How To Find Success Outside of Search Engines

Notice the title is not “how to rank higher on search engines.” Everyone is always looking to get to the number one spot on their google search and there is a place for that pursuit, but it’s not the be-all-end-all. I know…crazy.

The reason I say this is that there isn’t a silver bullet to get to the top other than just paying a crazy amount of money to be there. Then it’s just a matter of time before someone with a bigger budget spends their way in front of you. If your marketing plan only consists of one way to market your organization, it’s not going to always be effective.

What happens if you couldn’t buy your way to the top? 

What if someone had a bigger budget than you?

So, what is the best way to get to the top?

The spoke and wheel

So if we’ve established that buying your way to the top only isn’t the best marketing plan, what is the best way? We build our clients marketing footprint on a spoke and wheel approach to development. That means just like the wheel of a bike has many spokes, so should your marketing efforts. 

The center of the wheel is your website and each spoke represents a way you communicate to your audience.

• Newsletter
• Email marketing
• Printed materials
• Social media
• Video
• Testimonials
• Word-of-mouth
• Marketing campaigns
• Website landing pages

By using an approach such as the spoke and wheel, you create many way to communicate to your audience. Not every customer is going to engage you the same way and you need to account for communicating with them in a way they are used to.

We’ve had clients who only communicate by email, some just want to engage over social media while others just want to talk on the phone. It may take some development and it make take some education on both ends to determine what and how you should be communicating with each other.

The point is just like your stock portfolio should be diversified, so should your marketing efforts. One of the most important things I can suggest is to identify the different ways you should be communicating and then do one well before you move on to the next one. 

By spending time and effort building different ways to communicate with your audience, they will thank you for it. I would argue that ranking higher with people is just as important as ranking higher on search engines.

What should happen next: Examine your approach

Take some time to outline how you communicate with your audience and determine if you do it well and if you need to adjust anything.

What should not happen: Stick with what you’re comfortable with

Just because you don’t know how to develop a new way to communicate, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue doing just that. Learn, grow, adapt…repeat.