Marketing takes a lot of effort, and the numbers matter. What you do with the numbers also matters. Instead of just looking forward to the next email blast or rewriting your h1 tags, it may be useful to think about a social media strategy.
Everybody is using tactics, but strategy takes real marketing talent, creativity, and looking beyond the next 30 days. It takes guts, and regardless what others tell you is an easy fix, guts are where success grows.
Consider your own examples in place of the car dealership. Have you thought about why people love their cars? Have you considered holding a poker run with your Facebook fans and friends? Have you thought how cool it would be to integrate Foursquare when you do a scavenger hunt with potential buyers? Have you ever thought of holding a ride-along with a race car driver at your local race track? Did you ever consider that you could build more incoming links if you were the first to craft a story about something important to your industry … important to the people who care about your industry? Did you ever think to monitor social media to see if somebody is talking about your dealership, your products, or your industry?
I started thinking about this after two different instances of friends in the automotive industry who told me of two different car dealerships in the Topeka area in need of a better marketing plan. I looked at their online efforts and found lack of strategy. It appeared that they approach their online efforts and offline efforts as two completely divergent markets, rather than integrating them. Although there were some pretty websites, they were hard to navigate and lacking a call to action. Worse yet, they display their companies about as interesting as a car salesman in a leisure suit rushing across the lot to shake my hand.
Maybe it is time for me to perform a social media and SEO case study on a Topeka, Kansas car dealer. I think it could be really interesting to share what would happen when one of them led the way. On the other hand, in Topeka, we have what I see as the worst stereotype of car dealers. I would probably do better to poke my eyes out with a Chevy bumper than try and explain something car dealers refuse to hear.
Save your dealership – stop acting like a car dealer!
To Car Dealers: Car dealers always express urgency to buy today, so let’s spin the table and see how urgent you are about increasing your car dealership’s profit using effective social media and SEO. Subscribe to my blog today and I’ll let you read it for $0 down and $0 per month.
UPDATE: I have a funny update to this blog post. Shortly after publishing this, I received a call from a Topeka area car dealer who was referred to my services. The man on the other end of the line wanted to hire me to actually work for and work at the dealership … selling cars. It seems that somebody bumped their head … really hard.
I told him what I do (marketing consulting), and he kind of had that “duh, I don’t understand” glazed over effect. Many people just don’t understand that they will not improve their dealership’s new and used car sales volume until they stop trying to sell cars the way their father, and his father sold cars.
The world has changed, and car dealers seem to think they can hold back the change. This is why so many of them are going out of business. They do not want good advice. They just want another person to explain how “right” they are. It is a sad loss for them.
I work with marketing numbers every day in my business, but sometimes I like to break it down to an individual level and gather more specific opinions. I can’t be brilliant every day so some days I rely on my dear Mother. I did that today, and I asked her about marketing. Ironic, isn’t it?
Since my mother remembers the days before television, and when telephone lines were shared across multiple households, I figured she could provide a good representation of “old school” thinking about marketing. I asked her a very specific question as follows: “If you were going to market a business, where would you focus your efforts?” She did not even ask me what kind of business before she replied “On the Internet.” I asked her, “Why do you think that some businesses still don’t think that way?” She said “I think they do, don’t they?” I told her that overall market spending spend says yes, but that I still find some companies marketing as “usual” … as if it is 2007. I wanted her opinion of why this could be the case. She said something that I have thought many times, and her reply was “It is foreign to them, and they probably just don’t understand how it can work for them.”
Thanks Mom!
The Monsters Disappear When You Turn on the Lights
Now do you agree with my Baby Boomer age mother? Nod yes. Most people agree that the Internet is the way to go for marketing. It is the most measurable venue for marketing of all, but I sometimes wonder if people realize that fact. The Internet provides enough data that marketing efforts can be accounted for down to every “click” and every dollar. You simply must look at enough data to create statistical significance. Anybody who does not grasp the value of measurements in marketing probably just does not understand it, and may be just a little bit scared. It seems that Internet marketing comes with a fear that many people have a hard time overcoming. The fear can be proven irrational using facts, but some people are just too stubborn to pay attention long enough to learn. They hear it, and they think it, but until they take the time to know the facts, they don’t fully believe it. I think of it like a kid with a bad dream when you turn on the lights, all the monsters disappear.
Many people want to achieve huge success before they actually make a reasonable and well calculated effort toward online marketing. They can read case studies of how others have done it, even in their industry, but as soon as the lights go out, they see monsters again.
