Who Are You? What Are You?
When one thinks in terms of marketing ANYTHING, you consider what your product does and who might it serve. In the online world, this is absolutely crucial. Determining your “niche” is the single most important decision you will make. It’s so important that it’s page one on Google for a business that gets it right, and crash & burn for the business that gets it wrong.
I have seen clients try to create one website — usually because they are on a budget — and intend for that one website to be an umbrella for anyone who might stop by. The marketing strategy here seems to be, “shove ‘em under the umbrella.” You really can’t market to “anyone.” As customers, do any of us want to be considered “anyone”? Perhaps it’s telling that even umbrellas are not needed all the time; you would find an easier time to sell someone an umbrella when it’s raining than on a sunny day. A cautionary note — any time you market online to “anyone,” you will surely fail, unless you have the budget of Google… in which case you would be, um, GOOGLE.
Sometimes, even things that appear related are vastly unrelated in Online Eyes… For example, let’s say you’re an electrician and you want to advertise your electrical service. But you also want to post tips on do-it-yourself electrical repair. And sell an e-book about electrical home DIY projects. And do some e-commerce on some parts you have in the warehouse that are gathering dust, but you figure SOMEONE would probably want to buy them… And so on. Can you see how terribly confusing this site is, not to mention it will probably sabotage and even cannibalize this company’s offline efforts…?
This company would be better served to have several websites. It’s possible that a few of their customers from each site would be interested in their other “products,” but not likely. They would be better served to establish a separate customer base in each “niche.” The added benefit of this strategy is that it creates multiple (healthy) income streams for a business that previously only had one.
If the business could not afford to do that, then they might consider prioritizizing the different project ideas on the basis of which could generate cashflow most rapidly, and add in new sites as their investment pays off.
These are one of the many strategies we advise our clients on, so their marketing expenses not only make sense, but make MONEY. We believe websites should look good and earn revenue, not exist as an expense item on your balance sheet.
