While I was doing a bit of research and trying to analyze why some sites are ranking high for very competitive search terms…

… I ran across a site that is currently ranking #1 in Goolge for the search term "Cheap Viagra " .

While digging through some of their inbound links I quickly found that a very popular tech website is actually helping them rank #1 because the link spammers pushing this site up to the top slipped a link into one of the Techcrunch web pages.

The Techcrunch post dates back to the summer of 2006… and this link spam was made in early 2007 and blatantly includes 2 links back to their website. (the bottom comment).

(t looks like comments are closed on that post now (as far as I can tell)… but I wonder why Techcrunch hasn’t taken it down yet.  It’s probably that they get so many comments on posts they might not manually moderate comments anymore… but instead use spam filters to do the bulk of the work (this is just a guess though… )

Anyhow, this is a good lesson to put the term "viagra" in your Askimet spam filter.

So… technically… without knowing it … Techcrunch has helped this site get to the top of a huge money term and I’m sure rake in thousands of sales each and every day (Clarification… Techcrunch isn’t raking in thousands from this, the Viagra site owner is).

Just to be clear, I don’t write this post to implicate Techcrunch on anything or insinuate that they even know about this comment on their site… I’m positive they probably don’t have a clue the comment is even on their site.  It just goes to show that ANY website can let spam comments slip through… and we all need to be sure to monitor the comments we approve to keep our company image and professionalism intact.  You never know if a comment like this could turn off prospect reading your website… and cost you real dollars.

Is blog commenting still working for SEO?

Yep… sure is…

Just ask the comment spammers behind the "Cheap Viagra" Google leaders.  Pretty much every inbound link I found going to their site is from comment spam… but not in a way that is blatant URL stuffed generic spam that we all see in our Askimet spam folders everyday.

It seems that a lot of the comments left on blogs from this URL do somewhat reference the post and/or the blog writers name… so they aren’t overtly spammy.  So, I guess you can call this spamming with a personal touch .

Seems to work (but I wouldn’t be able to tell you from first hand experience .

I’m sure you’ve seen the videos of this guy named Matt Harding doing his crazy "gumby-like" dance all around the world in front of well known monuments and landmarks in pretty much every country known to man.

If not… you really NEED to check the videos out for yourself… they are simple… but you’ll instantly see why millions of people have viewed the videos over the past couple years.  Actually… his most recent video (check it out below) was uploaded into Youtube on June 20th (3 days ago) and already has almost 2 million views… wow!

Anyhow, Matt did it again and just put out his most recent "Dancing Video " with a bunch of new locations… but he put a different twist on this dancing video.

What twist?… you say…

A new dance? NOPE… the same crazy (or stupid… ) dance as before.

A new sponsor? NOPE… Stride sponsored this one too.

The twist that Matt put on this most recent Where the Hell Is Matt "Dancing Video" is a twist of humanity.  Rather than Matt dancing alone… in every stop around the world Matt had big groups of people from that country joining in on the dance enjoying themselves each and every second.

Here’s the most recent video if you haven’t already watched it:

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo .

Dissecting The Video… Why Does It Work So Well?

Making a viral video isn’t an easy task… but new viral videos are created virtually everyday… usually by people who didn’t intend it to go viral… and didn’t expect to attempt to make a profit from it.  That’s part of what makes a video viral… it has to be genuine… remarkable… relevant… and pull on one or more of the psychological triggers that compel us to be drawn toward certain things.

If you’ve watched Matt’s other videos you can see that they all are similar and play on the same wants/desires/ and core identities of human beings.

What’s The Hook?

Just like in advertising and direct response marketing Matt’s "Dancing" videos didn’t become a big hit because they were dull, overused, and uncompelling.  The videos worked because they had a "hook" that worked so well with people that people could identify with the video and the message that it sent.

In Matt’s first videos there were a few hooks that drew people in:

• People desire to live life to the fullest … even though 90% of everyone alive isn’t living the life they truly want to live.  Traveling the world is a dream that many people have deep down in their core because they know that life has more to offer than what they’ve seen and experienced so far.
• Matt’s Story …  Without the story behind the story these videos probably wouldn’t have had the affect and reach that they did.  People identify with stories better than facts… and like to relate what we’re seeing to the story behind what we’re seeing… it becomes more real and genuine when we can peer behind the curtain a bit.  Matt worked his ass off for a few years and one day realized that this isn’t what life is all about.  There’s no way we were created to slave away in cubicles for 40-80 hours a week and be forced to start living our lives when we retire.  So… quit his job… packed up… and spent the next year and a half traveling the word.  Really… who the heck wouldn’t want to do that?  I’d venture to say that almost everyone deep down in their core wants to do that… whether you think you do or not.
• Going against the grain … Matt could have made that trip and did what every other tourist does… take a few pictures or a video of himself standing in front of cool stuff in each country.  But, that wouldn’t have gotten even 1,000 views on Youtube probably.  Instead, Matt does this crazy "dance" in front of recognizable places around the world… and completely melds the "usual" (the locations) with the "unusual" (the dance)…

In Matt’s newest video (the one on this page)… it plays on the same "hooks"… but Matt knew that a 3rd trip around the world doing the same thing wouldn’t get much legs on the internet.  So, he added in the element of getting locals to join in on the dance… truly making it a joining of nationalities across all language barriers.

