M & A Rainmaker

When someone said that to me the other day I thought well, everyone can’t can they !! As I responded – I can do it because I am a
” published writer ” !!  I have not written a book and had it published but I have written a number of articles, stories and blogs – some of which have been published.

I feel like I have a book or two in me but there’s a bit of distance between now and something I can open and thumb through.

I definately don’t consider myself to be a professional writer. However, I have developed a rather unusual ability to write Search Engine Optimised or Content Optimised blogs and articles.

This blog has not been written to rank ( in Google ) for anything. I consider this to be a relaxing piece of writing because I do not have any key words or phrases in my head that I am trying to work into my titles and content.

No, this is completely unoptimised content. I am just writing something.

I was listening to Twylah co-founder Eric Kim recently and he was talking about how Twitter is great for people who can’t string a blog together. All they have to do is to is to think up something that takes up to 140 characters. Anyone can do that right ??

Well, I think that most people could think of something to say but the question is would it be worth reading ?? Leaving aside celebrities there are obviously quite a few people who can write something interesting in 140 characters – judging by the number of followers that they have.

On the other hand when you look at some of the things that people say you wonder why they are doing it and who is reading it. I have to say that I have got a little bored with people that just throw out ” famous quote ” after ” famous quote “. Although it is surprising how many I quite like – and like enough to ReTweet. I do wonder just how many interesting ” quotes ” there are and how many people will  continue to be interested in reading them.

I don’t have much time for ” Life Coach ” type quotes either but again some of them you read and are glad to be reminded of.

I actually write blogs for some people. Most of the time I do this myself but I always ask them to think of topics and if possible, angles themselves. I then create blogs around their ideas that are typically laced with words and phrases that they want to rank for.

You have basically got to have a blog these days. I could explain why but trust me you need one. In simple terms you need to be adding fresh, relevant content to your web/blogsite and domain.

Your blog is part of what I call your ” Internet Marketing Ecosystem “. ( Search on that term here or in Google for more information ).

I have 2 or 3 things at the core of my ” Internet Marketing Ecosystem ” – a web/blogsite and a Twylah page.

Here is my Twylah page – http://www.twylah.com/cwindley .

A Twylah page takes your 140 character Tweets ( usually with links to pictures and videos ) and automatically ( with no effort from yourself ) puts them into a web/blogsite.

So this https://twitter.com/#!/cwindley is reorientated as this http://www.twylah.com/cwindley.

Not only are my Tweets re-presented but they are also sorted into categories. In my case:

Marketing

Social Media

Business

Twitter

and

Startups

are the uppermost categories. ( I can decide which categories I want to appear first ).

The Twylah pages are searchable ( they are like normal web/blog pages ) and thousands of peoples Tweets are pouring into the Twylah website producing rich ( text, pictures and videos ) content for Google to find.

What I am saying is that your Twylah pages are going to rank high in Google for the categories that represent you.

Arguably your Twylah page is a more accurate reflection of your Internet presence than, say, Klout, Kred or PeerIndex.

The main point is this – you don’t have to be able to write blogs – just get a Twylah page and it will write them ( automatically SEO’d ) for you !!

Dear M.D./C.E.O./Owner/Proprietor/Boss,

In letter from Marketing No. 3 we talked about the people that ” used ” to design and run websites – programmers or creatives ( graphic designers ).

You need to be aware that while many of these people have invested time and effort in learning the new skills required to run a website of today others, quite frankly, have not. ( This also goes for some marketing companies that you might outsource to )

The people that you need ( probably in the Marketing department somewhere ) running the website, social media marketing and blogsites are a strange mixture – HubSpot Inc describes them as ” D.A.R.C. “

( For a more detailed explanation of D.A.R.C. go to download here

http://www.hubspot.com/darc-ebook-download/ )

D.A.R.C. stands for

Digital – They understand the digital/internet world. They understand, for example, how to optimise a website so that it is found ( S.E.O. ).

Analytical – They can analyse graphs and statistics to check how the website and e.g. marketing campaigns are working.

Reach – They are highly connected ( on the Internet ) already. They have Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin pages and their own blogsite and they have lots of connections.

Content – They understand how to create relevant content .

In order to function correctly your D.A.R.C. person needs to know something fundamental about your business on an ongoing basis:

They need to know ” What it is that you want to be found for?? ”

This means that they need to be plugged in to the business strategy.

Your D.A.R.C. person will do something rather strange but very necessary: they will carry around in their heads your businesses key words and phrases – the things ( products and services )  that you want to be found for and they will weave these into every element of your Internet Marketing Strategy.

These words and phrases will be in all the right places in your website and blogsite ( the titles, metatags etc ); these words will be in the content of your website and blogsite aswell: they will write blogs with these words and phrases in the back of their minds. I say at the back because they will do it subtly – a skill learned over time.

They will understand that being found for these words and phrases is only part of the process and that they must create ” Calls to action ” ( C.T.A. )  to convert website visitors to leads. These C.T.A.’s themselves must be designed in the right way to be effective – using the right incentives and requesting the right information.

They will also understand that ” being found ” by Google searches is only one part of the ” Internet Marketing Ecosystem “. They will also use e.g. Facebook pages, Twitter pages, Linkedin pages, Blogs, YouTube videos and Internet P.R. to ” drive ” traffic to the website ( where it will be converted and analysed ).

They will create a closed loop system and monitor on an ongoing basis – How many times the website was found ? How many people converted to leads ? How many converted to customers ? What was the R.O.I. ? What worked best ?

This is the  raison d’etre of your D.A.R.C. Marketer. How to use Internet Marketing to get you the most leads and sales at the least possible cost ??

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/29/letter-from-marketing-no-3/

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/28/letter-from-marketing-no-2/

http://mandarainmaker.co.uk/wordpress/2011/06/22/letter-from-marketing-no-1/