Faith Based Internet Marketing

Good economy or bad, marketing budgets are always subject to scrutiny by business managers. Dollars are allocated to various resources and out comes…. what? A brochure? A well-placed article in a trade publication? A speaking engagement? Often it is a lot of feel-good stuff. And I’m not saying it doesn’t work – sometimes. But connecting the investment to the bottom line, what business managers like to call return on investment (ROI), is frequently a stretch. Or, at worst, it is a complete non-starter.  So here comes this Internet thingy which generates gobs of data on all aspects of its performance and what happens? For many marketers, this information is the elephant in the room.  We know it’s there.  We just choose not to recognize it. I’ve dubbed this Faith Based Internet Marketing.

Faith-based Internet Marketing is simply this: PRAY people visit your website. HOPE they find value when they are there. BELIEVE it will help business.

Faith, of course, is a cornerstone of many of our lives, where we have the wisdom to accept much which cannot be otherwise proved. But, really, it has no place in Internet marketing.  Clearly, you do not have to pray that people will visit your website. There are multiple strategies for influencing that outcome and countless tools for measuring your achievement. “Hope” is not an action step as much as it is a state of anticipation. If you are really concerned about site visitors finding value, and you better darn well be, examine your site’s content and method of content delivery to document that it truly provides value. And, again, measure your content types to know if they are being “consumed” as you expect.  And challenge the belief that all your investment of resources actually helps your business.

Most of Duo’s clients don’t sell stuff on their website. So connecting the Internet marketing dot to the meeting-the-business-objective dot is often the most challenging. I don’t have the magic answer to this dilemma. If I did, I’d write a book and not a blog post. One recommendation I often make is to imagine that you didn’t have a web presence at all. Then start identifying exactly what would be lost. Scarily, maybe nothing! But if you do identify that which you would miss, put a dollar value on it – and measure that, too.

If you take these steps, when the Grim Budget Reaper comes to visit, you’ll have the tools to defend your Internet assets – and possibly expand them. Keep the faith. But don’t practice Faith Based Internet Marketing.