The added hook of humanity has so far helped this newest video to go viral again.

So, Let’s Break Down The Triggers and Success Elements

Any marketing promotion, advertising campaign, or video has to tug at one or more of our psychological triggers.

I think that the Where the Hell Is Matt video series play on the EXACT same triggers as Tim Ferriss’s book "4 Hour Work Week ".

We all…

• Hate to work a 9-5 job and know there is more out there
• Have an ultimate dream to travel the world and/or experience things beyond our little cocoon when we "retire" (in actuality… we’d all rather do all of that now… but have a mixed up view on what life ‘is supposed’ to be like)
• Are vulnerable and like to see that others are vulnerable and imperfect like we are (Matt’s dance… he could have said, "I’m not going to put this on the internet… people will laugh at me"… but he didn’t… and people admire that)
• Realize by watching the video that we CAN experience the same thing Matt did if we truly want to… all we have to do is step out of our comfort zones and make the decision

With Matt’s latest "Where The Hell Is Matt" Dancing video it’s so successful because it of course grabs at our desires to "live life and see new things", brings the unexpected (the crazy dance in front of well known locations worldwide), and now brings a touch of humanity that we can all relate to.

The idea of filming yourself in front of places around the world, putting music to the video, and putting it on Youtube isn’t anything new.  It’s been done before… and didn’t go viral… not even close.

However, a great marketing principle is to take two things that we all know and like… but that are usually unrelated… and combine them into one.  Often this synergy makes the difference.  Matt joined travel and uninhibited dancing… and it was a hit.

Another recent video that went viral that simply joined two things that we all know and like… was the "Wii Fit Girl " video.   This video joined the craze that the new Wii Fit launch caused… and combined it with the voyeuristic look at a hot girl in her underwear using the Wii Fit.  This video has got almost 5 million views in the last 30 days.

All In All…

Okay… I’m rambling a bit now (I tend to do that sometimes … so I’ll leave you with this.

There is no hard and fast system that guarantees a video will go viral.  All you can do is study the videos that have gone viral, pinpoint why they are appealing, and start to make a list of things.  Over time you’ll see that all viral videos play on our own psychological triggers and usually combine 2 or more of those triggers into a "new" thing we’ve never seen before.

So, here it is:

• Come up with a new idea that no one has ever explored before (difficult), or
• Put a new twist on an "old" idea with a fresh new perspective
• Keep your video usually under 5 minutes
• Capitolize on a "craze" or trend
• Go after 2 or more psychological triggers

Good luck in creating your next viral video and you’ve gotta hand it to Matt for following his dream and putting a new twist on his success to keep legs under it at least for the rest of the summer.

Social media is kind of a confusing term for most businesses today… let alone knowing how the heck to use it to benefit their online presence and profits.

So, I thought I’d give you a quick tutorial on one way to use social media websites like digg.com , fark.com , de.licio.us , twitter.com , etc… to drive traffic to your website very quickly… and build multiple search engine rankings in the shortest amount of time possible.

Who Should Use This Social Media Optimization Strategy?

Well… everyone. Everyone who wants more traffic , more quickly , more often , and for less money and effort . Is that you? If not, I’m going to have to ask you to push the back button on your browser and head over to your favorite news site and not come back here again ( , seriously ).

All kidding aside, every business who has a website should institute this simple Social Media optimization strategy (or one like it) for your important and high quality content.

What Is Social Media and Why Does It Help Your Website?

In simple terms, a Social Media website is a place where a community of people come to share things on the internet, network and connect with others, and find things that are related to their likes and interests.

Sounds simple huh? Well… it is.

Social Media can help your website and business in many ways including:

• Direct people to your website and content
• Build links back to your site for search engine optimization purposes
• Monitoring the discussion in your market… and about your business and products
• Engaging in the conversation with your market… and building a stronger relationship with them
• Networking to find new business joint ventures, partners, etc.

But, in this tutorial I’m just going to cover the part of building links back to your website and content (SEO) and driving traffic to your website quickly and easily.

Social Media Optimization for SEO and Driving Quick Traffic

In simple terms, what we’re going to do here is in 4 simple steps:

1. Create high quality content worth telling people about
2. Go to social media websites and let them know about your content, what it’s about, and create a good and compelling headline that piques peoples curiosity about your content
3. Integrate multiple social media websites together (news and RSS feed aggregators, bookmarking services, and video/podcast posting websites) in a way that best builds a web of links back to your content
4. Rinse and repeat for new content

Really, traffic can come from a few different places by using a strategy like this.

