Unearthing the Bleedin' Obvious

We've all had blonde moments. I myself appear to be living in a perpetual state of blonde moments. By way of an example, we are about to take a much needed 2 week family break in the Caribbean. Sounds lovely doesn't it? We thought so. Unfortunately, I neglected to do my customary whether research and have since discovered that we have chosen the absolute peak of the hurricane season. Genius.

But my blonde moments are not confined to my personal life and fortunately I'm often in good company…

Like the time I was racking my brains with one of my clients on how to cheaply promote his website. So we’re chatting and then a blindingly obvious question hits me – “Have you got any customers we could email?” (it had been a slow day).  “Oh, yes”, he says “about 2500”.  (I think I audibly groaned!)

Or the time I visited a customer whose turnover was in the millions and got that way through word-of-mouth.  When I asked “Do you have a formal way of getting referrals from your customers?”, they answered through a series of blank stares.

You get the idea, sometimes the most obvious answer can be right under your nose and yet still impossible to see (until some upstart consultant points it out to you – in consultancy terms that’s known as ‘facilitation’ but otherwise known to my clients as ‘bloody irritating’).

So here’s my suggestion to you: grab some paper and list all the ways you could promote your website but focus on the obvious first (some people call that the low hanging fruit, but they charge £900/day and this is a free article!)

Here’s 9 to start you off…

1. Email your customers :-)
2. Email your prospects and anyone else on your database
3. Ask for email addresses at every possible juncture
4. Tell everyone in your business to start promoting the website
5. Make sure your web address is everywhere - letters, business cards, emails, in reception, your invoices, press releases, tattooed onto your pets, etc…
6. Word of mouth referrals programme
7. Join a forum related to your sector
8. Start a Google Adwords campaign
9. Google “ways to promote [a] [my] [your] website

If you get stuck ask the people at your local, your partner, your children ask and you will get some great responses you’d never even thought of.  (It’s important to remember that you are surrounded by ‘consultants’ and they’ll give you their opinion for free – if you want mine you’ll have to pay for it!

Happy marketing