Many website owners stubbornly believe they know the correct way to navigate their own website, when the vast majority of their visitors are telling them otherwise. If not for your visitors, that website would have no reason to exist--and if they can't navigate it, they surely won't buy what you're selling.
The astounding pace of innovation is partly what numbs us to the potential of online marketing vehicles. Why should I bother optimizing a Facebook presence when Google Plus is the new, hot thing? Will Groupon succeed, or be succeeded by something smarter and more powerful? This sort of thinking is understandable, but not particularly helpful, so here's a road map to get started.
After many failed, comical months spent teaching my dog to obey simple commands, I finally realized it wasn't working because I was trying to teach her English. Instead, I should have been speaking Dog all along. When it comes to marketing your brand, there's a lot you can learn from Fido.
Here in South Africa, my family and I are getting used to relying on the kindness of strangers. With no car (yet), no contacts, and frequently no clue, we’ve gone from reluctantly accepting assistance to actively sticking our thumbs out. In so doing, I’ve discovered a few things about human nature that make me a smarter marketer.
My son and I accidentally climbed a mountain recently; we had meant only to walk up a little way, but two hours later, we were at the top. We couldn’t stop climbing because of all the immediate positive feedback. As a business, the most desired action on your website is your summit. How can you entice prospects to climb to the top?
Inside-out improvement, also known as Chi Marketing, doesn’t begin with a laundry list of possible tactics to improve traffic and conversion. It doesn’t focus on results at all, at least not at first. Rather, Chi Marketing looks at your core form first, so that all the peripheral marketing tactics flow naturally from that core.
What can online marketers learn from a horse whisperer? How is your Web site like an airport in a foreign country? And what's the relationship between alternate side of the street parking in Manhattan and a pasture in rural Virginia?