First , you get traffic from people clicking through to view your content (article, video, picture, etc.)

Second , you get traffic from search engines because the actual "bookmarks" or "submissions" on the social media website often show up great in search results (and very fast!) when you title it with the keywords and phrases that your target market is likely to search.

Third , many people who have websites and blogs read these social media websites every day looking for things to write about. If they see something worth passing along to their readers, they’ll write about your article and usually link back to your website… driving traffic to your site and building high quality links.

Okay, here we go…

Step 1: Create High Quality Content Worth Telling People About

This step is pretty self-explanatory… but not as simple as it sounds. The internet today is packed with more information than the world ever dreamed of just 20 years ago. This means that there are more competing places for your target markets attention.  Jeff Widman calls this type of content "wall-able "… meaning we should strive to create content that people would want to print off and hang on their wall because it is so profound, entertaining, valuable, etc.

In order to grab their attention… and keep it… you need to create high quality, high trust, content that is different than the other millions of web pages with similar content.

Whether it be separating yourself by being:

• Humorous
• More relevant
• More detailed
• More honest
• More cutting edge
• More timely
• and on and on…

You need to separate yourself from the pack in some way so your target market stands up and notices what you have to say… and cares about what you have to say. You can be mediocre and get noticed at first… but mediocrity does not last for the long haul and is way more expensive than just spending the extra time and effort to concentrate on getting only high quality stuff out there.

Here are some great resources to check out to help you learn how to create memorable content that will get you noticed:

• Do You Have Remarkable Featured Content?
• A Three Step Approach To Strategic Content Development
• How to Create Remarkable Content When There’s Nothing New Under the Sun

Just remember, when creating content… ask yourself the question, "Why would someone care about this?". If you have a good and solid answer for why someone truly would care about your content… excellent… post it and market the heck out of it. If not, keep writing.

Writing A Compelling Yet Relevant SEO Enhanced Title:

Part of creating great content is to create a great title (or "headline") for your content. Great compelling headlines will likely be read more through the social media websites because people will be compelled to click on them more.

Also, the title of the article, post, video, etc. should contain the keywords and phrases your target audience is likely to type into search engines.

FOR EXAMPLE:

You just wrote content packed article on the in’s and out’s of writing a kick @ss elevator speech.

You want to make sure the title of the article reflects what the article is about, is compelling, and has the keyword phrases that people are actually typing in search engines when looking for the solution your article helps them solve.

So, head over to: (and bookmark this site for future reference)

• http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com (free keyword searcher)

Once you’re there type in "elevator speech" and see what types of searches people are ACTUALLY typing into the search engines.

In there you find…

These phrases are the actual phrases that people are typing in to search engines to get information on "elevator speeches". The numbers to the left of the phrases is the estimate of "daily" searches for that specific search phrase. Keyword Tracker doesn’t include Google in these estimates, which accounts for 2/3 of all searches on the net… so if you multiply the number on the left by 3… that’ll give you a decent idea of the search volume (still, this is just good for an overall look at phrases and volume… not 100% accurate).

In this search you see that the most searches are the phrases:

• "elevator speech"
• "elevator speech realtor example" (this shows that you might want to write an article specifically about elevator speeches for realtors)
• "elevator speech examples"
• another is "how to write an elevator speech"

So, now sit down with this new found knowledge and try to integrate one of these phrases (ideally one with more searches) into your content title.

For instance, if your article is on how to write an elevator speech… but you also include 7 examples of great elevator speeches… you might write something like:

"7 Elevator Speech Examples From Millionaire Entrepreneurs and How To Write One Yourself "

or

"How To Write An Elevator Speech That Actually Loses You Money "

Ya, I admit… the first one is a bit long… but you get the picture. With the second title, I used the reverse psychology principle. People will want to read the article simply to make sure their elevator speech isn’t one of the one’s that "lose money".

Notice how I integrated the "elevator speech examples" phrase and added some elements that will hopefully pique the interest of the reader.

Anyhow, that is a quick primer course on writing headlines for SEO and to make them compelling for readers to click on. For more info on writing headlines and content head over to copyblogger … he usually has some pretty darn good content over there on writing online copy.

Step 2: Let Social Media Websites Know About Your Content

The first time you do this step it will take you a bit of time… mostly because you need to go and set up free accounts at each site before you can post content. After your free accounts are all set up (usually takes no more than 5 minutes to set up free accounts on each site), you can really automate the posting process pretty easily.

There are a lot of places to find great social media websites that you can post your content to… and I’m not going to make a full list of social media sites (there are hundreds… maybe thousands), but we’ll just use a solid base of 20-50 social media sites to get the word out.

