Mal Gordon – How to Sell on the Web

Yesterday, I attended the Media 140 conference in my home town of Perth, Western Australia.

The forum was a place where technologists, bloggers, futurists, programmers, journalists, IT gurus, designers, entrepreneurs and the just plain curious discussed what was happening with the web and realtime media such as Twitter, Facebook etc. It was a huge success with the Perth Town Hall filled to capacity on what would prove to be a ridiculously hot day.

The purpose of my attendance was to help guage exactly where my skill set was at and it was good to see that there were no great revelations or surprises. The forum served as validation for my strategies though I did pick up a few handy tips which I look forward to implementing and sharing with my clients in the near future.

Interestingly, there was a live Twitter stream projected above the speakers panel with a mixture of questions answered from the audience with an old fashioned runner and microphone and from the stream which was a rather brave thing to do. The stream was a source of much amusement for me and many other participants with many in jokes being shared and much public humiliation of the poor speakers at times.

The key points I took away are:

1. Engage your audience on their level, or else!

People are using social media and other tools on the internet to talk about you and your organisation whether you like it or not and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can either accept this fact and craft a strategy to engage your audience through their medium of choice or bury your head in the sand and hope for the best.

2. Corporate Australia is out of touch

The seemingly bewildered and confused editor of the The West Australian, Brett Mccarthy spoke for most of corporate Australia when he said “we don’t understand it, but we know it’s important.” I admired his honesty and that’s okay, that’s what people like me are here for, to interpret and explain recent developments for you.

The strangely enigmatic lawyer, Andrew Pascoe of Allens Legal as well as most other speakers echoed his sentiments, no surprises here.

3. Nothing has changed

Someone once described social media as “word of mouth on steroids” which is an apt description. Facebook, Twitter, etc are just the latest mediums through which to tell stories, deliver messages, share jokes and connect with one another, that’s it! How you choose to use these tools is entirely up to you.

4. This is all an experiment

Thanks to the wonders of technology it has never cost so little to experiment yet so few people are doing it. Wanna boost turnover at your pub? Why not set up a big screen and have ‘Youtube Tuesdays’ where patrons choose their favourite Youtube videos for that week and show it to the audience in a live setting?

Need more leads for your family law practice? Why not trawl Facebook for the latest batch of people who have changed their marital status from married to single? Okay, that’s a bit ruthless and low but my point is that there are a million creative things you can be doing with these new toys. If you get it wrong probably no one will notice and if you get it right then it can do wonders for your business.

All in all, Media 140 was a great day and i’m glad I went. A special “hello” to my fellow attendees and new Facebook/Linkedin/Twitter friends/followers.

Forget your boring written testimonial, video is the way it’s done in 2010.

If you don’t know how and would like to be using video testimonials on your website contact me.

Please visit the lovely and talented Dr Jenny Brockis’ website here so you can watch first hand as I implement my strategy on it and watch it rocket up the Google rankings.

I will be attending Media 140 Perth today so please feel free to say “hi” if you see me.

While the bottom part of this article continues to feature several small icons which you may or may not have noticed before the top right now features a big fat Facebook button which sits right next to the similarly sized Twitter button. Both keep score of the number of times each post such as this one has been shared by readers on Twitter and now Facebook. If you haven’t tried these buttons before I suggest you try them now because they are a very effective way of sharing a message.

Sharing is Caring

In our uber-connected, 24/7 world which doesn’t sleep we have less and less time to process an ever expanding amount of information. If you can create short cuts for your readers to make it easier for them to share your message by inserting simple buttons automatically everytime you create a blog post such as this one then I strongly suggest you do it.

If you would like to enjoy the convenience and viral marketing opportunities of sharing tools like this in your site please contact me.

Ladies and Gentleman, I bring you the future. This is exciting stuff indeed.

Thanks to Josh “the Wizard” Williams for this awesome video of business guru Brad Sugars outlining the key points to promoting your business successfully on the internet.

The four key points I took away are;

1. Be Human

Don’t come across as an insincere automation out to grab people’s money as quickly as you can. Leave that to the professional actors and paid spokespeople in TV advertising land. If you sincerely believe in what you are promoting and are enjoying yourself while you’re doing so it will show and you will naturally gain empathy for your message.

Gary Vaynerchuk’s passion for wine translated into a massive following for his wine show on the internet. The internet is just a tool to share your passion with the world, that’s it! If you use that tool to convert that passion into cash then good for you.

2. Add value (before selling)

If you can give someone a boost in some way, shape or form, then do so. Take this blog with all its free advice for example. If I can help at least one person achieve their goals and improve their online marketing prowess then I have succeeded and hopefully gained some goodwill in the process.

3. Interact

Don’t just focus on the broadcasting aspect of a campaign as if the internet is a loudspeaker, that’s called spam and we all despise spammers. Focus on the listening aspect that social media is so good at. When a customer asks a query via Twitter or perhaps in a forum or on Facebook, answer them to the best of your ability promptly otherwise you will appear to be uncaring or perhaps even arrogant.

The internet is a democracy and this is why traditional advertising agencies are in crisis, they’re not used to having the audience talk back!

4. Sell softly

The whole 19 page “free set of steak knives” infomercial which is the internet version of the screaming spruiker doesn’t work anymore. Our audience evolved beyond that a along time ago not that many so called gurus have noticed. Build the relationship first just as I am building a relationship with you dear reader via this blog or my Youtube videos or other snippets of me on the web. It takes time but you remain in the front of your audience’s mind and when they do need you for something, you’ll be the first person they think of.

Youtube is the second most popularly searched site after Google

It appears that most businesses are neglecting online video and are perplexed by it despite the fact it is incredibly easy and cheap to create. This is a massive opportunity I look forward to showing you how to exploit effectively in coming posts and videos.