This is a very unhappy ‘I told you so’ on my part.
But it’s like clockwork… sad, fatalistic, inevitable... a warning from Cassandra that goes unheeded.
A very promising company has just gone under. Sure, there
are a lot of reasons, but primary was the decision to spend big bucks on
Internet/SEO/Adword gurus. These Net guys got a relatively large sum to build
an online presence that would virtually ‘guarantee’ sales and top-of-the-page
organic SEO.
Remember, these were the guys who proudly boasted that they had built
159 landing pages to make sure the word got out to every corner of the digital
world. (See The
Big Lie: Software Is Eating Marketing).
Problem was, these guys weren’t marketers. Problem was the
owner believed that metrics could boost sales rather than solid marketing.
Problem was the owner paid good money for his web presence but did very little
and spent very little to develop a coherent message/story for his product.
But the web guys were so confident their strategy would work
– the same strategy they use for every company regardless of product.
As predicted, the 159 landing pages and blogs and tweets and
Facebook pages all went for naught. No story, no sales. Period.
So the company goes bust, good friends are out of work…
while the Internet guys move gleefully to yet another company, making the
same promises and taking the same large chunk out of the budget.
In a letter to the company president sent six months ago,
here was my warning…
There is so much
chatter about new algorithms, the decline of keywords, the rise of unique
content, the decline of multiple sites, etc., I focus on the long-term
narrative and customer expectations. If that messaging is right, Internet
professionals will know how to break the copy above the fold and those types of
things.
But… If people
don’t understand or believe your message, or don’t see the need for your
product, all the CTRs and CPCs and closing rates and page hits won’t really
translate into the type of sales you’re looking for.
Again, simple advice that went unheeded.
