Selling your internet marketing services or internet marketing consulting services to another company is a tough job. An even tougher job however, is convincing a company to use certain types of internet marketing method once it has decided to hire your internet marketing or consulting services.
The challenge lies not in providing case studies to back up your claims that a specific method(s) is the right one for them to use but rather in convincing the old school marketing executives that internet marketing does work and is more cost effective than the traditional marketing methods.
Here is an example, John Doe is the President of Company X who has been selling his company’s services quite efficiently for over 20 years using traditional methods like trade shows, magazines, TV, radio ads and pretty much all of the traditional marketing methods.
These methods have worked quite well in the past for that company but now, their sales have drastically decreased which is why it has chosen to try out internet marketing.
Even though Company X has chosen the internet marketing path, Company X still needs to be nurtured and convinced of their decision which is why the marketing company needs to be patient and even offer a trial run to Company X.
Baby Steps
For this reason, baby steps need to be taken. It’s not that John Doe does not want to use internet marketing methods like SEO, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing, Email Marketing and other such methods; it is because John is stepping into the unknown and needs to properly understand internet marketing before a full blown internet marketing campaign can begin.
In such a situation, the marketing company the marketing company needs to compromise because John needs reassurance that it will work. This is why the marketing company needs to take a “hit” and offer to do some trial run whenever possible.
Trial runs like a small SEO campaign that targets easier but relevant keywords to bring more traffic to the website in the case of SEO.
For cases like SMM (Social Media Marketing) a trial run is almost impossible to do since such marketing methods usually take about 9 to 12 months before major results can be seen. The best thing to do in such cases would be to hybrid social media marketing like article writing campaigns that will provide some traffic and is also seen in part as social media marketing.
Email campaigns are a tough sale to some companies who look down on these due to the negative connotation associated with emails and SPAM. However, a small trial is possible as long as the company is reassured that your email marketing campaigns are compliant with the spamming laws.
Simply said, if the marketing company is able to get some success with the compromised campaigns it will open doors to larger internet marketing deals with each company. It just takes time and patience and nurturing before the big pay off.
Fred St. John is an internet marketing consultant with over 10 years of online marketing experience and has worked for some of the top Fortune 500 companies in the world. You can contact him at fred_stjohn@hotmail.com.
