It took us eight years to land a client once, but the contract we took on was worth the wait. The thing is, when you don’t do retail sales and are in B2B, chances are the sale takes a little longer than a quick in and out. A level or proving yourself also come into the equation, rather than being based purely on price.

That’s what I love about the whole idea of permission marketing and digital delivery such as websites, Blogs and e-mail marketing.

Seth Godin, Author of the original book on the subject, covers it again briefly on his Blog today.

It’s a much more laid back way of marketing and is proven (for me at least) to generate pipeline through relevant attention, rather than the badgering approach which annoys me more and more each day.

I had an interesting chat with an Estate Agent at the weekend and he was telling me how bad business is for him at the moment. It seems that the downturn has really hit hard over the past few weeks, although it shouldn’t really be a surprise. I am not an economist but marketing during a recession was worth talking about in January.

Then, a few bad things happen at the same time - banks, oil and food - the newspapers do their usually hysteria messaging, telling us not to PANIC and suddenly we seem to be in a full blown recession.

Interestingly the Estate Agent was saying he would rather cut back on advertising than staff and I am sure they will not be alone, reducing marketing spend to save costs. But, is it the advertising that should be cut off or simply a different message for different times?

The papers are great for whipping up fear in people and the Oscar winning documentary - Bowling For Columbine - had a key message that fear is the very premise for continued economic stability in the US.

Do you scare people? Can you scare people?

It’s a genuine marketing tactic, scaring people. Perhaps if you don’t do it, you will go out of business! (see what I did there?)

Think about it. Insurance companies, family issues, or anything to do with getting old; they all market using messages that insist that you NEED the product, rather than it being a ‘nice to have’. The focus often moves into the worst case scenario of you not parting with your money.

Perhaps this model fits your business? Perhaps you need to look at genuine motivational factors of why someone may need your product or service.

Marketing in a recession

There is no doubt that although a recession is never a great thing to deal with, there will be opportunities for reaching new, or different, markets and that simply requires appropriate messaging rather than hiding and hoping the storm will pass.

I’m not perfect. My website is not perfect. My business is not perfect. But, I’d like think I am working on all three in a live environment.

If you wait for your marketing to be perfect, you’ll never quite make it and just when you think it is perfect, the rules will change.

Work live.

I am currently in Cyprus at the villa and while discussing how I go about selling rental weeks through my website with my mother-in-law, we got to talking about deal making information and why it is important to optimize accordingly.

Imagine that moment, when a person (or a couple) is looking at the choices available for them online and wonder - what is the deal breaking information they need to book yours above and beyond one of the competition?

And, this thought could relate to any business. So many times, we sell to people what we think is important (the benefits) when really; it’s about what they see as the benefits. For example, satellite TV on holiday is not at all important for me, but has proved important for two different families. For one, it was a deal clincher when I told that that I was installing it.

Of course, now, when I sell that benefit online, will it put off the people that don’t want it? I know I will need to phrase it accordingly.

With so many people having so many different things that flick their switch, optimizing how you sell and what you focus on as the benefits is very important.

And, this is doubly important when you see that they have so much choice - especially online. My villa is on a complex of 27. Within 2km I can imagine there are approximately 2,000 other private villas. Take the whole island and you probably end up in the millions.

Hence, the need to niche and the need to make the deal before someone else does by appealing to your customer with the right ‘deal making’ information.

Of course, this goes back to my point the other day: The more you niche your sales offering, the more chance you have to appeal. So, with a private pool, large enclosed area and now satellite TV, I know that I just need to keep pushing the young family aspect.

One last thought: They are building a golf course near the villa. How much effort vs. reward would there be in building a completely different website that focussed the villa on golf?
How much further can you niche and focus your sales offering?

I have been thinking a lot recently about vertical markets and niche marketing and get the feeling I have not been niche enough. More and more, the websites I am seeing success with are the ones with complete focus.

