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They Call it Guppy Love: How to Make a Splash in Online Marketing

How local SMBs can improve SEO

Jean Eric Penicaud

July 15, 2008

Starting and growing a small business has always been a challenge, be it the money involved, competitor backlash, a lack of support or simply the oft cruel reality that customers are fickle. Since the advent of the Internet the struggle to forge an identity as a business, both attracting and retaining customers, has escalated into even greater complexity. Add to that our current economic recession and the outlook can seem rather bleak. Small businesses may already feel like proverbial guppies in the biggest pond in the world – the Internet – and a lack of overhead only exacerbates this problem. Thus, one wonders: how can small businesses effectively market themselves on the Internet without breaking the bank?

Here are the top five ways in which you can make your voice heard in a crowded online market. Gleaned from years of experience as a participant and an observer of small business dynamics, the list will hopefully serve to inspire you to continue your journey to success.

Number 5: If you haven’t already built a website, do so.

A website is the original “avatar” of the Internet – it’s the online representation of your business, a vehicle for spreading your message and a central location by which people can understand what comprises you. The first step is selecting a domain name. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you need some strategic think tank to essentially brainstorm words that look enticing when placed between a “www” and a “.com.” Select five potential domain names, and know right off the bat that anything even remotely obvious will already have been purchased. Stay away from trendy, quirky Silicon Valley mainstays – like putting an “i” before anything (you run the risk of copyright infringement) or an “e” (it’s very 1995). Don’t try to be clever by creating a name that sounds like the unintelligible musings of an infant – you know you’ve seen them – and always opt for a dot-com extension. Whatever people tell you, a dot-net or dot-us will never generate as much traffic, and unless you’re a non-profit a dot-org seems arrogant.

Next, determine your website’s purpose. Is it to direct people to a physical store address? Can customers purchase products directly on your site or is it just an overview of what your business does? This will vary greatly depending on whether you run a restaurant or a clown-rental service, so make sure that your site design accurately reflects your end-goal – generating leads, spreading awareness, making people laugh, etc.

Number 4: Develop your online messaging and make your website appealing.

If we want to simplify marketing to almost dangerous levels, we can break it into two categories: push marketing and pull marketing. Push marketing is what you commonly associate with advertising, the “buy me now, I’m everything you ever wanted in a bar of soap/magazine/coffee drink/sweater/ceiling fan” school of making the sale. Pull marketing is usually equated with an enticing offer, like “half off on ceiling fans this Labor Day weekend!” However, in this day and age pull marketing doesn’t need to be so sleazy (not that offering promotions is a bad idea, which we’ll explore a little later). An example of more graceful pull marketing would be an artfully designed website. What makes a website artful? Well, it’s about knowing your ideal customer. Everything on the Internet is now indelibly tied to search engines. Name one wired person you know who has never used Yahoo! or Google or Ask.com and I’ll personally design your website for you. Say you run the aforementioned clown-rental service. Who are your average customers? Moms and Dads planning a kid’s birthday party, perhaps, or teachers or daycare managers or traveling circuses. What will they be typing into a search engine? Probably something along the lines of “clowns for parties,” “kids birthday entertainment,” “clowns in Boston, MA.” How high your business appears in those search rankings is directly contingent upon the keywords you pepper into your website pages. When describing what you do on the “About” section of your site, use the most popular words and phrases that will resonate with potential customers. Buzz words matter. Include personal stories from employees, satisfied customers, the clowns themselves. Make your site relevant to the people you’re trying to attract.

Number 3: Establish yourself as a knowledgeable resource in your chosen industry.

As a general rule, “caveat emptor” has been replaced by “caveat venditor.” All those nights of late-night infomercials and the epidemic of identity fraud have made people cynical and suspicious of any deal that seems too good to be true, and justifiably so. You can scream “our product is the best” at the top of your lungs for hours in a public square and people won’t be amused, if anything, it’ll damage your reputation as a serious brand. Quality speaks for itself, and a great way to establish the integrity of your brand is to tout the integrity of your thoughts. Granted, promoting yourself as a thought leader can be achieved much more successfully with the help of a PR agency, but if you cannot afford one, don’t worry. There are plenty of online publications that accept contributions, and if you’re not comfortable writing a full article you can always leave comments on blog posts. The bottom line is, if you have something interesting to say about trends or best practices in your industry, get involved in the broader discussion.

Content is king, and people who read and agree with your contentions that “clown quality is directly proportional to the level of the clowns’ training in early childhood education,” they’ll be much more likely to consider the clown recommendations on your site to be second to none. Human nature is such that intellect is always perceived as more trustworthy than showmanship. This is why, in a crisis, you’d trust a professor over a pop singer. Building that reputation for yourself through thought leadership not only allows you to broadcast yourself to a wider audience but also offers an air of validity to whatever claims you make about your own services.

Number 2: Communicate proactively with your intended audience.

Now that you’ve made a name for yourself as someone with legitimate thoughts and ideas, leverage that in communication with potential customers. Have you recently been quoted in a circus professionals’ trade magazine? Put a link to that coverage on your website, and send the article around in an online newsletter to your customer list. Encourage people on your list (who presumably have purchased items/services from you and given you permission to contact them) to forward the newsletter to their friends and colleagues. When you communicate with your actual and prospective customers, include any sales promotions your business might be having (the return of pull marketing). It’s an ideal combination – a tangible example of your influence in your industry alongside a great deal regarding your products. You want your customers to say, “Wow, I trust him, and now I’m going to rent his clowns because they’re lowering their rates for Saturday only.”

Always include a link back to your website in any outreach endeavors like the newsletter, and refresh your web content regularly. New content keeps people coming back for more. If you can make your website a window to your business and an interesting industry resource, the results will be far more impressive than you imagine. Remember – people who come for the witty banter, thoughtful articles and heartwarming photographs may stay for your first-class selection of inventory.

Number 1: Take advantage of free listing services to get your name out there.

If there’s one thing you’ve learned in reading these suggestions it’s that getting up in people’s faces without their permission is foolhardy and attracting them to your ideas and products through legitimate channels is sage. When you think of advertising, you think of Billy Mays for Oxy-clean screaming at you or multi-million dollar Super Bowl spots for fancy cars and potato chips. You don’t immediately think of service listings, but you should.

Companies like DirectoryM and YellowPages.com have taken out the online middleman and are giving interested buyers direct access to vendors. You can put up a description of your business and contact information and directory services like those above will do the work for you. They’ll attach the keywords and links to make your business show up at the top of the search engine rankings, and the reputation they’ve built for themselves adds authenticity to their recommendations. Companies like these have agreements with trustworthy publications to embed their directories within said sites. What does that mean for you? When someone goes to Inc. magazine and sees a directory for local services, selects “kids entertainment” and sees “Send in the Clowns LLC” as one of the first results, they’re sold. By using directory listing services, you’re leveraging the loyal audience base of magazine and reference sites and promoting your business as an affiliate.

Additionally, some directory companies also offer content distribution in their local business listings, meaning that under the “clowns” category customers can read articles on “things to look for in selecting a clown,” “clown makeup application techniques” and maybe even your article that appeared in the circus trade magazine. It all comes full circle, or circus, if you will.

A stellar reputation, when all is said and done, is free. The passion you put into building your business is free. You don’t need to have a marketing budget in the millions to make your small business shine; you just need to stand by what you do, ensure standards of quality and do what you can to put your ideas out for the world to see. I guarantee you that money or no money, your guppy can become a marlin with the power of the Internet.

Jean-Eric Penicaud is COO of DirectoryM. For more information, visit http://subscribe.directorym.com

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