Various Social Media Websites:

• Digg.com
• stumbleupon.com
• de.licio.us
• propeller.com
• reddit.com
• slashdot.com

And a ton of others that I use.

Rather than redoing the work that other people have already done… here are a couple links that have great lists of social media websites that are great for driving traffic and building great links and buzz for your website.

• Dosh Dosh’s List of 48 Social Media Sites (great list)
• Tropical SEO’s List (good list as well… he’s got some that I hadn’t heard of)

At first, pick 20-30 social media sites (just go w/ the first 30 Dosh Dosh lists or the ones that socialmarker.com has)… and use them for your first batch of social media optimization. I like starting off small so you don’t get overwhelmed by the process and give up because it seems like too much work.

How To Get The Word Out:

There are a bunch of different ways to get your content onto these social media websites. One approach is to do each submission one at a time, which is good just so you learn the process… but takes way too much time if you do it every time.

I prefer to use services that help speed up the "bookmarking" and "submission" process like:

Socialmarker.com -

Socialmarker.com is a "semi-automatic" social media posting service that lets you post your content to about 50 of the top social media websites in probably about 25% of the time it would take you to go to each website individually. I use it a lot of the time because it’s easy and is free.

Onlywire.com -

Onlywire.com is pretty much the same as socialmarker… but with a few different bookmarking sites… and about half of the choices. Really, they both do the same thing (socialmarker supports more sites though) so check them both out and use the one (or use both) that you like the best.

Really, it doesn’t matter how you end up submitting your content to these social media websites… it just matters that it is done… and done correctly. If I were you, I’d start off doing it yourself the first couple times so you can then train someone else to do it in your company… or hire a Virtual Assistant to do it for you (which is what I do).

Submitting Your Content:

Head over to Socialmarker.com and fill in the box in the upper right hand corner of the page with your:

• Content title (optimized for SEO as I wrote above and compelling)
• The link to the content
• Text explaining the content in a compelling way. You are looking to persuade people to click on your article.
• Tags. Basically, type terms that are related to your content. So, if you’re writing on elevator speeches you might use, "elevator speech, how to write, marketing, personal branding" etc.

From there, of course click "submit" and the social marker site will take you to each social media website to submit your content. The first time through you’ll have to set up accounts at each site… so it may take a little while… but after that it shouldn’t take longer than 15-20 minutes to submit to more than 40 social media websites.

Advanced Social Bookmarking:

I won’t go into depth on this because this is a whole other article… but when you really get into social bookmarking your content… you’ll want to create multiple accounts at each social media website.

The reason for this is to of course provide more links to your content … but also to spread the submissions out across multiple accounts so it isn’t obvious that you are only submitting your own content… which social media sites tend to not like. Newsvine.com actually is pretty strict on this and my first time through I got my account canceled in just 3 weeks because I only submitted my OWN content.

And, it is important to bookmark content other than your own periodically to make it look like you aren’t only on their site to submit your content.

In addition, multiple accounts lets you leverage all of the accounts together to form a big web of links between your content and your websites… resulting in better search rankings (that’s the idea anyway).

But, don’t worry about these techniques yet except for the one about being sure to bookmark other articles other than your own periodically to throw off the social media sites from "thinking" that you are only bookmarking your own content.

The Aftermath (RESULTS):

After you bookmark your content with the targeted title, you should begin to see traffic coming in within 24 hours.

How much traffic?

Well… that depends on the quality of your content and how compelling your title was written.

Also, by submitting your content to the social media sites… the search engines (especially Google) will follow the links back to your website and index your content almost immediately. I’ve had my content show up in Google within 2 hours before… which is huge.

Here is a screen shot of the results of one article (with a video I created) after I optimized the article and video in social media. This was taken just 2 days after I did the submissions. This is the first page of a search for the name of a pretty popular product. The first two results are #1: the manufacturer of the product and #2 Amazon.com. After that, I take up 7 or the 8 remaining spots with either my website or social media pointing back to my content.

I didn’t post that screenshot to brag… just to illustrate the point that social media optimization really works when done correctly.

Step 3: Build The "Web" Of Links That All Lead Back To Your Company

The whole aim of social media optimization is to lead people back to you and your company in some way, shape, or form.

Really, I don’t care how people get back to my website… I just care that they do .

The best way to ensure you attract the most visitors back to your website is to cast the largest "web" out on the net.

You can do this by integrating social media and other internet marketing techniques together to get your content out to as many places as possible.

Here are some methods to build your "web":

• Social Media Marketing (as described in this article)
• RSS Feed Syndication
• Video Marketing / Content Producing
• Podcasts
• Press Releases and Articles (I won’t cover these here)

And on and on. Once again, this is a whole other article… so I’ll go over it briefly.

