All that Work for Nothing?
“If you build it, he will come.” ~ Ray hears a voice in Field of Dreams
Over time, this famous quote has grown to become “If you build it, they will come.” Do you remember back to the days when having a website was the “in” thing to do? Few companies had them but everyone wanted one. Website designers and developers would convince their clients that having a website was the wave of the future. Without one, their company would likely be left behind. So, all these companies poured tons of resources into creating the perfect website that was going to help grow business beyond their wildest dreams.
They put zero thought into whether their prospects would benefit and even less thought into how the prospects were going to find their website in the first place. They erected a nifty container filled with fancy graphics and corporate speak; fully expecting customers to be so amazed they would stop what they were doing and hand over their money immediately.
Days, weeks, and months went by. Little to nothing changed. In fact, hardly anybody visited their web monument. Where was the promised flood of hot prospects just waiting to gobble up any and all available products and services? What went wrong? Did we choose the wrong color scheme, the wrong header graphic, the wrong font, or maybe we just weren’t cutesy and clever enough with our copy. That’s it, isn’t it?
Would you erect a billboard in the middle of a forest and expect business to boom? Are people going to go trudging through the swampy woods looking for your billboard? If they don’t even know you have a billboard, why go into the forest in the first place? If nobody sees your billboard, will they even know you exist?
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but somehow you have contracted “if you build it, they will come” syndrome. How did you get it? Somebody filled your head with internet marketing lies. Is there anything that can be done? Sure, the cure to your ailment is good old fashioned “grassroots marketing”.
All these years later, and in many ways, little has changed. Companies are still erecting billboards in the forest and getting the results they deserve. But, now there is a hot new billboard style on the scene; the blog. All you have to do is create fresh, unique, high quality content and then sit on your hands waiting for the visitors to come flocking. With such great content, it is only a matter of time before word of mouth spreads. Yeah, right!
Is this how you treat your products and services? Or do you actually market them? Well, websites and blogs are just content (aka products) and they must be marketed just as effectively. If you are unwilling or unable to commit the resources necessary to do so, then you are simply wasting your resources and polluting the internet.
“Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very, long time.” ~ Chinese proverb
Image Credit: wools