Marketing Like a Goldfish in a Shark Tank
Fear and disbelief are big reasons that most companies using the Internet for marketing are doing it terribly unsuccessfully. They want to dip their toe in the water and test it out with a goldfish sized budget. What nobody tells them is that there are sharks in that water. If you don’t swim like a shark, you are likely to be “bitten” and fail miserably. The sad result for many business people is that once they are bitten, they will blame the water or the sharks, but they seldom ever blame the real culprit … themselves!
The alternative to having a shark budget is to shrink the tank using a more focused and creative marketing approach. It requires significant marketing talent to create success, even with a shark budget, but talent is even more important with a goldfish budget. In every case, it still requires more than a toe in the water to avoid the shark bite of an unsuccessful marketing attempt.
If you want your marketing to be successful, you can be one of the sharks or you can shrink the tank with focused marketing enough to take away the sharks’ advantage. Either way, you will have to address the sharks!
Bolstering the fears associated with Internet marketing is the fact that most Internet marketers (SEO, SEM, SMM, Guru, Expert, Maven, Evangelist, et. Al.) really stink at their job. It should also be noted that even the good ones will suffer if they have a client who bucks them at every turn, already knows it all, or asks them to jump through flaming hoops with a goldfish budget in a shark tank. Of course, successful marketers will usually not put themselves in this position. We understand the numbers, and we know that the chance of failure due to under-marketing is statistically significant.
We have surely all seen the overwhelming data, or at least heard a huge frenzy about newspapers, television, radio, and telephone book advertising sales each dropping like lead balloons. There is a reason for this, and the reason is that the Internet is far more effective. Still, I find it shocking to witness companies that have not shifted their efforts and their budget where it can make an impact.
I went on talking with my mother and we discussed business marketing budgets. I was curious why a company spending “x” dollars on ineffective marketing will often try to take a small fraction of that same amount of money to market on the Internet. I asked whether, as they shift their efforts, if it made sense for them to plan to spend less money and effort in the place it could really work. I asked her “If you were going to budget efforts between television, newspapers, phone books, and Internet, which one would get the biggest portion?” Without regard for industry, she said “the Internet, because you can reach anybody there”, and she was right. Of course, she did not have the fear that I was going to sell her something. She could be honest with me about what most people already know, but are afraid to address.
If you struggle to produce the money needed for marketing, you had better learn some guerrilla marketing, and fast! You should always assume that somebody else in your market segment has deeper pockets and the longer you wait the harder it will be to reach the customers. When marketing a business with a small marketing budget or no marketing budget at all, you can still improve your chances of success using free or very low cost guerrilla marketing.
How to Grow a Business Without a Marketing Budget
I do not want to let you down, but the truth is that it absolutely cannot be done. You will have to budget something, and if it is not money, it will be time … probably a lot of time. Be ready for that, and budget your marketing time. Set aside a scheduled time to learn more, do more, and earn more. This is your business we are talking about and if you have a family to feed, like I do, it really starts to seem worth it to make it a success. Budget your time well, because although you may think you are too busy to budget time for marketing, the truth may be that you are just busy with the wrong things. If you are marketing your business well, time in other areas will almost surely free up for you. While you are budgeting time, be sure to budget enough to finish reading this article. I have some guerrilla marketing tips for you.
Useful Guerrilla Marketing Tips
I am going to give you some free and effective guerrilla marketing tips that you can start using today. I will also welcome your thoughts and additions, but if I try to add more than a short list, I will be writing this all day. This is only intended to help prime you for the task of marketing your business.
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number One: Get Uncomfortable
If you are sitting back in your easy chair feeling comfortable about your marketing, you are not ready for this. If you are marketing without a budget, and you are comfortable about your marketing, you are really not ready for this.
One of the first things I would suggest for anybody trying to grow a business is to get uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable you are, the more likely you are to take serious measures to do something about it. If you relax and think things are just fine, you are just asking for that comfortability to all slip away. I have been in business for over 20 years and I have seen the good times and the bad times. I remember joking with my wife while living in my ivory tower and having a whole lot more time and money than I ever thought I could want or need and saying “I’m tired of living like this.” I actually joked but also kind of meant it, because while earning more per year than an average family does in ten years can be fun and all, a fall can also happen a lot faster. I have seen it … the hard way. Never get too comfortable, and always find reasons that you are “tired of living like this.”