RSS Feed Syndication:

An rss feed is simply a way that people can easily read the content from your website without actually going to your website.  For example, you can "subscribe" to a feed and read the articles in your Google Feedreader or other feed reading service.  Yahoo news (and most other give news aggregation sites) use RSS feeds to gather the news and put it on their own website for their visitors to see.

The first step is to head over to www.feedburner.com and set up a free account.  Once you have your account up and running "burn a feed" (video instructions here ) for your website/blog, etc… and you’re done.

Now, whenever you write an article, your RSS feed is automatically updated.  Now, you can use this "new feed" provided by Feedburner to submit your feed to website and blog directories like Technorati.com , Yahoo News, and www.pingomatic.com which will get your content out to multiple websites automatically every time you write new content.

Pretty slick huh?  There is more to RSS feeds than this… but this gives you a good idea where to start and why to use RSS feed syndication.

Video Marketing / Content Creation:

Another pillar of your "web" should be video.  Video is a very effective way to drive people back to your website, teach online, provide great value, and generate more traffic.

Film a video of you talking about how your target market can solve a particular solution (that you help them solve)… or do a powerpoint presentation with your voice over… title your videos using the tips I mentioned earlier… place your website URL in the video to drive people back to your site… and submit the video to multiple video sharing sites like Youtube.com , Revver.com , Viddler.com , and others.

This is essentially the same concept as the social media marketing … but you are now creating video as your content and submitting the video to video sharing websites.

The same thing goes with submitting the videos…

You can do them one at a time yourself… or use websites like the ones below to "automatically" submit your videos in 5% of the time.

• Tubemogul.com – Free video submission service.  I use this one quite a bit and it works great… but it doesn’t support a lot of the video sharing website I like to use.  Great for free though.
• Trafficgeyser – Membership based automatic video submitting service that supports many more video sharing sites than Tubemogul.  The plans run between $50 and $97 / month and have a ton more features in addition to just submitting your videos.  I’m pretty sure they still have the $1 30 day trial .  I used to be a member but now I go with Tubemogul quite a bit and my Virtual Assistants who do the video posting for me using my systems.

Either way, I suggest you either hire out the video submitting or use one of the automatic posting services above.

That screenshot you saw earlier where I dominated many of the top 10 spots in google for the product name… most of those results came from these video sites.

Podcasts :

I haven’t gotten into podcasts a whole lot… but I do know that they work great for getting out your message and converting people into clients.

Since I’m not an expert on using Podcasts… I’ll point you over to Paul Colligan who is one of the top business podcasting experts in the world.

Bottom line… podcasts are just another way to get your word out and grab more attention.

———-

Whew!

I know this article was a tad bit long… but I wanted to go into as much detail as possible on the overall social media optimization process that I use to easily generate:

• More traffic to my own (and my clients) websites
• Traffic more quickly
• More links to my websites
• Better search engine rankings

Really, the process sounds somewhat daunting at first… but once you go through the process the first time you’ll see how easy it is.

The really important part of making this work for your business is systematizing the whole social media optimization process so it is as hands off for YOU as possible.  Have a secretary or intern in your office take over the system… outsource it to a Virtual Assistant… hire a consultant (like myself) to take it totally off of your hands… etc.

Your job is to focus on creating quality content and serving your customers better… this social media optimization process simply helps you get the word out on the internet much more quickly, efficiently, and cheaply.

Any Question On The Value Of This System?

I know a social media marketing plan like this one is very valuable to my business and the businesses of my clients.  However, many small and medium sized businesses fail to see the value… until they see the targeted traffic coming in as a result.

Social media marketing / optimization works in all markets .  From ecommerce sites like Amazon.com… all the way to mainly offline businesses like attorneys, insurance salesmen, consultants, etc.

Develop a social media marketing and optimization plan (use mine to start) and get going!  You can have more targeted traffic later this afternoon if you want!

——

Social Media Marketing combined with traditional direct response Internet Marketing strategies and SEO are truly a killer combination for driving more traffic and converting it better.  If you’d like to hire Trevor Mauch to help you get the most out of your small or medium sized business website for the highest ROI possible … contact him to schedule a consultation today .

**UPDATE**

I am currently booked out for the next 60 days with project based and retainer clients.  I do have 2 projects scheduled to be completed soon… so email me so I can place you in my consultation cue and get your project moving asap.  I look forward to doubling your online ROI today!

"Mr. Mauch, now please click the ‘upgrade account’ button on the left side of your account page ", the polite gal says in a slight Indian accent.

"Well… I truly wish I could but it’s not there… but I do know where it is. Let me go there and click it ", I said in a mildly perturbed tone.

"Okay Mr. Mauch, please do. Then, click the ‘upgrade my account to a business account’ link on the right side and complete the short form and click ’submit ‘", explained Remzi who is very good at doing exactly what she was trained to do as a Paypal customer service rep.

