Adventures in Business and CRM

Keeping business steady during an economic crisis is no picnic for any business owner, marketer, or CEO. You hear people say “You have to be better!, you need to be flexible, and you need to lower your prices“… and you can’t help but get an ominous feeling in your gut. The idea of slashing profits isn’t an entrepreneur’s idea of success… I know it’s not mine. So how do you get customers to see the value in your product or service during one of the biggest economic downturns of our time? The answer is quite simple, and it involves navigating new waters, thinking outside of the box, being more resourceful, and possibly changing your entire mindset when it comes to how you approach internet marketing.

“The recession is driving marketers to concentrate on gaining new business, even more than on customer retention objectives,” says David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, Search Marketing Trends: Back to Basics. “Search is the ultimate online acquisition tool, and therefore is positioned to do relatively well in this economy.”  – from eMarketer’s article Titled “Searching for New Customers in the Recession?”

Grabbing web searchers attention isn’t difficult if you are correctly targeting, analyzing, and covering all of your bases. Search marketing is gaining more momentum than ever, and if you aren’t investing marketing dollars into your SEM efforts, you are doing your business a great disservice. eMarketer goes on to state that paid search, contextual advertising, paid inclusion (PPC), and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will all see increased spending through 2013.

Harnessing the power of search  marketing also happens to be one of the safest routes to more sales that almost any business can take immediate action on. Simply appearing in search results is no longer good enough. Remember, you are one of thousands vying for your customer’s sales, while they are clinging to their dollars tighter than ever. Your content needs to be highly targeted and polished.  There is a highly effective method to executing a super-charged targeted search marketing campaign:

Put Yourself In Your Customer’s Shoes When Designing a Search Campaign

Are they really looking to click on PPC ads, or do they get right down to business and cycle through natural results first? Are your users savvy enough to know the difference? Do they search for specific products by UPC numbers or codes? Are they confused when landing on your ‘targeted’ pages? This information is imperative to your search marketing efforts.

I am telling my clients this on a daily basis:

Mediocre is no longer sufficient. Striving to be Remarkable in Every Aspect is Now NOT an Option.

What kind of efforts has your business implemented to try to be remarkable? Have you seen any instances of big businesses trying to be remarkable lately?

Tweet This Post