When someone enters keywords into their favorite search engine, they are trying to do one of two things:

1) solve a problem
2) answer a question

By “pushing” out content in the form of blogs, podcasts, white-papers, articles, and instructional videos, you “pull” in customers looking for solutions or answers. Buy providing quality free content that helps them with the problem they are looking to solve or question they seek an answer to, you pre-sell yourself or your company. This pulls the prospect closer to you and shortens the decision-making cycle for them to choose to do business with you.

While this is a well-know tactic that many have blogged about before, there is an art to designing campaigns that effectively use this approach to gain permission to continue these conversations in a way that results in increased business. While most businesses can launch a blog themselves, it takes a trained marketing professional or lots of trial and error to leverage the value of these “push” content efforts. The best approach for most businesses is to budget for development of a Web 2.0 marketing strategy by a consultant who has experience with website conversions. Maintaining a blog, podcast, or article series can be very time-consuming, so to get the kind of ROI you have been hearing all the buzz about with these tactics, you need a plan to attract and retain an audience for this communication.

Social networks that are now the backbone of Web2.0 allow your prospects to locate you and your website by the principle of “birds of a feather flock together.” Tags are small clusters of keywords that allow members of these communities to locate others interested in a similar set of subjects to network with, usually by adding people to their list of friends or through groups that share a common interest. If you or your company are well represented on networks like linkedin.com, facebook.com or myspace.com (which one you use most will depend on your industry), then you are also pre-selling by showing who you are associated with. You want to use profiles in these spaces to demonstrate affinity with thought leaders, innovators, and other impressive people and organizations in your industry that help to convey your style of approach to solving problems and finding answers.

Tagged as: article marketing, blogs, internet marketing consultant, online marketing strategy, podcast marketing, Search Engine Optimization, seo, Social Media Marketing, social networks, Video Marketing, web2.0, website conversions, white-papers