"Alrighty, I’ve done this same thing about 16 times in the last 24 hours and it takes me to an error page (actually a ‘Page Not Found’ page) every time… I’ve followed the 4 responses from email support with no success… changed computers… changed internet networks… but I’ll try it again for one last college try ", I said in a quasi-sarcastic way that I tend to do.

As I filled out the form once again as I had already done 16 times, I got to the bottom of the page and that corny movie suspense filled music crept into my mind as I hovered my mouse pointer over the "submit" button praying that this ordeal would finally be over.

Click…

"Yep, same thing. Big fat error. Is there anyway you can upgrade me over the phone rather than me wasting another 2 hours of my time trying to do a 5 minute task on your website? ", I pleaded to Remzi.

"No Mr. Mauch, that is ALL I can do for you from here… that sounds like a technical problem to me. Here’s the technical support number… they SHOULD be able to help you. "

And the saga continues…

Customer Service Isn’t Customer Service… It’s Marketing In Disguise

As I type this, the ordeal I just played out (by the way, that is a real situation) is still in mid plot.

• My problem hasn’t been solved
• I’ve already wasted more than 2 hours on this stupid little task hoping the solution would be one click away
• I’ve now worked with no less than 4 different customer service people
• Now instead of "putting up" with this company’s lackluster customer service in the past… I’m actively searching for another option that isn’t such a pain in the ass

I’m not going to spend a ton more time on this issue… but in the time I’ve spent with these very nice and polite… and well scripted outsourced customer "service" reps from Paypal… I’ve really been reminded of a very important fact that many companies completely forget about.

Customer service = Marketing

Customer service isn’t a task that should be put off as merely a "support" task. Customer service truly plays an active role in retaining current customers… and attracting new ones.

Sounds like marketing to me… how about you?

Take my situation for instance, I’ve never really regarded Paypal as a company who has award winning customer service… but the products/services Paypal offers are pretty darn good and really the best option for many situations. So, I’ve happily used them.

However, this is the first time I’ve had an issue with Paypal… and it’s not even a very complicated or all that important issue when you really get down to it. It’s an issue with a link not taking me to the page I need to go to… should be simple huh?

So, Here’s My Question…

What would be easier (for me and them), save more time (for me and them), save more money (for me and them), and result in an all around positive experience for both me and Paypal?

Simple really.

When a current customer calls in to support after dealing with email support (multiple times) with no avail… why can’t customer support act like a marketer and take care of the problem FOR ME over the phone… instead of walking me through the SAME steps I’ve already taken (that didn’t work)… then asking me to call another department (not even forwarding the call for me)??

Not sure. Pretty simple business answer to me… and I’m sure Ebay’s(owns Paypal) shareholders would be asking the same question.

Customer Service = Marketing

Bad customer service (this company had great reps, responded quickly, but has never solved the problem) can harm your business… and provide negative PR like this article.

Why not turn that into a positive experience and create a raving fan… which can actually attract new clients?

Last Thought…

Too many companies out there focus so much on getting customer service reps technically proficient and polished rather than empowering them to solve the customers problem at all reasonable cost .

What’s reasonable? That’s for the company to decide.

But, I’m pretty sure Paypal (Ebay) can agree that allowing a customer service rep to upgrade my personal account to a business account (when their website isn’t working) on the phone for me is not unreasonable… therefore making that an excellent opportunity to further "market" their great company to me to solidify it’s already strong position in my mind.

UPDATE: Amazon was back up when I published this post… for a minute or two… now it’s back down.  Keep the $30,864.20 A MINUTE counting.

If you haven’t already seen it already… the Amazon.com website is down today for a while (I’m not sure how long).

For a company this big who relies so heavily on their website… this is a big deal.

How Big of A Deal?

• 2nd Quarter 2008 Projected Revenues for Amazon = $4 Billion
• That’s $44,444,444 a Day
• $1,851,851 an Hour
• $30,864.20 a Minute
• $514.40 a Second

How Long Was Amazon.com Down?

It is tough to tell how long Amazon.com was down for… but for all of those people who say that Twitter isn’t good for anything… I did a search at Summize.com to see when the Twitter stream started chatting about it (which is usually pretty close to real time nowadays).

Here’s what I found:

I ran this search on Summize.com at about 12:10 pm PST… not more than 5 minutes after Amazon.com came back online… which means that Amazon.com was down for right around 2 hours (can’t get it exact right now). When I ran this search, there were more than 600 mentions of the Amazon.com downtime (likely way more now).

So, if Amazon.com was down for about 2 hours, this flub might have cost them $3,703,702 in lost revenues (according to my rough social media ninja computing skills … and a ton of semi-negative chatter on the internet. Amazon could actually have used social media to turn this around and lesson the impact.

