Author Archives for Josh Krafchin

Clever Zebo officially succumbed to Blathy (what happens when your blog lays fallow for more than a month, and you don’t even spell out the words “blog” and “apathy”).

It’s a sad state of affairs I know many startups and even ongoing online marketing programs share. While Clever Zebo has been kicking butt in a bunch of other channels (partnerships, webinar, referrals, even GUEST BLOG POSTS ironically), we let our blog slip over the holidays.

Self-criticism aside, I want to talk about where we’re going with this blog and where you might consider going with yours.

There are blog evangelists out there who argue that regardless of the topic and your temperament you should blog multiple times a week and constantly share your ramblings on social media. The argument concludes with a general promise of a steady increase in traffic, leads, and new business. While certainly this dream scenario is true for some, there are mitigating factors, namely:

A) How much weekly writing and social sharing time is spent versus monetizable return.

B) What kind of long-term commitment is required to make this strategy pay off.

C) What kind of interest is there for the topic versus competition and noise.

While the ideal of an obsessively-maintained blog is attractive, what it takes to get there simply is not feasible for all companies — at least not in a short enough time frame to address fundamental business acquisition needs.

WHY WE ALL SHOULD KEEP BLOGGING

From the first part of this post, you might think I’m trying to talk you out of your commitment to blogging. But I’m actually attempting the exact opposite. I’ve noticed an interesting trend the past few months: the majority of our new clients and serious prospects cite connecting to our blog’s content as a big reason why they wanted to have further conversations with us and ultimately work together.

While it’s not yet at Seth Godin level, the blog nonetheless has an impact on our site visitors — they want to know how we think and are looking for practical, logical advice on how to improve their online marketing program.

This realization has been tremendously empowering. Maybe I don’t have to worry about a weekly regimen of vomit-blogging and social rampaging; maybe the key is to keep using this medium as a way to keep my thoughts sharp and Clever Zebo’s followers current on online marketing trends and thinking. If I’ve learned anything in nearly a decade of online marketing, it’s that best practices are best unless they’re not.

I invite you to revisit your blog and ask yourself a few tough questions:

For businesses that primarily provide physical world services, online marketing is a very different animal than for primarily online businesses selling a product or subscription. The key to online success for services businesses is to view all sales and marketing as an eco-system in which online channels play an increasingly vital role.

Insight #1: It really no longer makes sense to consider “marketing” and “online marketing” as distinct. Blog, search, and social marketing are as vital to your marketing program as networking, following up with prospects, and speaking at events.

I’ve noticed that a lot of businesses are only interested in online as a way to meet new customers. They’ll put a few bucks into lead gen but shy away from taking a step back and really thinking about how they communicate. Do an off-site, think, get creative!

Insight #2: It’s relatively easy to produce leads (it just takes some budget, a willingness to test, and some patience). It’s a lot harder to get to know the human beings you’ve entered into your CRM, to understand their challenges, and then to help them from the moment they first hit your website to 20 years into your working relationship. Before worrying about getting new leads, make sure you’ve put in place the communications infrastructure to have real conversations. Remember, you’re going to have to work closely eventually with them anyway.

Insight #3: It takes multiple touches to transform a prospect into a customer. They see you in paid search, get retargeted with a display ad, open one of your emails, listen to a voice message, read a blog post, read an article, see you at a networking event, etc. — one-and-done leads might do a couple small-value transactions, but customer relationships need to be nurtured.

Insight #4: Be original. Get inspired by what other companies are doing, but don’t copy. If you’re a services business that’s been around a while, you’ve done something unique and special. Going online doesn’t mean you should abandon your winning formula — rather, see how you can adapt it for today’s marketplace. For example: just because your competitor’s website uses stock photography and “business” language doesn’t mean your off-beat humor should be covered up.

The best time you can spend building an online marketing program is stepping back and really looking at your business as a whole.

Insight #5: Create a vision for the eco-system in which your prospects and customers will interact with you. You’ll know you have an effective eco-system if it includes all of the following:

1. How people get to your site (Facebook ads, Google paid search, email, PR, channel partners, etc.)
2. What are the crucial calls to action on your website and what is the most vital information visitors need to know.
3. How you want people to contact you (lead gen form, phone call, email, on-site chat).
4. Lead nurture schedule (when and with what info emails are sent, where they link, when phone calls are made, etc.)
5. How will you present information to visitors (text, photo, video, webinar, white paper, etc.)
6. How you are tracking all of your sales and marketing activities and making sure no lead is lost.

Over my next several blog posts, I’ll touch on each of these areas in more depth, so stay tuned.