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07.08.04
 By
Charlie Cook
As the plane lifts off, imagine yourself reclining comfortably in
your first class seat. You're headed for San Francisco where you'll
be met by a driver and whisked to a luxury hotel with views of the
bay. The tab is being picked up by a company looking to buy your firm,
and your biggest concern is how much cash and stock to ask for when
you meet with the president of the company and the senior officers.
Sound like a fantasy?
Actually, I was the person being whisked across country, a few years
back, to negotiate the sale of a web site I had built. With a lot
of hard work and a carefully executed positioning I created the opp0rtunity
to make more than I thought possible from what had started as a just
for fun project. |
Whether
you are a builder, accountant, realtor, market researcher, or manufacture
loudspeakers or baseball bats, the way you position your firm can
determine your success.
- Do you want prospects to seek you out?
- Do you want people to pay you more?
- Do you want to stand head and shoulders above your competition?
With a simple positioning strategy you can get more attention than
you imagined and bring in those high-margin projects and the profits
you want. Here's how I positioned one of my ideas for success.
1. IDENTIFY A NEED
In 1999, a new search engine was appearing on the Internet almost
every week. Some were much better than others. Knowing which search
tool to use was confusing. Through my own interest in finding better
tools to navigate the web, I'd discovered a common need.
2. EDUCATE PPROSPECTS TO DEMONTSTATE YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Based on four years of study of search engines and a book I'd written
previously on marketing to the search engines, I'd become an expert
on how they did and didn't work. To help my own online research and
to help others, I built a web site that provided a directory of search
engines and reviewed their usefulness and functionality.
- What are your areas of expertise?
The objective of my site was simple. At a time when most people were
just discovering the web, I wanted to help them find the best possible
search tools for their particular task. My mission was to educate
people about how to find what they were looking for online. The site
primarily focused on the growing number of reviews I authored. Instead
of leading with information about my credentials, I used the content
on the site to demonstrate my knowledge.
- What can you do to educate your prospects?
- How can you demonstrate your expertise?
3. IDENTIFY AND REACH YOUR TARGET MARKET
Now I needed a way to get people to the site. While my target market
was almost infinite - anyone searching the Internet - my advertising
budget was zero. (Remember I was doing this as a back pocket project
while maintaining my marketing consulting practice.) How could I attract
attention and get people to come back to the web site again and again?
I identified online editors and reference librarians as identifiable,
approachable groups with a high level of interest and influence. I
started an ezine directing readers to current search engine reviews
and updates on the site and published approximately once a month.
- What is your stay-in-touch strategy?
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RESULTS
After just three issues of my ezine reporters started calling me for
radio interviews and magazine articles. I received an offer to buy
the web site with the price tied to the number of monthly visitors
and page views. Three months later I had grown traffic to the site
from thirty thousand to three hundred thousand page views per month
and closed the deal.
POSITIONING YOUR COMPANY
To position your product or service for success:
A. Identify a Common Need
B. Identify a Market
C. Demonstrate Your Expertise to that Market
D. Continue to Stay in Touch
If you've been in business for three years or more you've accumulated
a wealth of experience and knowledge. The more you share your ideas,
the more people will view you as an expert and seek you out. Give
your prospects examples of your expertise and they will think of you
when they need your products or services.
You can use an ezine, your web site, a book, workshops or public speaking
to demonstrate your knowledge and put your firm ahead of the competition.
Using the strategy outlined above and a little effort you can position
your business for success and put yourself in front.
2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.
About the Author:
Charlie Cook, is Chief Executive of Ideas and Inspiration at In Mind
Communications in Old Greenwich, CT and can be contacted via http://www.charliecook.net,
or by calling 203-637-1118. To get the F*ree Marketing Guide and the
'More Business' newsletter, full of practical marketing tips go to
http://www.charliecook.net
Read this Newsletter at:
http://www.smallbusinessupdate.com/2004/0708.html |
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| From
the Forum: |
| Hidden
links and mouseover redirects??? |
| Is anyone familiar with Traffic-Power, an SEO
group that creates 'advertising' pages, optimized for key phrases?
The are hidden pages, meant for search engines, not people.
They do not have an automatic redirect built in, but a redirect
triggered as soon as the mouse is moved. Blank (invisible) graphical
links are used on the bottom of the target site pages. ...
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