Web Promotion Strategies

- Strategies for working net-smarter -

FOCUS

Remember when you were little and (in the middle of summer) you took a piece of glass out into the back yard (which is what we call that place behind your house here in Australia) gathered up a stack of dry leaves and maybe some newspaper... FOCUSED the sun's rays through the piece of glass onto the pile of inflammable material and... WHOOMP!!

... almost burnt down the whole neighbourhood?

This is the lesson of FOCUS... work niche... work tight... work focused.

I've made this mistake (of being unfocused).  When I first came online I had an offline marketer's 'head-set".  In many respects it took me a while longer to grasp the concepts of online marketing because I was a trained marketer!! I had to UNlearn concepts, because the web works differently from offline promotional mediums.

There is a tenet of marketing that goes something like this... "EVERY Business Is In The Problem Solving Business!" In other words whatever business you're in you have to solve specific problems for people.

In relation to online marketing I'd now change that principle tenet to... "EVERY Online Business Is In The ONE Problem Solving Business!"

Some years ago Seth Godin (who used to be a high level executive at Yahoo) wrote an ebook titled "The Monkey With The Big Red Fez" (a fez being a middle eastern hat).  

His main point was this... "on any web page there should only ever be one thing that the monkey (visitor) has to do to get the banana (desired gift, product or service).  If you confuse the visitor with to many options (choices) they'll just get confused and leave (having done nothing).

Ken Evoy from Sitesell calls it your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Where Seth Godin applies the idea to a single web page Ken applies it an entire web site.

Does this then mean that you should only create BBL (Buy, Bookmark or Leave) sites? No it doesn't!  

It just means that one has to RESIST the temptation to make your site an all about everything site. 

It just means that one has to RESIST the impulse to join every good affiliate program that you come across and promote it.

And, this concept is NOT restricted to size.  A well constructed web portal should still use this idea of a unique, tightly focused USP. 

A web portal would solve specific problems within a wider themed context, say all things to do with "mohair". The content and sites within the portal would be specifically focused on solving problems in relation to all things "mohair" (products, manufacturing, suppliers etc).

What has this information got to do with the "Web Promotion Strategies"? Well nothing... and a lot.  What's the point of getting traffic to a site if the site doesn't sell anything when people arrive at it.  

Get the site infrastructure right FIRST!

So, in short... go back to your site, IDENTIFY your USP (unique selling proposition) and CUT all things unrelated or loosely related to your USP. You have got one haven't you?

Fortunately (or unfortunately) FeedYourHungryMind is a site focused on Internet Marketing Education. It can (by its nature) be quite broad with its USP.  However, if I were to do it all over again I'd create 14 unique, tightly focused sites with the content and information that's now on FYHM.

OR... perhaps I would create a 14 part series of VIRAL eReports on those FYHM topics.  In fact I might just do this now (before next Tuesday).  

Oops... In fact I've already done it.  The series is titled "Taming The eBeastie". The series is about to be released.  And... if you'd like to register your interest in getting your copy F*REE copy of the first eReport on Internet Marketing RESEARCH techniques then you can do so, HERE.

Remember... CUT... cull... chop... Tightly focus.

Cheers

Kenneth Doyle - e*Analyst