One Size Does Not Fit All

by John Eberhard

I have observed a couple other companies that are marketing Internet marketing or social media marketing programs that are the same for everyone, regardless of the type of business. In other words, the marketing program is a template, and everyone is sold that same program.

Although this approach may simplify selling the program to prospects, I do not think this approach will work in the long run or get good results for the clients. And when I say “good results for clients,” as usual I am referring to leads or sales for the client. As why else would a business pay money for marketing online?

I believe that each type of business requires a different approach, and that one has to consider such factors as the price of the product or service, the target public, what other marketing media work well for this product or service, how much traffic the web site is getting now, how technologically savvy the target public is, what other competing web sites are doing, whether the business targets a local, regional or national area, and other factors.

In my experience, each type of business requires a different mix of Internet marketing actions. For that reason I design a customized Internet marketing program for each client.

For instance, pay per click (PPC) advertising is not appropriate for each type of business, especially if the price of the product is low, like under $100. But it works great if you are selling something that costs say $1,000 or more. PPC also has the added benefit that you can target exact geographical areas. So it tends to be a good fit for businesses that are servicing only a local area, that are selling a high ticket item, such as home improvement businesses. I have seen the effectiveness fall off for luxury type home improvement products over the last few years (due to economic factors), but for things that people really need for their homes, PPC is extremely very well right now.

As another example, link building, through article marketing, press releases and blogging, is very effective in raising your search engine rankings. But it takes time, like 6-12 months of consistent work, to get real results. So a company has to be able to afford to do that longer term building. And I usually pair it with something to get results more quickly, like pay per click advertising.

I have also observed that social media is more appropriate and effective for some types of businesses than others.

So is it more work to design a customized program for each client or type of client? Sure. But that is the route to real results. And if a company is selling the same package to everyone, they might sell some packages. But in the end I believe the results will not be good. And that muddies the field and the subject for everyone. The route to real results is a customized program for each type of business.

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