An important election year is on the way, and before long we’ll probably all be wanting to see it over and done with. Needless to say, we’ll be seeing quite a lot of political ads, and I have a feeling the move to online ads will accelerate. There’s no doubt that online ads are an increasingly important tool for presidential candidates, but I’m starting to wonder if there might be a problem with online advertising by candidates for Congress.
There have always been annoying marketing tactics out there but recently I’ve come across a few that just pushed right past annoying and went straight to that angry place where a line has been crossed and not only would I never buy whatever product or service that’s being pushed but I also would want to tell everyone I know not to as well. Bet the advertisers weren’t planning on that.
There are those who subscribe to the notion that any publicity is good publicity, but when it comes to marketing I certainly don’t feel those same rules apply.
If you’ve done any online shopping yourself you’re probably well aware of coupon codes. These are codes that can get you spiffy discounts on whatever you’re purchasing. A simple internet search for the site you’re purchasing from can usually result in a number of listings of sites where people post these codes for others to use. If you run an ecommerce site and you’re unaware of this, then you’ve got a little catching up to do.
Just because a website is “launched” on the web, doesn’t mean you’ll be rocketed up to #1 in Google! This is why search engine optimization companies will charge you thousands of dollars to run campaigns for you. Even still, this is marketing we’re talking about and there are no hard guarantees that campaigns will be a success and get you tons of new customers.
Although we don’t offer in house SEO now we did years ago. We just don’t have the staff to accommodate it since it can be a full time job in and of itself but we have kept up on the, “tricks of the trade” so to speak. We’ve found that WordPress is an excellent platform for SEO. We also consult our clients on how to get the most bang for their buck in the SEO world and we augment our consulting with things like setting up WordPress with the proper plug ins to enhance your online visibility (or if we’re not doing WordPress, just creating nice clean code with optimized content, meta tags, title tags etc.).
A lot of companies bring in new clients based on their previous client list but this can be misleading. Just because someone has worked with a big name client doesn’t mean that they’re a more effective or better marketing company.
Recently a potential new client came to me and asked me to evaluate their marketing message. This included looking over their website, social media and pitch packages. In looking at what they have ‘out there’ I came to a really fast conclusion. Their message lacked cohesion
Recently, I’ve had a spate of clients who have come to me after having not so pleasant experiences with other marketing companies or agencies. The vast majority of these people have paid a fortune for products or services that didn’t benefit their company at all but they were part of a package that was sold to them by very prominent marketing companies. By the time these clients have gotten to me, they’re broke, their marketing needs a complete overhaul, and they’re gun shy.
