May 13, 2009

Biznology Blog by Mike Moran

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Is your marketing a religion or a business?

Image by . SantiMB . via Flickr

I was talking with someone a few days ago (who will remain nameless) who has been investing what (to me) is an enormous amount of money on their Web site. I asked what was prompting such a massive investment, and was told, "We believe that the Web site is driving a lot of business." Being a smart consultant, I did not let out an audible sign of shock, because that tends to scare clients away. But I did find myself asking when marketing became a religion based on doing what we believe in instead of a business that runs on return on investment.

I know that might sound flip (and I guess it kinda is), but I am trying to bludgeon you over the head with a point. Too many of us treat our Web sites as something that must exist. They exist because everyone has one or because the boss wants one or because a customer asked for one once. And then some of us start pouring money into our Web sites because it looks dated or because a customer complained about it or the boss said it looked embarrassing compared to the competition.

But mostly, we spend money on our Web sites because we believe that they make us money.

And that belief is likely well-founded. But the problem is that we don't generally know how much money. And if we asked ten different people how much money, they'd probably be all over the map as to how much. Which makes it plenty difficult to know how much money we should invest.

And most of the businesses that fall into this trap do so for an understandable reason. They sell offline. And they have no idea how many people that start out on their Web site end up as paying customers. It's such a common problem that tomorrow I will explain a few different ways to bridge the gap between online and offline.

In the meantime, think about your business. Are you investing in online marketing because you believe that it makes money? Or do you really know that it does? What could you do to connect the dots? More tomorrow...

Posted by MikeMoran at May 13, 2009 7:28 PM

Comments

Well, faith is only good in the business world when it stems from great research. Hunches are worth experimenting with from time to time, but only if you can play with them inside a solid, predictable and profitable overall framework. Nice post.

Posted by: OscarD at May 14, 2009 6:10 AM

Nice theory , marketing should not be taken as religion and should be decided on the facts instead of beliefs

Posted by: Edward@vancouver web design at May 14, 2009 8:40 AM

Hi i liked this post very much because ,marketing is never a religon ,its only business ,but every one do business for money thats our belief,so how does belief is compared with religion its just hope
hope u undertsand.

Posted by: Harish at May 14, 2009 9:03 AM

Yes, it never ceases to amaze me how little people understand about traffic generation, conversions and customer value when it comes to their websites. Looking forward to more interesting articles.
Linden

Posted by: delta squadron review at May 14, 2009 1:14 PM

Agreed. It is a must to find out how people found you. You don't need conversion metrics, funnel visualizations and gobbledeygook when a simple question to your customers is all you need to ask:

"We appreciate your business. How did you find out about us?"

Make a note of their answer and get on with it.

Data has to be gathered and recorded, and it doesn't have to be rocket science. Hoping and wishing are crummy business models.

Posted by: Chris Cummins at May 17, 2009 4:17 AM

I see the parallels to have you own business you must believe in yourself, abilities etc... it requires dedication and faith as well.

Posted by: Business Logos at May 18, 2009 1:03 PM

Marketing can't be a religion because in religion we follow the well defined path wile in marketing we design course of action ourselves keeping in mind the nature of service/products to be marketed.

Posted by: math tutor at May 19, 2009 2:54 PM

there are plenty of ways to bridge the gap and show what business is coming from the website. Try a proper lead capture form and I don't mean one on the contact us page. Try entices them with free helpful articles they can sign up for.

Posted by: christy at May 20, 2009 2:11 AM