Marketing in the 21st century is more challenging than ever with the evolution of the internet and social media. According to hostingtribunal (dot) com, there are over 2 billion websites currently online! Out of those sites that are up, only 400 million are active. And everyday of the year, thousands more sites are going up. It’s no wonder that marketing locally or worldwide is such a challenge.
That bad news: Every month there are thousands of algorithm changes by search engines that will increase or decrease how “visible” your site will be on the internet. Add to that, social media, video hosted sites, directory sites, news sites, index sites, link farms, affiliate sites, backlinks, and hyperlinks, and your job of getting found on the internet directly to your target audience just got more complicated.
The good news: Digital marketing companies are able to make your site show up in places where your target market is hanging out. But it takes a great detail of research and knowledge of your target market or “avatar,” as it is known in the industry. By pinpointing exactly who your avatar is where they “hang out” online, you will get noticed and hopefully strike up a meaningful relationship that ends up in selling them something. Remember that the importance in the 21st century is to nurture a relationship. No selling is allowed! Today’s online visitor is very sophisticated and can smell a bad scheme from a mile away! Be real. In our next post, we will elaborate on what it means to be “real” that can shorten the sales cycle dramatically.