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Two: Find Success and Follow It
Find success and follow it! Look for what successful people have done and learn from their experiences. I am not saying to imitate their every move, but rather to learn what they know and find ways that it can be applied to your marketing efforts. Many successful people will blog about their experiences and are happy to share what is in their head. Read blogs until your eyes hurt! Although it may seem like a waste of time at first, look at it this way; if you want to know how to do something better, doesn’t it make sense to use what others have learned instead of trying to learn it all the hard way?
Do not believe everything you read, but choose carefully and read a lot. Pay attention! Pick out a handful of blogs and spend some time to do more than just scan and click. Your competition is scanning and clicking through a lot of information. You want to learn and improve your business profitability, so what you should know is that even a little of the right information is better than a lot of average information. Get involved and find information pertinent to your industry. Find information from marketers who know marketing. Find things that challenge convention, because conventional is what everybody else is doing. Here are some blogs to help you get started, and of course I should mention that I have a blog archive with many nice trinkets to share.
Don’t just sit there! Learn opinions from other readers and add your comments. Note that while you are commenting that there is a place to enter your web address URL and it will create a link back to your website. If you are active in blogs, those links can add up to a lot. It is also a great way to become familiar with other frequent readers or people who had a common interest. Reach out to them and find out what works for them. Also be sure to read “10 Really Good Reasons to Blog” … seriously, add it to your time budget and read it!
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Three: Look Where Your Market is Looking
Look where your market is looking. I want to be really clear on this when I say that your customers are using the Internet. I was recently visiting with an old client of mine who is in the railroad construction business. They came to me about a website several years back, because they knew that they were supposed to have a website. They did not really know why, and their biggest focused use of it was to find job applicants. Even today, they still find it hard to comprehend that the people out there who make decisions about who will build their railroad bridge or railroad extension are using the Internet. Think of it this way, if you were running this company, even if they are not using the Internet to search for where to buy a railroad bridge, you should be there to increase their awareness of you. The company spends virtually zero money or effort in marketing, yet they want more business. This is what happens when you stop saying “I’m tired of living like this.” The moral of the story: Don’t get railroaded by thinking that your customers don’t use the Internet. Unless your potential customers live in caves without computers and no cellular signal, they are using the Internet every day. Just because you do not sell the product online or receive immediate gratification does not mean you can slide by without it. Selling more of what you offer does not always mean you are pitching them your next deal. There is a reason that Mc Donalds runs ads that say “You deserve a break today” and not just “$.99 Big Macs for a limited time at participating locations.” Branding is important, and the company the potential purchaser has heard of will have the upper hand.
Guerrilla Marketing Tip Number Four: Guerrilla Marketing is a Stepping Stone
You should be aware of some basic assumptions about companies that try to perform marketing without a budget. You need to know this before you can overcome it. If your marketing budget is small, we can make a couple of accurate assumptions. Whether these assumptions are right or wrong, it is very likely how your prospective customers and your competition will perceive your business, so be aware of this. Here is the first assumption about marketing without a budget: If you do not have a marketing budget, it is pretty likely that you are broke. Successful companies that can afford marketing do not flinch at the idea of investing in growing their market share to squeeze you out of the picture. This brings me to the second assumption about marketing without a budget: Wouldn’t you, if you were them?
You could just try the old line that you don’t spend money on marketing because you are trying to keep your cost low. Sorry, anybody who has ever been in business will see right through that one. Let’s face it, your cost is lower when your company is productive and making money. Marketing does not create a net loss … it creates profit, money, business, customers, growth, market share … you know, all of those things you want more of. Marketing lowers your cost by making your business successful.
Guerrilla marketing is a good way to get started, but businesses that do not reinvest in professional marketing services will often fall into a wasteful trap that they are not able to get out of. Once you have seen the benefits of good guerrilla marketing, use it for professional marketing. You probably answered affirmatively when I asked “Wouldn’t you, if you were them?” Stop imagining that you are above this one very basic law of successful business: It takes money to make money. Remember that without experienced marketing talent, it will be much harder to get your hands on money. It is like a chicken and egg question, only worse: What came first, the money or the money? The more you invest, whether time or money, the more you will receive in return. If you use guerrilla marketing as a stepping stone to grow beyond your current constraints, you will then understand why you did all that reading i assigned you.
I will have some more tips for you soon, so budget your time and keep coming back.