Check this one out, let’s play a little game eh?
On July 15, 2009,
in Beginner Online Marketing,
by Allyn
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Allyn Hane: Master Of My Own Domain
Excellent points and I think this may be the “hardest” part for newbie marketers like myself. It is a must for each and every site we build.
Now, I’m in the poker industry mostly but dabble in anything that I think will sell and is useful to a lot of people. I can’t think of any examples right now, but I can tell you a good example in the brick and mortar biz’s. THE EBAY AUCTION STORES, where anyone can go and sell their stuff on ebay just by dropping it off in this store, which will then sell it on ebay and keep some of the sale. I have one right down the road from me and its called: “Sell Your Stuff On EBay” (i think). But you know what the business does without even thinking about it. Also – “Furniture and Appliance Mart” You know what they are selling there too.
Oh here is a bad one: “Mountain Mudd” Anyone know what that is? Yeah, it’s a drive through coffee place. Mountain Mudd…WTF?
Thanks allyn for answering all my questions the past few months, you have been good to me and I appreciate it greatly.
It look like I already surpassed my online income from last month, LOL. (my first 9 months i made nothing listening to john chow, and all those crazy people)
Oh man, you have pushed one of my pet peeve buttons– people who murder their business with poor signage.
Maybe you guys will get these, but I’m kind of a normal person, and I don’t get them at all (2 different businesses):
- HOOKED ON HOOKAH
- 40 THIEVES ~HOOKAH LOUNGE~
At least the 2nd one had a subtitle on the sign, but I still don’t get it.
Online people do the same thing with their URLs– catchy cutsie names that nobody can spell and nobody knows what the biz is about. Or names where you don’t know whether to type in 3CATS.com or THREECATS.com, etc. How stupid is that!
Murder, that’s what I’m talkin’ about– murdering a business before it can set ’sale’. LOL!
[/rant] heehee
Allyn, I think this is your best, most thought provoking vid/post yet.
I think that although there are parallels between marketing in the on and offline business world, it’s important to recognise the key differences too.
Brick and mortar stores need signage that makes it clear what the shop does – this is not true online (Amazon, Zappos, Ebay, Google, Flickr, Twitter, etc.,etc.) where a memorable brand name is more important (BTW, I’m not talking about niche sites built purely for adsense or affiliate marketing – these sites will benefit from keyword rich domain names).
The key online, and this is the point you made, is to ensure that the keyphrases you want to rank for, are the phrases actually used by your potential customers when they’re searching online.
I fell into this trap with a client a while back when we optimised for poultry housing when in fact chicken coops are what people search for!
Cheers
Hadi
@Eric
Glad you are moving along my friend! Just remember me when you hit the big time! LOL
@Palmetto
I think that Hookah is one of those “underground” kinda things where people in the know are the only ones they are looking to bring in anyway. I dunno, we got a few Hookah bars here too. But I agree that your URL should be straight and easy. No need to be “overly cool” but sometimes, like you say, people just wanna be catchy and shabby at the expense of making money!
@Hadi
I couldn’t have said it better myself! You hit the nail on the head!
No doubt, if you are going to give your business or website a stupid name, you better do a darn good job of marketing the goofy name in your community or online. One of my online sites, I market the crap out of my website name so that people automatically know what it is. I have too many things going on in that site to pigeon hole it. Much easier to market the name itself.
Totally different story with other sites. I focus on the keywords just like you teach O’Allyn-San. I’m betting right now if the coffee shop had named their business “Hillbilly Coffee” they would have succeeded. They could have designed some neat packaging and sold the crap out of it online. Their menu would have read, Texas Tea or Black Crude. They needed a gimmick.
Solid points. You see this time and time again. In dealing with customers I know I look at life and marketing with Internet colored lenses. To me business revolves around the Internet. I constantly have to remind myself that others done always view things the same way nor is there a one shoe fits all approach to marketing.
Considering your target market’s tolerance to different ideas, names, produces and needs is huge for succeeding both on and offline. The biggest key to getting better is knowing the true reason the product or service failed to begin with. It is so easy to say the economy is bad, the town couldn’t support it, too new, no customer loyalty and so on. Asking lots of questions is a great way to determine the best way to approach your marketing plan. To bad you hadn’t stopped in two months before.
Also, Fargo is in the Midwest
I think this hookah phenom may have sprung up around here as a result of legislative smoking bans.
Maybe “hookah lounge” is well-known code speak to **smokers** who have been banned from smoking in bars around here, and the owners don’t actually care that only a small fraction of Americans are broadly educated enough to know what a hookah is.
One thing that comes to mind when listening to you or reading Court or Griz is basics, basics, basics. Think what normal people are looking for and use common sense.
As for “the mystic bean”, we have a lot of new age people around where I live and a few fantasy/new age type stores, so I’d think it was a store along those lines. Far cry from coffee!