swanie
My career in marketing started in 1996. I’ve seen and heard a lot about what marketing should be and what marketing shouldn’t be. I can tell you this, marketing shouldn’t be about impressing friends and winning design words. Marketing should be about building business. Business guru, Peter Drucker, said only two things build business … innovation and marketing. Everything else is a cost. In other words, spend your time and money making your product better. Spend the rest of your time telling prospects how your product best solves their problem. If you’re not actively doing these two things, you’re not building your business.
I help people with the marketing part … mainly, web marketing.
I rarely recommend anyone rely solely on their website to build their business. In today’s business landscape, however, a website (and blog) is often the core marketing tool for legal, business, and medical professionals. A website and blog, if done well, works with other marketing and sales efforts to build business in three ways:
- Word of mouth: a peer or client recommends you to a friend and/or they see your website address in an advertisement. The prospect visits your website to learn more about you.
- Reference: you meet with a prospective client. They visit your website later to learn more about you.
- Search: a prospect actively searches for your services and sees your website listed on search engine results. The prospect visits your site (and likely others) to learn more about you and compare services.
While I have worked in numerous industries, I limit my web services to legal, business, and medical professionals. I do this for one main reason:
- I have a firm understanding of the purchasing process
There are countless web agencies and designers who build decent websites and blogs. However, few understand the purchasing process and how to build a site that builds business (remember, that’s why we’re building a website and blog in the first place). I’ve built scores of legal, business, and medical web pages and have come to learn what works and what doesn’t. I also keep it practical. At some point, there is a diminishing return on the effort (and money spent). It is possible to do (and pay) too much. ‘Over-loaded’ websites might seem impressive, but it’s not what prospects are looking for. Instead, a clean, high-end website and blog is more convincing and ultimately builds more business.
Here’s more about me …
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Work
- Memorial Health System
- Swanson Marketing
- RockShox
- Freelance Illustrator
- US Air Force
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School
- University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, MBA
- Syracuse University, MA
- US Air Force Academy, BS
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Interests
- Golf
- Music
- Comics
