Obsessed with B2B marketing? You should be a PRO member! Join now at 25% off (or 50% off for teams).

Poor Eddie the e-marketer has been plagued by errors in judgment all his life.

From always picking the longest line at the tollbooth to buying lots of dot-com stocks right before the bubble burst, he has constantly struggled with making the right choices. From disagreeing whether a car actually needs oil changes every 3,000 miles to insisting that the eight-track is going to make a comeback, Eddie has bumbled through life perplexed.

One area that particularly suffers is his e-marketing efforts.

You see, Eddie recently got himself a new Web site for his business. Unfortunately, he's been trying in vain to turn it into a vehicle for getting leads and making sales. He's confused. He's dazed. He thrashes about lost in a maze.

Although he at least understands the importance of e-marketing for driving traffic to his site, he's like a hamster running on a wheel, wasting energy and getting nowhere. Let's take a look at a few of the more typical e-marketing errors Eddie regularly makes—and what he should do instead.

Treat the Web as a different medium

The other day, Eddie's business partner, Betty, showed him a recent half-page ad they ran in one of their industry's magazines. Eddie, excited at how pretty the pictures were, wanted it up on their Web site pronto.

Did he alter it in any way before they posted it to the site? Did he add a specific call to action hyperlink in it? Did he optimize the large print graphics so they would download fast in people's browsers?

Nope. He just took the ad, as is, and posted it. Eddie has never been able to grasp the idea that traditional marketing and e-marketing, while related, are not the same thing. What works in print doesn't always work online.

Why? Different mediums require different approaches. Look for Eddie's static magazine ad in his first TV commercial, just the motionless ad on the screen for 30 seconds. Riveting.

The Web is interactive. Site visitors can click buttons, fill out forms, post immediate comments in forums or blogs.

When Eddie was having his site built, he really just wanted to have a way to talk about his business. He wanted to tell the world how great his company was and the exciting history of its formation. This is called brochure-ware. It's just taking a company brochure, posted online, with a few links added.

To say that Eddie is underutilizing the Web is like saying the ocean is mildly wet. The Web is extremely powerful and businesses have a choice of taking advantage of its power, or just scratching the surface with simple brochure-ware. It's similar to buying a tank, climbing in and lifting the hatch only to shoot spitballs at the enemy.

If you have that kind of power, use it.

Ask your customers what they want

Since Eddie doesn't really grasp the interactive nature of the Web, he guesses what his potential customers want and need.

One day, in a meeting, Eddie was scratching his head, staring up at the ceiling and saying, "Gee, if there was only a way to figure out what our customers want, a way we could get in their heads, and a way to reach enough of them to get a really clear picture, hmm…?"

Thankfully, a timid but sharp junior associate raised her hand and suggested that they just ask their customers their opinions and needs directly, and do it online—where they could ask a whole bunch of them.

Eddie jumped at the idea. Finally, he was going make the right choice. They created an html form with 40 of the most important questions he could think of, and posted a link on their homepage called "Customer Survey."

Subscribe today...it's free!

MarketingProfs provides thousands of marketing resources, entirely free!

Simply subscribe to our newsletter and get instant access to how-to articles, guides, webinars and more for nada, nothing, zip, zilch, on the house...delivered right to your inbox! MarketingProfs is the largest marketing community in the world, and we are here to help you be a better marketer.

Already a member? Sign in now.

Sign in with your preferred account, below.

Did you like this article?
Know someone who would enjoy it too? Share with your friends, free of charge, no sign up required! Simply share this link, and they will get instant access…
  • Copy Link

  • Email

  • Twitter

  • Facebook

  • Pinterest

  • Linkedin


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason OConnor is president of Oak Web Works (www.oakwebworks.com). Reach him at jason@oakWebworks.com.