Marketing Doesn't Mean Compromising the Brand

Everyone is a digital marketing professional, yet the majority of successful businesses I see are not properly maximizing the web.
There are at least two types of help I offer clients.

The basics. Pieces of the web, mobile, social marketing puzzle that pretty much apply to everyone. For example, proper Google configuration. Almost nobody gets it right in my opinion.

Next is industry specific research and execution. For example, online booking systems for hotels.

My favorite kind of marketing job is one where a company already has a positive cash flow.

When I work with a business who is making money, in the majority of cases it's easy to help them increase their traffic on the net. There are usually so many layers being overlooked. With a little work here and there, we can make a positive impact.

By this point everyone knows, get a host, slap on a WordPress theme and your ready to go. Of course there is a little more to it than that, but you can get a website on the road rather easily these days. A lot less effort is needed compared to the past. It takes me a few hours in some cases.

In my eyes, the problem is, who is creating the digital foundation? Who's job is it?

Is it the web designers job, the social media persons job or is it the person in your office who handles everything web related?

The answer is it's usually nobody's job, cause most people never think about it.

Unless you have a lot of experience creating online foundations for companies, not too many people know how to do it properly. That's why its even more valuable then most people realize to cross the t's and dot the i's.

When I mention web, mobile, social marketing to people, I feel like they get the wrong impression about what I mean. 

I think when people hear web marketing, they envision some inefficient ad campaign or a ton of cheap untargeted hits. For example, some video of a cat on YouTube getting 10,000,000 views or something like that.

Web marketing to me is first creating the proper foundation using all the accounts and resources available. Let the world and major websites know you exist, have a clear picture who you are, where you are and what you do. I rarely look into some one's digital foot print and do not find important pieces of the puzzle missing.

This isn't Lego's, it's your lively hood. I know you may hate the web, you may hate Yelp, you may hate me, but it's not going anywhere and if your competitor's have their online presence set up better than you, it's not going to help the cause.

So many people are hitting three pointers and not taking lay ups.

In my opinion 15% of small and medium businesses are setting up the right way and the majority aren't. When I research companies online there are always a few in each market and category who are doing a decent job.

Another part of marketing can be advertising on the different networks, although there are a ton of free or relatively inexpensive resources you may utilize that have nothing to do with paid ads.

In short, a lot of the online marketing I'm talking about are layers people will not or may not ever see, it's your digital foundation.

The more high end and luxurious your market is, the more money that's at stake. So many high end brands are not taking advantage of the viralness of the Internet for fear of looking cheesy. I promise you there is no cheese included in any of my packages and when high net worth individuals are hitting into your site, it's beneficial to do your best to capture the traffic as efficiently as possible.

You have a website? Great! I'll go in, tune it up and add dozen's or hundreds of layers and create a robust digital foundation for you. Some of the layers are inside your site and others are independent of the site and are connected to your company.

I love this job and hate this job, but there is one thing I can promise. When I go in, it's a wrap.

There is only one way to sell web, mobile and social media services to strangers.

People tell me all the time, they know about this and that. My response is, you may know about golf, although your not going to beat Jack Nicklaus.

Sometimes I ask myself, maybe companies don't need me and maybe everyone knows everything. Then I do a little research and I'm quickly reassured, that is not the case. Companies and individuals who claim to be search engine marketing professionals, don't know how to control their own results in Google in some cases. Then I realize their is still room for me in the business. 

Now on to the main point.

I know for a normal business it's hard to decide who is for real and who's not. The online marketing space is becoming exceedingly crowded every day and I have a solution.

I'm not offering it to everybody, only companies I believe are seriously in the market for my kind of web, mobile and social media services.

What am I offering?

My proposal is to show you the entire playbook. Every piece of information about small and medium business marketing. Upfront, for free and with no strings attached. 

I have already been offering the information to people for months now and I wanted to blog about it, because this site is getting more and more hits every day from people researching "Mark Pine" when they hear about me. In some cases I landed the job and in others I didn't. I can live with that.

It's usually easy to sell me your for real, although some people are really obvious and I don't share anything with them. 

If I think your for real, not saying you have to choose me, and your in the market to take the next step into maximizing your online presence, I will show you every resource and site I use to help companies move forward online and offline. 

The majority of it is common sense and easy to digest or it wouldn't be such a big deal.

For example, what hosting companies I use, what software I use to create sites, where I get it from. Additionally, several other pieces to the puzzle that successful companies are using to get ahead every day.

I will show you so much information for free it's not even funny. You will never look at the web the same again. If that isn't worth a thirty minute phone call, I'll sweeten the deal a bit more.

I will also analyze everything you have online and provide several insights for free.

Who am I and why does any of it matter?

I have received checks from hedge funds for marketing services. Everyone is fighting for their business and on a few occassions, hedge funds paid me to market projects they have an interest in. If you can make it that far, I think you know a thing or two about the web, mobile and social.

How else are you supposed to be able to tell the difference from one company to the next unless they paint a little more of the picture and how it relates to you.

I'd like to share a few quick strategies right now. There are a few pieces to the puzzle you may want to consider.

The user experience. What people see when they access your site from a computer, laptop and tablet. How your site looks on a mobile phone.

Another factor to consider is how you can show up in more in the different networks. For example, Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc.

There are a lot of free ways and there are a lot of ways that cost. I call them layers. Do you know them all? Would you like to know?

In my humble opinion, people need to slow down every once in a while and take a deeper look at the net. A few minor improvements, can go a long way sometimes.

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