It’s almost as if I have been saying this is the way to do it, but not practicing what I preach. But the good stuff is very good:

• This website is doing amazing for our Escape client  - Magic Mitre - one product.
• As has Projector Lamp Experts with pay-per click - a niche market.
• Then there is the villa in Pervolia website - finally taking hold after two years offering a specific vacation destination.
• Finally, there is Basingstoke Business News, a personal project that is getting local (and global) attention for the right reasons.

Basingstoke Business News takes minimal effort to maintain, but the medium-to-long term value will show growth, especially if I can develop the site. Of course, I have the luxury of not having to make money from it, but that is a point in itself.  I offer what many local people want in terms of what I do in my day job (I build websites). Is it the fact that I offer business news for free (people can get that diluted from anywhere on the web), or that if I bring it together and add value, I get attention. Oh, by the way, I can help you market your business online.

The point is, the more the web gets diluted, the more people will want specifics, hence the popularity of The Long Tail I guess. It used to be that you could get attention on-line - and you still can. But, is it for the right thing and is there any gold at the end of that particular rainbow?

If you think about it, the rules of marketing have changed immensely with the web. As a business, no longer can you tell people how great you are without backing it up. People can review you (like I just did to a hotel I visited last week).

Which is why social media is becoming more important to marketers. Who are you more likely to believe - a company, or your friend’s review?

Tools like Facebook are bringing peers together and they can share their purchasing experiences quicker and easier than ever before.

So surely, pure marketing therefore comes from how good you actually are - from you customers perspective!

I’ve just written an article on The Escape website - How to appeal to vertical and niche markets online.

While I was writing it I was reminded of a small piece on website I did about four years ago - since long forgotten - about niche marketing a holiday home.

I believe this approach works better than ever, but ultimately includes some extra work in the short-term. I do think it offers better value though long-term.

I’m reading a book by Dan Ariely called Predictably Irrational - well worth a read. I’m only a couple of chapters in but already I am raring to go on a marketing experiment about pricing.

In the book Dan talks about how people need at least two products to gauge a price. The example he uses, to great effect, is for magazine subscription with three options:

• 12 months Internet only - £59
• 12 months print only - £165
• 12 months print and Internet - £165

He ran an experiment to see which option people would go for and most went for the third option (84%), because they had two points of reference. By repeating the same experiment but removing option two, this came down to 32%.

His visual demonstration of this phenomena works well also:

Like I said, well worth a read.

Sorry for the cheesy headline but there is an important point coming about website strategy.

I just left a comment on a new Blog I am doing some guest posts on. These guys do NLP and something called The Human Element and I did the course last year. Anyway, Ben posted today about root causes of behaviours and it summed up a meeting I had today with a client and their website.

90% into the project, together, we have established what it is they want from the website.

Many companies focus on the technical platform, the design, the colouring… I am sure you’ve been there. What they feel to sit back and decide, is the money question - What do I actually want from my website?

Web strategies and KPIs (key performance indicators) are essential to the success of any web project. I you don’t know what you want, how can you measure the success, or failure?

Back to the onion - it’s enough to make my eyes water!

Why is it that trashy mags and Red Top newspapers in the UK follow the lives of ‘celebrities’ whilst some people with genuine talent struggle to get noticed. The skill of self-promotion and personality can go a hell of a way whether we ethically like it or not.

If you can then back it up with some genuine talent, then you have something special.

The normal route in society is to chase the bucks as quickly as possible and make serious money. Others choose a different route and arguably manage the ultimate goal of credibility and marketability - enabling sustainable avenues of revenue rather than a crash and burn approach.

Take Google. They spent a good few years delivering search free, concentrating on making the product better and better, while relying on word-of-mouth. They had marketability and credibility before they even began to make money.

Without the luxury of VC funding, small businesses are under pressure to deliver revenue pretty much straight away. If you have a great product though, it’s just a case of adding a bit of personality to your offering and doing a bit of self-promotion.

Twenty years ago you couldn’t imagine a company with a name like Google, Yahoo or Squidoo but now they are common. They ooze personality.

I often talk about the need for great content. I don’t often talk about the other side of that - how you write it.

A little personality goes a long way.