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My gripe with you kids today....
SecurityProfessional
subscriber Posts: 2
I have been participating in these forums for about a year and a half now and have learned a great deal from everyone.
However, there seems to be a general misconception among many in the group that marketing begins and ends with your website. It is fairly common to hear the owner of a start-up service business (computer support, graphic design, accounting, etc.) complain that "I put up my website six weeks ago, listed with the search engines, and am still getting no business...what`s wrong?" It`s as if just putting up the website is all it takes to get a business off the ground today.
Granted, some people here are running businesses such as virtual stores where their website is their business. But for the majority of us, a website is useful marketing tool, but will never be a significant source of business by itself. We still need to heavily rely on the many of the "old-school" marketing techniques such as cold-calling, networking, and personalized direct mail if we are to generate and sustain new business. It can take years (not weeks or months) of hard work for this type of effort to pay off.
So, my advice to those of you hiding behind your computer is to push yourself away from the monitor, and pick-up the phone and call some actual prospects. Lots of them. Spending an hour or two on the telephone each day will probably generate more business than you can handle. Sure, you will experience a lot of rejection, but will gain real-world insight into your marketplace, competition, and the needs of your prospective clients.
SecurityProfessional10/2/2008 10:28 AM
However, there seems to be a general misconception among many in the group that marketing begins and ends with your website. It is fairly common to hear the owner of a start-up service business (computer support, graphic design, accounting, etc.) complain that "I put up my website six weeks ago, listed with the search engines, and am still getting no business...what`s wrong?" It`s as if just putting up the website is all it takes to get a business off the ground today.
Granted, some people here are running businesses such as virtual stores where their website is their business. But for the majority of us, a website is useful marketing tool, but will never be a significant source of business by itself. We still need to heavily rely on the many of the "old-school" marketing techniques such as cold-calling, networking, and personalized direct mail if we are to generate and sustain new business. It can take years (not weeks or months) of hard work for this type of effort to pay off.
So, my advice to those of you hiding behind your computer is to push yourself away from the monitor, and pick-up the phone and call some actual prospects. Lots of them. Spending an hour or two on the telephone each day will probably generate more business than you can handle. Sure, you will experience a lot of rejection, but will gain real-world insight into your marketplace, competition, and the needs of your prospective clients.
SecurityProfessional10/2/2008 10:28 AM
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Comments
I have a list of online and offline traffic ideas on my blog dougmcisaac.com, but it really comes down to two steps
1. Find out where your customers are
2. Get your message in front of them
Everything else is a detail.
Doug