So Here It Is…

This post has a few lessons:

1. How important uptime is for ecommerce websites (pretty obvious) and how important a backup plan is in cases like these
2. How useful the social media is in fact finding and getting real-time news that companies and the rest of us can use to jump on trends. Look at Twitter… Twitter is more and more becoming a first line as far as breaking news comes… why aren’t all journalists on Twitter again?
3. Throughout all of this… Amazon.com didn’t come out and comfort their customers at all. Not even a message on the error page, no spokesperson on Twitter telling people what was going on, NOTHING. Big and small companies everywhere need to embrace the social media if they want to keep ahead of the crap talking curve online… get out there when the internet starts chatting… be a voice of comfort for your customers.

In all reality… the internet is still a pretty new marketing channel (less than 15 years old) and most small businesses haven’t quite mastered (or even tried) the art of marketing their business on the internet.

I hear it all of the time from small business owners (businesses from $250k to $5 million) that they don’t know "how to market a business on the internet ". The answer I give time and time again is that marketing your small business on the internet is NO DIFFERENT than marketing your business offline… you are just using the same marketing techniques on a new medium.

After successfully taking over the internet marketing (in other words, direct response marketing on the internet) strategies for many small businesses I’ve come to realize that really there are just a few simple steps that all small businesses need to take to get the most bang for their buck on the internet.

And yes, ALL small businesses can benefit from the right internet marketing and brand building strategy if done correctly… which I’m about to show you how. This article is the first of 3 articles in this series where I will walk you through the process of getting more traffic to your website and converting the traffic better into customers.

Keep in mind, some of these steps seem kind of in-depth and cumbersome… but in reality… when you dig into it and create systems to support each step… it’s much easier than it looks.

Step #1: Figure Out What You Want Out Of Your Web Presence… and Why

The first step small businesses (or any business for that matter) need to take before you dump too much money into your website and internet marketing strategy is to figure out what the heck you really want your website to do for you.

Websites can serve all kinds of functions including:

• To act as a simple business card (not recommended)
• To actually make the sale of your product to your customer (also called e-commerce) – Think Amazon.com here
• To generate leads for your business
• To act as a brochure for your business/product
• To be the communication channel between you and your customer

… and on and on. You get the idea. Different businesses have different needs for a website… but ALL businesses SHOULD have a website of some sort.

Retail Businesses -

If you are a retail business and want to extend your sales funnel to include online sales… you’ll of course need to center your website and internet marketing strategy around getting people to your site to purchase products right then and there. This includes having a shopping cart and ecommerce platform to take orders, show your products, etc.

Your goal is to make direct sales online and every aspect of your website should be geared toward educating prospects on the benefits they’ll receive from your products and converting them into buyers both now and later.

Service Businesses -

If you have a service business such as a consulting practice, professional practice (dentist, attorney, insurance, doctor, CPA, etc.), hard service (carpet cleaner, maid, plumber, etc.), or any other type of service business… you really need to have your website and internet marketing strategy focus on educating your target market on the benefits they’ll receive from your services… and converting them to take an action such as calling you, giving you their contact info/email address, requesting a white paper, etc.

Your goal is to gain new clients and your website should be geared toward educating prospects on the benefits your service will provide them and converting them into somehow giving you their information or making a direct contact with you.

Too many small businesses throw up a website that is a glorified business card and expect people to just start calling. Odds are, you won’t get any calls no matter how nice your site looks or how much you paid the web designer to build it. Figure out what you want your site to do for your business and make sure your site follows through with that goal.

Really get down to the core of what your business does and think of how you want your website to fit into your overall marketing strategy. Your website should be an extension of your offline marketing efforts… not in addition to.

Step #2: Create and Optimize Your Website and Integrate It With Your Offline Marketing

All websites are NOT created equal… and are often 180 degrees from what you would expect.

The most visually appealing website in the world that cost $9,000 for a graphic artist to create may result in ZERO sales (which is what happened with one of my clients)… while an "ugly" website that has the right focus and sales copy might be a profit machine. Your goal is to get a good balance of visual appeal and great salesmanship.

Create Your Website -

A website doesn’t need to be elaborate or filled with great graphics… it just needs to get your message across in a way that converts the site visitor to take the desired action.

If you want to tackle the website yourself there are some simple programs that will enable you to make a great website like:

• Microsoft Frontpage (not my favorite, but it’s the easiest to use)
• Adobe Dreamweaver (expensive, not all that easy to learn, but very very powerful… I use it for some projects)
• Wordpress (what I use for this site. Free, great templates available, easy to use once you get the design finished, difficult to make design changes if you don’t know php)

There are more but those three are my favorite. I prefer Wordpress and use it for most of my own websites and my clients websites because it is so flexible, search engine friendly, and has a great community of developers who do great work.

Or, you can hire out the web work to a web design firm who knows how to create a search engine optimized website (WARNING: most will tell you they do… but really have no clue).

