Internet Marketing 7

Developing an internet marketing strategy is woven with the unique selling proposition. You really can not separate the two concepts from each other. When is the last time you saw an ad for the online mega-success Amazon.com? Wait, I’ll tell you… It was more than two years ago.

That’s when Amazon.com, the online retail giant, announced that they were going to abandon advertising completely. No more clever television spots. No more full-page magazine ads. No newspaper. No radio. No emails. No pop ups. Not even a $2 classified ad in your local free paper. They changed their approach the Marketing Psychology.

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Lead generation is one of the biggest challenges real estate agents face in today’s extremely competitive market. While most agents have a website, many don’t know how to drive targeted traffic to it. Especially, how to do this all for free. Here is just one of the many things you can do to get potential buyers and sellers to visit your site.

You have probably heard that in October 2006 Google purchased YouTube (www.youtube.com). When an Internet giant like Google makes such a business move, rest assured that it signals a significant future advertising trend.

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Attention business owners and marketers! Please read the next sentence very carefully to make sure you get the message. Business-to-business (B2B) Internet marketing strategy and tactics have been reinventing themselves and are changing. The B2B consumer is now more demanding when it comes to your online information. Here are a few reasons why this is true.

+ The CMO Council/KnowledgeStorm reports that more than 45% of all B2B decision makers spend 5 or more hours per week online researching product & service information.
+ 89% of all business users and IT professionals state that online content has a moderate to major impact on their decisions about vendor selection. This means that 89% of your

new prospects will look at your website before and during their decision making process.
+ The Direct Marketing Association predicts that by 2008, online marketing initiatives will be the dominant media for B2B marketing.

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Time Magazine gave a strong mainstream media endorsement to the proliferation and influence of consumer-generated media when they named ‘You’ as Person of the Year for 2006. The annual Trust Barometer conducted globally by Edelman also shows that media and ‘old-school’ authorities have lost ground. We now look to “someone just like me” for Internet marketing strategy information.

How does this affect the practice of PR? Since a large part of PR is about reaching people through the media and opinion leaders, and influencing how they perceive and act, this shift in media consumption and influence is the biggest thing to occur in the last 100 years. It changes where the audience is and how to reach them effectively.

It is no longer a push, one- way delivery of controlled information. The conversation predicted by the ClueTrain Manifesto in 1999 is now in full cry. Consumers have found the power of voice. Anyone can publish their opinions and they’re in control of the content. They read what they want, when they want it and how they want it.

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Consultants, it’s 2008. And with another new year comes new goals, fresh resolve and the revision of your marketing strategies.

Beyond the proliferation of the same old marketing jargon on the web, consultants truly need a brand of marketing all their own to stay competitive. By observing s few key strategies (and perhaps undergoing a very important paradigm shift) consultants can grow their businesses in ways unprecedented in 2008.

Jumping right in…

First and foremost, shift the paradigm. Successful consultants are entrepreneurial by nature. The difference between a consultant and service provider is often that the former is in the business of marketing their consulting services and the latter focuses solely on service provision.

So if you’re still under the impression that providing your consulting services is your main area of focus, it’s time for a paradigm shift. Successful consultants focus first and foremost on marketing their consulting services.

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