A potential customer recently confided in us, “My CEO thinks you need a ginormous sales team to find customers! He thinks Google and online marketing are basically useless when it comes to land new clients.” As much as we’d like to say that we were aghast, the truth is we have heard that before.
There are still so many businesses out there that think “Internet is not us.” What they don’t understand is their competition is using Google, Yahoo, and YouTube, even Bing, to expand their businesses and reach new horizons! We don’t care how ‘old-fashioned’ you are, if you refuse to adapt, your business WILL suffer. Period.
Marketing in the 21st Century
As is the norm, people are afraid of the ‘new’. In the 1990s, there were many businesses that used to believe that having a website is absolutely useless. Now look at the world. Every major and successful business has a website. Promoting your business online on social media is the ‘cool thing to do.’
Take us for an example, NEXTFLY Phoenix, has enjoyed a rapid growth by relying on customers that have found us through online marketing and search engines. Today, the easiest and fastest way for a business to find a service is to ‘search’ for it online. We know this and we have used this knowledge to our advantage. This way, people come to us, and our sales team focuses on providing the best service to these customers, rather than cold-calling hundreds of potential leads that might not be a right match for our offerings at all!
The way it works is easy. When people come to us via search engines (like Google), we know they are already interested. They were looking for a Phoenix SEO company, they typed that phrase in the search bar, and they found us.
How many people did it take us to drive that level of interest to our business? None. Zero. Zilch.
Once upon a time, when you wanted to find new clients, this is what you’d have done:
- Find the leads
- Contact them
- Follow-up with them
- Follow-up some more (no kidding!)
- Close the sale…all the while keeping your fingers crossed
Those were the days when a business needed a huge sales team to come up with a few valuable leads, and close even fewer sales. In the process, some leads were lost due to miscommunication, and some leads were left annoyed with the cold-calls.
Thank god those days are over.
Now, the search engines, especially Google, have streamlined the whole sales process to such a degree that it costs much less time and money.
All you have to do is make a website, launch your products and services, and get it in front of your audience. Your goal is not to find new customers rather keep your business in their line of sight so they find you.
That’s why Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is so popular; it’s cheaper and immediate than traditional marketing. Whether you are a doctor, lawyer, a retail outlet, a restaurant or a large corporation, digital marketing can change the face of your business. Remember, every second you are not reaching out to global audience online, you are losing a sales opportunity. So what’s it gonna be?
