You might ask yourself, what kind of conundrum might you he be referring to? That would be an appropriate question.
My conundrum is this, how should I begin marketing on the internet? I have dabbled with:
My current goal is to learn to use these tools to grow a business effectively with out coming off like a freaking spammer. Let me just say, I cannot stand spammers! Ultimately, my goal is to have people come to me that want what I offer. My personal experience and all the reading I have done has lead me to believe our current era of consumers really wants to buy from someone who provides honest, open information with out a lot of hype and definitely no pressure. With that in mind, I am leaning toward a sales approach of offering valuable education specific to my business and show people how to purchase what they want when they are ready.
Looking at many websites, doing all kinds of Google searches and just talking to people who know this stuff has given me a big headache. So, I am going to continue to read, ask a lot of dumb questions and hope that some super smart people will kindly offer to help.
I would love to hear from you about what you are doing on-line for your business or organization. Please include what has worked as well as the mess ups you have made. Humor me, maybe I will write a book with you and we can make a boat load of money together.
Never too late to learn something new, at least until you are dead.
I have no advice as far as how to go about web marketing without coming across as a spammer. I must however say that I like how you’re trying to go about this and that your idea is a great one, you aren’t dead so keep learning =)
Zachary,
Might as well do something while I am still breathing. I don’t like to do the same old things day after day, it gets boring.
I don’t have anything particularly good on this either, but I’ll share my thoughts.
- I find people’s definitions of spam varies and you’re not going to please everyone (of course). I like Guy Kawasaki’s take on it – it’s spam if it’s done by anyone other than me…
- Using a tweet to advertise a product/service/etc is fine as long as you’re upfront in your bio about that fact that’s what you do. It’s also a lot more fun if they’re entertaining, which is a challenge in 140 characters…but I think that’s the point – brief, humourous, attention-grabbing
- I’ve been on Twitter for 3 months today (!) and I’ve bought one item I found through a tweet, while finding lots of great resources for possibilities in the future.
- As a company, we are looking at web 2.0 stuff, but so far our research shows that our main markets don’t even really know what it is, let alone use it. As an example, it’s only just now that we are looking at revamping our horrible website to bring it into the current millenium. It just hasn’t mattered before.
- As a church, I don’t think any in Australia do web 2.0 well (not that I know of anyway), but this is changing with more churches employing comms staff. We’ve got a way to go before something like that happened, but our pastor is suddenly interested now that my blog posts about a Bill Johnson conference are getting read out in other churches…all because I tweeted key points during the conf, which led them to the blog, etc, etc…
- Conundrum is one of my favourite words too. I prorably should write a song about it.
Sorry, as usual for me, typorhea set in and I’ve written lots without saying anything.
David,
Thanks for the feedback and the typearhea is all good. I just made up that word and I have no idea how to spell it.
I read your blog for quite a long time and must tell you that your articles always prove to be of a high value and quality for readers.