Steal Business Away From Your Competitors
--- Piggy Back on Your Competitors' Marketing Efforts
I've got a great story to tell you -- and it is true!
The punch line (for those of you that
can't wait) is that I benefited from the marketing efforts of one
of my competitors without
doing anything or spending a dime. Learn how you can do it too.
Last month, I was contacted via email from my Web
site, asking for some
advice from my "firm" on what colleges and/or career paths
I would recommend for their high school son who is a computer whiz. It
was signed "Mom & Dad".
I get these kinds of requests from time-to-time
and treat them very seriously. First of all, I think they are being very resourceful parents,
secondly, I was honored that they asked my opinion -- and an opinion
I do have, and thirdly, I appreciate any opportunity to be helpful.
As an aside, for those of you new to networking to
grow your business, you build relationships with people by first
helping them in some way that is important to them. You never know
where business will come from and they may give you your next referral.
I called them back immediately and they were quite
impressed that I gave them such quick response time (make sure
that you do this too). We spent 20 minutes talking
on the phone and eventually I got around to asking how they happened
to find out about me.
They told me that they were from Austin Texas and heard on TV about
an Ohio web site company that maintained over 700 websites. (I'm
not sure if it was via fr^ee publicity or a paid advertisement,
but it doesn't matter.)
They went to the search engines, found
me, and the rest is history.
Some important points to share:
- I was the only one that they contacted
- It
didn't cost me a thing
- I benefited from my competitor's marketing without
doing any marketing myself in Austin Texas just
by show up in the search engines ahead of them or instead of them
- I "looked" bigger than I am because of
the professional look of my Web site (I am not a "firm" but
a one-person business)
The Bottom Line
My competitor spent money and/or effort to get mentioned
on TV, but failed to capitalize on the importance of getting visibility
in the search engines to get that all-important contact.
Are you taking advantage of your competitors' marketing for
your business? Getting visibility in the fr^ee search engines
(aka natural search), using search engine optimization (SEO) is
the best marketing value around because it is:
- Longer lasting than a TV commercial or one-day newspaper ad
- Highly Targeted -- they type in targeted search engine phrases to
find your products and services
Results do not happen overnight,
but with consistent Web site tweaking, it will happen. Give me
a call to learn more.
Example of actual results
By the way, as of today, if you search Google for "Ohio Web Design",
my home page is #6 on page 1 of Google. That is only one of hundreds
of keyword phrases for which I am driving traffic to my website.
More
next month on the variability of keyword phrases that people
use to find YOU.
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