Internet Marketing Weekly Feature: Don’t Scare Away Business

Halloween is almost upon us. In the spirit of the spooky season, I felt compelled to list some of the scary internet marketing mistakes businesses make.

Budget Slasher

Prep for surgery, not a slasher film, when trimming your internet marketing budget.

The priority is to ensure that you can evaluate the Return On Investment (ROI) of your various internet marketing efforts. If you don’t have Google Analytics tracking of revenue sources, get it. If your current revenue center (online store, reservations, etc.) can’t report the sources of online revenue from website visits via Google, paid online directory listings, etc., it is time to change providers.

If you don’t have an online revenue center, you can still evaluate the quality of visits via sources tracking in Google Analytics. See last week’s post: Evaluate Your Paid Online Directories with Google Analytics.

Once you are able to evaluate your revenue sources, you can make an informed decision about what to cut, scale back or re-purpose.

Scary Clown

Loud pink and green Comic Sans font on a bright yellow background? Don’t be the scary internet clown!

Don’t Be the Scary Internet Clown

What is it about a clowns that scares some people? Three words: they’re too different. To these folks, clowns are frightening, annoying or both because they don’t look or act like you and me…at all. Don’t scare off website visitors with off-putting fonts, colors, images or sounds.

Don’t Let Your Blog Become a Ghost Town

Why are ghost towns scary? Because they’re abandoned. When was the last time you published a blog post? Last week? Last month? Longer? Should your blog have a virtual tumbleweed blowing across the page? Keep the cobwebs at bay by posting regularly, at least weekly whenever possible. Bring more and better visits by posting well. Don’t have the time to write? Hire a trustworthy writer who will work with you to understand how your business and area.

Be Social, Not Creepy

Creepy Message

Choose your professional social media posts and responses with care.

Ever know someone who tried to hard to be popular, but just came off as eerie or, worse, threatening? How about the person that puts up a friendly social face, then doesn’t return your calls? Social media is now a major component of internet marketing. As a business, your social marketing efforts will walk the razor’s edge of the personal/professional line. Keep your personal and business social media accounts separate. Always make sure to post to your business account as your business and don’t let personal issues bleed over to your professional social efforts. Respond appropriately to comments both good and bad – don’t ignore or overreact to negative feedback. Remember, your followers, fans and the whole world are watching.

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