As I was day dreaming about fishing the other day it came to me that finding new customers is a lot like fishing. Let me tell you a short story before I continue.
I went fishing on Saturday to a local pond. I put bait on his hook and cast in my line out. I waited for several hours and didn’t get a bite. So I packed up my pole and equipment and went home. I wondered what went wrong. So I he went back the next day and tried again without success. On the third day I tried again. The fish could not wait to be caught on that day. The difference was the fish weren’t hungry (they weren’t ready) the first two days but on the third they were waiting for food.
Now let’s talk about traditional advertising like print ads in the newspaper or direct mail marketing.
Are your customers ready to purchase your product or service when the newspaper arrives or when they receive your direct mail flyer? In most cases they are not. So, like the fisherman, you decided to repeat the advertisement or send out your direct mail flyer again. Maybe you have a little success, so your run your advertisement a third time or send out your direct mail flyers again. Now you start to see some success. But what did it cost you to get the response that you obtained from your multiple attempts?
Fishing for customers when they are not ready to buy is very expensive. So why not fish for customers only on the days they are ready to buy (hungry) for what you have to offer. That would be great. I would like to know on what days the fish are going to be biting. So what do you do in regards to your advertising? The answer is: find a low cost way to have your advertisement available when the fish – sorry – clients are looking for what you have to offer.
What is the low cost advertising answer? It’s the Internet!
You can have a presence on the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year so when someone is searching for what you have to offer your advertisement is there waiting for them. It would be like having someone fish for you around the clock, ready to catch fish when they are hungry.
So what is this low cost way to make this happen?
It’s in the listings that you can (should) have in the search results on all of the major search engines. “I don’t mean when someone searches using your company name and your listing shows up in the search results.” I mean you need to have your company’s listings show up in the search results for exactly the products or services you offer. Here are some examples.
If you sell “reconditioned furniture” you will want your website to show up high in the search results anytime that anyone using a search engine is searching for a supplier of [reconditioned furniture]. If you do it right, your listing will show up no matter what time of day or day of the week. It will be ready when the fish – Oops I did it again, customers are ready and looking.
This applies to local searches as well. Let’s say that you have a landscaping business in Foxboro, Massachusetts. You will want your website to show up high in the search engine results when someone searches using the phrase “Foxboro landscaping services”. You might want your landscaping services to show up for other towns that you provide service in. This is all possible if you consider using the latest low cost techniques of Internet Marketing.
So is your website ready to go fishing on the Internet?
Don’t know where to start finding out what new Internet advertising and marketing techniques are available?
Call or email Jim Conant today at 508-223-3653 (jconant@usamarketingassociates.com)
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