subject: Internet Marketing Strategy [print this page] In business, sales material and informative content are often seen as two separate entities, with sales material basically aiming at telling the reader as how great you are whereas information content is seen purely as reference material. For me, however, the best SEO marketing practice is to see information content as a marketing tool in itself. Sales material can often be somewhat one dimensional and predictable, using the same old buzzwords such as "great", "outstanding" and "quality". The thing is, of course they would say that. No sales material is ever likely to use words such as "average" or "passable". Because the audience has heard it all before, such material becomes just the same as everything else out there and therefore ineffective.
If you can offer the audience something that is actually useful rather than just offering the same old sales speak, then you are much more likely to grab the attention of the reader. Actually telling your audience the reasons why you are great and how your service is excellent is much more effective than simply expecting them to take your word for it. Giving away valuable content for free will help to build trust and help to initiate contact and open the lines of communication. One very effective way of giving away such valuable information is through blogs as a blog will help you to reach your target audience in a way that they can find your articles useful, whilst discreetly promoting your own services. A well written and informative article will let the reader know why your service is better than product B, in a way which will make it easier for them to make a positive decision. It can be said that great marketing is all about taking into account marketing right from the very beginning, whereas bad marketing is not taking marketing into account until the end. To use a metaphor, let's think of marketing like the engine of a truck. The engine is pulling a trailer which, in this case, is loaded with the particular product or service that you are trying to market and the driver of the engine is the business owner or founder of the company. The speed at which the cargo can be delivered to market will depend on how the driver drives the truck and the direction in which he is driving. Whist driving the truck, the driver must always monitor mechanical details such the various dials and gauges of the dashboard showing information such as fuel, oil and heating. In the same way, a business owner must monitor the direction in which their marketing efforts are going whilst monitoring the marketing campaign to check that all components of the campaign are working as they should be. Bearing the truck metaphor in mind will help you to keep your SEO marketing plans on course. You wouldn't expect your customers to purchase your product without them having the relevant information first so why would you expect them to choose your company just because you say it's great? Your marketing campaign should be directed towards giving the audience some information first before expecting anything back.
