Self-Devpt. Nuggets™

Quick Take-Away:

My growing web marketing success achievements over the past decade, using my customizable Web Marketing System to sell digital products/services to buyers within and outside Africa at zero cost, make me an authority on this subject.

Take it or leave it.

As usual, I pull no punches in expressing my views. This needs to be said, and I’ve decided to say it, if others won’t or can’t say it, or don’t see/know it.

Let me begin with a statement of undiluted fact:

If you want to really experience the true (zero cost, time and effort saving) benefits of Internet driven high-quality-buyer attracting marketing, do NOT – and I repeat DO NOT EVER – stoop so low as to engage in the use of “EMPS”.

That acronym (EMPS) has nothing to do with Science’s Electro Magnetic Pulse…

Instead I coined it to mean “Ego-Massaging-Parapo Self-Promotion” (where “Parapo” translates to something like “Clique-based” in my native Yoruba language).

EMPS is something I see periodically practised by groups of self-acclaimed experts (especially in my part of the world) who thrive on arrogant-self-promotion.

“Arrogant” in the sense that they self-promote with no regard for what the larger market comprising their ideal target audiences NEEDS from them.

As a result, 9 times out of 10, their marketing communication tends to include lots of back patting amongst themselves, with VERY little else that persons seeking VALUE can take away.

Go to their walls or pages and each of them has his/her own photo posted along with every bit of content – even repetitively.

They typically LIKE one another’s Facebook pages and follow one another on Twitter, then get friends and relatives to do same.

Outside that, very little that is ORGANIC happens as a result of the marketing they do.

Simply put, their marketing is frequently all about them and others in their “parapo” and how “good” they look.

What they refuse to “get” is the truth that Google’s search engine algorithms are NOT designed to factor ego-massaging in rating content quality to serve serious minded searchers!

Consequently, you don’t catch them, or their websites, or other web resources they own getting indexed and thrown up in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for total strangers, in need of their solutions to discover and contact them.

And that’s what proves that their approach is wrong I.e the fact that they rarely have such true and verifiable web marketing success stories to share.

The Internet is a living thing – an organic medium. To think otherwise in using the World Wide Web based on THAT Interconnected network of computers, while doing your marketing, would be equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot.

That’s why crooked marketing does not last long on the web, and it often costs more in terms of time, effort and money required to keep it going.

On the other hand, authentic marketing, done with a clinical focus on relentless creation and propagation of useful quality information and education NEVER fails online – can often be done at zero cost for as long as one wants.

Quality content based web marketing works because the Internet is no respecter of physical (office or brand) size, social status, educational level, bank account size or even connections.

If you choose to use paid adverts for instance to drive your online marketing, it does NOT follow that a bigger sized ad banner will get you more attention from serious prospects than a competitor with a smaller paid one!

But I’m not even talking paid marketing or advertising here.

Those who follow my work online know that my focus has always been on self-promotion via creation of name/brand recognition at zero cost.

I argue that the person who has nothing but his/her idea or solution, can come online and succeed in earning money from buyers, by making intelligent use of zero cost organic search engine based marketing – like I have successfully done for years now!

My niched self-promotion success online and that of better known others in this regard (e.g Jumoke the bread-seller turned Internation model’s unplanned version), prove YOU CAN start out as a complete noboby both offline and online, and over time have your name in the consciousness of hundreds, thousands or more of your target audience, on and off the web, just based on the content that you (or indeed others – as happened for Jumoke) put online about you(rself).

You need to understand that today’s offline world gets directly impacted in real time by what happens online

Decision making by leaders in government, business, religion etc across the world is today influenced by agitation implemented entirely online.

I don’t need to give you examples, I’m sure.

Even in Nigeria’s offline world sometimes shrouded in mystery, blogs and social media based campaigns have since gone on record for their roles in changing the course of events in the lives of people who previously would have been considered lost causes e.g think police cases initially destined to be swept under the carpet…

The web works the same way in business.

That’s why your web marketing competence is crucial to your marketing success both online and offline!

Accept that truth now, or remain relegated to the background in marketing relevance when using the web!

Today’s mass media – TV, Radio, Newspapers – wisely take their cue from what’s trending online.

So if, for instance, you want them to talk about you without your paying them a kobo (Americans would say “a dime” – but I’m not American) – just use the web in a way that gets them to notice you.

