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THE VICTORY LAP by Charles Davidson

Today's Track: The Worst Marketing Strategy You Can Use

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Hi there! Welcome to another issue of The Victory Lap. Here at Victory Lap, you'll learn how to kick your business into overdrive.

There's no hype or fluff here. Just down and dirty, white knuckle advice to steer you toward fast track. No advertising. No gimmicks. No shameless promotions. Just stuff you really need. Plus a kick in seat to get you to shift into high gear.

Sit down . . . buckle up . . . here we go . . .

HEY, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS!

"Submit your website to 104,287 search engines and websites. Before you know it, your website will be seen by everyone on Planet Earth and you'll have more money in your pockets than you know what to do with. Isn't that worth small one-time fee of $34.95?"

OK. Maybe I made that quote up.

Sounds tempting, though, doesn't it?

It's so easy and effortless. You know how hard it is to list your website with search engines. It takes time and lots of typing.

If you could only type all of that information once and then send it to all of those websites with click of a button. Isn't that what your computer is supposed to do, anyway? Make things easier for you?

The scenario is probably familiar to you. You've stumbled on a web page that promises thousands of search engines submissions with relatively little effort. All you have to do is buy their software or subscribe to their service.

All your marketing problems will be solved before you can say, "Your credit card has been charged."

There is only one minor drawback. It doesn't work.

I know. They make it sound so convincing. They make it sound so easy. They make it sound so effective.

Welcome to world of marketing hype.

Let's take a look at what happens behind scenes . . .

FEELING A LITTLE OVERWHELMED?

First of all, these marketing systems want you to believe that there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of search engines on web that you can submit your website to.

Let's assume you're brand-new to world of Internet marketing. If you heard about a service that offered to submit your website to 104,287 search engines, you would probably be thinking . . .

"Wow, that's a lot of search engines I have to visit and enter my website information into!"

and probably also . . .

"I've gotta get me some help."

These marketers want you to think that job of posting your information to search engines is overwhelming. Otherwise there would be no market for their useless products.

But come back to real world for a moment and think about ir for a second.

HOW DO YOU SEARCH FOR INFORMATION?

When you want to find something on Internet, where is first place you go?

Customer Decision Making Process

Not all visitors to a site have same needs. Karon Thackston, copywriter and proprietor at http://MarketingWords.com, explains by breaking customer decision making process (i.e. buying process) into at least four stages: Need/Want Recognition, Information Search, Evaluation, and Purchase.

If a visitor has already made decision to purchase a product or service, for example, she needs easy ordering options. If customer is early in decision making process, however, she needs more general information.

Information or Sales?

Dee Kreidel, owner of Dax Development Corporation http://DaxDevelopment.com, recommends identifying a site as either an information site (for early decision stages) or a sales site (for late decision stages), but not both:

"Our experience with our clients demonstrates that most people will not shop at a site if they see it as an informational site because their state of mind/focus is different when they are there - they aren't necessarily looking to shop, they are wanting information."

One way to keep sales and information content separate is to set up a "hub and spoke" system of Web sites.

Putting it Together with a Hub and Spoke System