Clicksharp Marketing

Last month, Kristin Edelhauser Chessman wrote a story on Entrepreneur.com entitled “If They Could Turn Back Time” in which a handful of successful entrepreneurs are profiled, and asked what they would have done differently if they could start over.

Notice that three of them — Perfume Bay, Carmelized Productions and NewCondosOnline.com — wished they’d put more effort into internet marketing in the earliest phases. Driving traffic, building the customer base, search engine optimization, even just building a basic website as the face of a growing business… these successful businesspeople agree that putting more digital marketing initiatives in place early on would have made a big difference.

Of course, now that is conventional wisdom. Of course a new company needs a website. Of course they need to drive traffic to their site. But as these concepts become generally accepted as norms, the risk of not staying ahead on the next big trends increases. This might be a daunting idea to some. “How does a lay person stay ahead on what’s hot in such a fast-moving industry?” Well, the first and most important step you can take is to hire someone who can work with you to create a well-tailored marketing plan.

But there’s no need to stop there, because the “layperson” tends to have more online marketing savvy than they realize. YOU are the ones who know how to articulate your value proposition in a creative manner. YOU are the ones positioned to react at a moment’s notice to a changing industry environment. YOU are the ones out there making meaningful face-to-face connections in the offline world, adding value to your online mission.

In “What’s Ahead in Our Brave New Cyberworld” Laurel Delaney makes a point about social media marketing which really hits home:

“The rollout and huge popularity of social networking and social media tools are changing the way we do business and how we connect with people on a global basis, to the point that the only thing holding us back is our lack of imagination and our shortsightedness about how to use the technology.”

In other words, it no longer boils down to the costs of implementation. Instead, this is about a slight learning curve paired with a massive upside — leveraging these channels with your own creativity and expertise.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 @ 1:18 pm on the category SEM, SEO, Small business, Social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


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