They don’t have to like what you say or do, or how you say or do it. Just go ahead and say or do it in a manner that is hard to ignore and that is worthy of being talked about, or reported – aka NEWSWORTHY.

To get noticed that way, you need to develop a Web Marketing Strategy or Plan – and it needs to be implemented based on a system that is self-perpetuating.

That will generate organic traffic of mainly total strangers interested in what you sell, way beyond what any EMPS networks can possibly deliver to you, leading to real selling opportunities that could put real money in your pockets if/when you close a sale(s) with those prospects that connect with you.

I see experts who keep showing off high numbers of likes, comments and followers, but who cannot boast of even 0.5% sales converted from all of it combined.

Yet their facebook and twitter feeds remain busy due to streams of conversations with their ever admiring “likers and followers”.

If those “likers and followers” are mainly EMPS click-buddies with whom you’ve agreed to cross promote content, then very little real-potential-buyer attraction is likely to happen for you, outside of that circle.

If that suits you, keep doing it!

Personally, I cannot waste my scare time resource like that, because I have a bigger God-given Vision I”m pursuing, to make a difference helping others as a Multi-disciplinary Performance Improvement Specialist

I don’t know about YOU, reading this right now, but I do NOT just want to be liked on Facebook and followed on Twitter, for instance.

Instead, I use those platforms because I want to have quality sales conversations, and ultimately close some sales – while helping those who need me!

So I prefer to be liked and followed by people who have potential to become buyers of solutions I sell. If that means having a small number of “likers and followers” to show, so be it.

Get this: The number of people you connect with does not always matter in selling.

If for instance, you land a long term supply contract with Strive Masiyawa’s Econet Wireless, to serve all their offices worldwide, the income from that ONE single client could dwarf all you earn from 100 other smaller clients combined.

Who says you can’t get noticed and land such a contract using your web marketing? Masiyawa himself has continually written that it’s happened to others and it can happen for anyone.

My point in essence is that you’re better off having few high paying buyers or clients to serve, than having hundreds of low paying, bargain seeking ones to deal with as a result of poor marketing.

What I’ve learnt from studying many brands marketing online is that a busy facebook or twitter page is no guarantee of sales.

Some websites, blogs and social media pages are high maintenance (in terms of time/effort/money expended to keep them going), but low to zero income generating channels for their clueless owners!

Indeed, my experience as one selling custom Excel VB software and other unconventional products and services online indicates, is that you CAN repeatedly make sales to people who do NOT even bother to subscribe to your website newsletter, or like your Facebook page, or follow you on Twitter, before they call you up on phone, send you a sales enquiry via email or web contact form, and ultimately buy from you.

This has been my reality over the years: I’ve made sales that way MANY times!

So you see, the number of likes and followers you get on Facebook and Twitter, are important – but what matters more is the INTENT of those liking and following you on those platforms.

Indeed, persons who have not even liked or followed you (as my online success story continues to show) may be even more likely to buy from you than those already in your network!

That’s why you need to keep thinking big picture when posting promotional content on your pages. Don’t focus only on those “talking” to you there, and patting you on the back, screaming how they love your posts.

Quite often the talkers rarely do more than that (I.e talk): some derive feelings of validation from being paid attention by THE page owner. That’s all they’re there for.

But you’re in business to make money, so you (should) know you need more than that for your efforts!

That’s why I recommend you do the following:

1. Ask yourself how many of them fit your target audience or ideal client/buyer profile.

2. Then of those that fit in, ask yourself how many have ever purchased your product or service at market price, without making it look like s/he was doing you a favour.

How many did you count?

I dare say they will be less than 1% of the total number of talkers you find yourself responding to most times.

For a presumably busy expert of your stature, that’s not a productive use of your billable effort and time!

Such people may be interested in you and what you have to say, but they may not be driven to NEED what you sell!

To sell successfully, you need to attract and connect more with people who need solutions you offer, and are willing to pay the price you request for it.

Maybe you need your ego massaged periodically by admirers.

We’re all human after all

But your sales and marketing success depends less on “ego tripping” and much more on having quality content created and propagated using an intelligent time, effort and cost-saving Web Marketing System!

Pay those massaging your ego too much attention and they’ll do 2 things to you – both starting with the letter “D”, and both bad I.e they will DISTRACT and DRAIN you.

You deserve better than that!