Have you ever tried to explain your job to someone. One of the hardest parts is remembering all those little items that have, over time, become second nature. The things you do or know without really thinking about them.

A recent post by Paul Carpenter, “SEO: One size doesn’t fit all” brought this home to me.

The post is a simple decision matrix Product Value vs Market Size. Something I do, almost instinctively apply when assessing a client’s needs. It should be one of the first things you do in making a decision on where and how much to spend on any form of advertising. It should certainly be applied when looking at investing in Search Engine Optimization.

First is the product value. I like to consider the Lifetime Value. With some items the Life Time value is the sale price. These are products you only sell once and have limited brand value.

Easy – Peasy!

Many products and services are not that simple. Do you have repeat customers? What is their average annual purchase? Do your customers recommend your product? On average, how many referrals do you get from a customer? These are the types of things you need to consider in evaluating your product’s Lifetime Value.

Next consider the market size.

This is a lot easier – but there are still a few things to consider. The biggest being, if you successfully increase your website visibility, will you increase your market. For example doing SEO to increase the placement of a local restaurant to the top of the page on a national search for ‘restaurant’ would not increase the potential market.

Your product is going to fall into one of four quadrants on the matrix:

1. Low Value – Small Market
2. Low Value – Large Market
3. High Value – Small Market
4. High Value – Large Market

For all positions you should already have ‘Picked The Low Hanging Fruit‘. This means things like the title tag and description tag are filled in according to SEO guidelines. Proper use of

H1

,

H2

, and

H3

headings and key words in your text.

 

Which Marketing Strategy Should You Used

Quadrant #1

This is usually for a local market. (If it is not a local market – consider what changes you can make to your product to give it a wider apeal.) Keep you online marketing strategy cheap and simple.

Examples: Plumber, Hair Dresser

Consider:

• Registering with Google Places
• Making sure your contact information is on every page.
• Advertising on free services like Craigs List

Quadrant #2

Regional, national or international markets. The key to web marketing to this quadrant is the handling charges. Show them upfront, let the customer know the handling charges before they go to checkout. Hidden handling charges are the biggest factor in abandoned sales.

Examples: Books, Fishing Tackle

Consider:

• Controling costs – increase margins. (Amazon does this best)
• Register in the Yahoo business directory
• Bundling products to reduce handling cost.
• Adwords campaign targeting the ‘long tail’ (less common search terms ) instead of the primary key words

Quadrant #3

A niche market. Strategies will depend on the amount of competition and number of repeat sales. For B-to-C products, social marketing should be a big part of your strategy. For B-to-B marketing, create a client area. Personalize posts within that area.

Examples: Custom software, Personal jets

Consider:

• Adwords campaign targeting industry or product specific blogs.
• Making your site the authority on your product – articles etc.
• Social Marketing – User Generated Content

Quadrant #4

The prime real estate for any marketer. High value usually mean a high barrier to entry, fewer competitors, and high marginal rate of substitution, few substitutes.

Examples: Diamonds, Luxuary automobiles

Consider:

• Adwords campaign targeting both primary key words and the ‘long tail’.
• Link building from industry or product related blogs and websites.
• Make your site the authority on your product – articles etc.
• Social Marketing – User Generated Content

As with any SEO or web marketing strategy, make changes slowly and watch the results.

Tags: advertising, marketing strategy, potential market, search engine optimization, SEO

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