At least once a month I end up in a spirited discussion with a potential client about the difference between brand marketing and using the web effectively to grow your business.
Now, being in Connecticut – which seems to be the brand marketing capital of the US – I can understand why even small business owners focus their attentions and efforts almost exclusively on brand marketing.
Which is why most do not generate enough leads or sales from their website.
Why is that?
Web marketing realities explained…
I’m going to start with a simple premise that I want you to focus on.
Now, I understand that what about the say regards to brand marketing is probably different from the thousands of comments you’ve no doubt heard before. But I don’t care about that – and here’s why: I have websites that generate significant monthly revenue without the benefit of a logo or any “branding” visible on the site.
How can that be?
- The real focus of brand marketing is to retain your EXISTING customer or client.
- Web marketing is what you use to get NEW clients or customers in the first place.
And therein lies the difference!
Brand marketing focuses on name awareness or name recognition – and you could also say image awareness or image recognition (i.e. logo). And this kind of “name recognition” works – if at all – to retain customers to the “brand” as well as functioning — if at all — when people are AWAY from their computers.
In other words, this type of marketing has nothing to do with the inner dialogue of a person searching online for a solution to their problem.
And that’s precisely why it doesn’t translate to the web!
Web marketing, however, when used effectively addresses the inner dialogue in the “search psychology” of an actual person using their computer as a means of solving a problem.
This is why web marketing is keyword centric.
I don’t have to tell you that when you are looking – actively searching – for a solution to your problem the concept or recognition of a “brand” probably never enters into your mind.
However, most people’s websites are approaching a web visitor from the wrong side of the equation. Nobody really cares how long you been in business.
Nobody really cares how great your company is – or how great you say your company is – because it’s assumed. In other words most people’s websites talk all about “them” without ever addressing their web visitor, the “you” on the other side of the monitor and keyboard.
In other words, the focus of brand marketing is about pushing an image or name or logo into the marketplace with the expectation that the mere appearance of the image or name or local will attract customers to you.
However, web marketing starts on the other side of things (when done well.) It starts by looking at keyword volume surrounding a particular niche or industry or problem set and then positioning a website so that people looking for a solution to their problems will find the site and, hopefully, see the site as the solution provider they were looking for.
In other words, web marketing is about attracting people to you because your marketing language resonated with the inner dialogue that goes on inside the mind of every web searcher.
You may agree with me, you may disagree with me.
But in the end it doesn’t matter because this information is not based on theory or hypothesis. It’s what I do every day to grow my business and why each year my revenue increases by double-digit percentage points.
Schedule your website review today
Since early 2008 I have worked with dozens of clients and helped them get more than they thought possible from their websites. And I know I can do the same for you…
There are three ways to schedule your FREE website audit:
- call 888-542-2936 and leave a voice message, including your name and URL, or…
- send an email to: support@bestwebpresence.com,
- or click the link and complete a short webform.
Online success starts by taking the first step…
In working with clients I have been able to diagnose problems, road-blocks, issues and oversights that have prevented business owners like you from achieving their goals. To discover how I can improve your current web-marketing efforts to generate MEASURABLE results for you let me review your website, and then we can set up a time to discuss my analysis by phone.
