Comfortably Numb

By Chris Sheehy | search marketing specialist

I have been speaking with a well-established business recently that is utterly resistant to marketing his business, professing he is always busy and is well known in town.  And indeed he is, on both accounts; he’s a swell guy too…

But thinking his business is too busy and too popular to market is simply absurd!

You only need to look at the big businesses that were once thought to be to be too strong to go weak.

1. General Motors – 3 generations strong
2. IBM – 2 generations
3. Microsoft – 1 generation
4. Apple – industry reports are postulating the king of “i” is on its downturn

As in life – business can learn from the history of others… just think of all the great businesses in town that were strong  just a couple decades ago and are dinosaurs today (if in business at all).

Running a business comfortably numb – that’s simply not sustainable.

While marketing strategy is unique from one business to another, there are a few things that a sustaining business – like my friends - could and should do to ensure they remain king-of-the-hill in their marketplace.

• Website – got to have one
• Active promoting and marketing of their website
• Search engine optimization, search engine marketing, linkbuilding
• Active in Facebook
• It’s most likely where their customers (and fans) are
• 1/7 people on this planet have a Facebook account
• It IS where their future customers are – no doubt about that
• Ask for online reviews
• Search engines love them, as do new customers
• Showcase your success in the local papers – strut your stuff
• Be the biggest community activist
• Invest the most time, not money – don’t worry, it will come back to you

Don’t ever think you’re too big to fail, we’ve seen what happens when we do that…