Whichever way you go, you can expect between $500 and $7,000 for a decent website. Finding great web guys is very difficult… so if you need a web designer shoot me an email and I can refer you to great companies I have worked with in the past (FYI, I’m not a web designer… I’m a marketer).

Optimize Your Website -

SEO

Part of the process of creating your website is optimizing it for the search engines and for better conversion. I won’t go into depth too much in this article about how to optimize your website for the search engines (I could write a whole book on just that topic) but I’ll go over the very basics.

1. Determine which search phrases your target market likely types into the search engines and create content around those phrases
2. Edit your "title tags" so they include the target phrase for that page. i.e. – If you are a personal injury attorney in San Diego… the title tag for your home page might be something like "San diego injury attorney" or for the page on brain injuries it could be something like "San diego brain injury attorney". Those are just quick examples… but you get the idea.
3. Include information, links (internal and external), headings, etc. that are related to your business and phrases that your market is likely to type into search engines.
4. Gather links from related websites that point back to your website. The best way to do this is to just create valuable, usable, and great content that people will want to link to anyway.

Really, there’s so much more to SEO… but that’s enough to get you started. If you don’t want to mess with doing the SEO yourself, shoot me an email and I’d be glad to do a free review of your website (as time permits).

In basic terms, create great content that will truly help your target market solve whatever problems you will help them solve. If the content is valuable, people will link to it and search engines will see that and reward you with better search rankings.

Conversion

As far as optimizing your website for conversion , it’s pretty simple (simple sounding… sometimes a bit more difficult in practice).

Make sure your website guides the prospect along in the "sales" process in a logical flow to compel them to do what you want them to do. If you are a retail business, Amazon.com has the conversion thing down. Study their website and their sales process to see what is working great (study everything about it… it converts at something like 12% which is crazy).

If you are in a service business, make it easy for people find the information they are looking for ("how to" information is great), create benefit oriented copy, have "calls to action" that request the reader to take a specific action, and gather leads. That’s pretty simplified but gives you a great idea of what your website should do.

Integrate Your Website and Internet Marketing With Your Offline Strategy -

Too often small businesses think that the internet is an "addition" to their offline marketing… when in actuality it should be treated as an extension of your offline marketing strategy.

Be sure to align your offline and online marketing message so your prospect finds a congruent message across all mediums and is guided along in the sales process seamlessly from offline to online and vice versa.

Here are some ways to integrate your website with your offiline marketing strategy:

• At the least, place your website on your business cards … preferably place a call to action on your business cards such as, "Download Your Free 60 Minute Audio ‘7 Costly Mistakes To Avoid When Planning Your Next Vacation’ at www.yourtravelsitehere.com". This drives offline people online and further qualifies them as an interested prospect.
• Include your website on all marketing materials (a printed book, banners, brochures, letterhead, yellow page ads, handouts at networking meetings, etc.)
• Ask offline customers to go online to take a survey in exchange for something of value
• Create contests, giveaways, etc. that require people to go to your website to participate
• Sign customers and prospects up for a free newsletter which gives them great information, discounts, etc.

There are a ton of ways to integrate your online presence with your offline presence… but virtually all businesses should at least include their website on your offline marketing materials in some way shape or form. The more you can get people to engage in your marketing message the more apt they are to use you for solutions to their problem.

The Business Card Syndrome -

Most small businesses still have what I like to call the "business card syndrome ". This is where small businesses fall in the trap of putting up a website that is just a glorified business card. You know what I mean… the site tells about you and what you do, has your contact info, and that’s about it. A glorified business card.

We all get so used to handing out business cards to hopefully evoke an action from a prospect (the action is to get them to call me back). So, many people think that doing the same thing with their website will be a good idea.

WRONG.

Your website should act as a salesman that never sleeps and should educate your prospect, show your credibility, provide value to them before they ever buy, help them to realize their problem, and compel them to contact you for the solution. A simple business card approach just leaves too many potential customers on the table and does not provide your company with a very good ROI.

Large corporate companies with many representatives are famous for the business card syndrome . They provide their reps with their own "website" which amounts to little more than a business card… and most reps think this is the only "website" they need.

Your small business website should educate your target market on solutions to their problems… the solutions that you can help them achieve.

(This is Part 1 in a 3 Part Series Called "Marketing Your Small Business On The Internet – 6 Easy Steps". Subscribe to my RSS feed to be notified when Parts 2 and 3 are posted)

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Up Next:

Part 2:

• Step #3: Research Your Market and Create A Content Plan That Gives HUGE Value
• Step #4 : Create Solid Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Strategies and Implement Them Faithfully

Part 3:

• Step #5 : Get Consistently and Persistently Active In The Conversation With Your Target Market… and Become The Expert
• Step #6: Continue To Look For New Opportunities To Reach Your Target Market