If you’re in Denver
and looking for someone to help grow your business, is it important to find a small business Internet marketing specialist in Colorado?
Or is it more important to find someone with expertise in exactly what you’re looking for?
Now more than ever, the world is flat. Expertise is more important than location. And with as fast as things change in the online world, there are a ton of people claiming to be specialists when they really have no clue as to how things work.
Just this morning, I met with a “marketing specialist”. She was recently hired by a company to completely overhaul their entire marketing strategy, including their website. So we met to discuss website strategy. She had a ton of ideas for their site – none of which she really knew anything about.
- She felt search engine placement wasn’t important – nobody really finds clients online anyway.
- She wanted a simple site with a little SEO – no reason to blog, all the info should be on the original site anyway.
- She was planning on creating a Facebook profile for the company. Profile for a company? Hmmm… sure hope she doesn’t get banned.
She had what I call the Old World Marketing Block. She was trained and grew up in old world marketing, and has no clue as to how to market businesses today using today’s tools.
And she’s not alone. In fact, many marketers that have been around for 5, 10 years or more simply haven’t kept up with new ways to market. They may dabble online. They may blog occasionally. And they may even have a profile on Facebook. But unless they understand how they all work together, and how you need them all to capture attention, it’s simply a waste of time.
I’ve been online since the early 1990’s. I know a ton about online marketing, and can easily spot when someone doesn’t understand it. But for the average business owner that doesn’t understand it either, how can they get around who knows the information, and who doesn’t?
Ask them to walk the talk. Show you how it all works.
- How many websites do they have within their business?
- Are they making money online?
- Are they utilizing a ton of different tools?
- Where do they rank on Google?
- How many friends do they have on Facebook ? Twitter?
- How are they connecting their blogs to other sites?
If they aren’t doing it themselves, there is no way they understand it. Because if they did understand it, they would be benefiting AND PROFITING from it.
Take some time to ask your potential marketing person just these few questions. You may be surprised at the answers. And you may be out hunting online for a new marketer very quickly.
