Even for us – marketing other people’s sites is tedious.  Of course, we can see the money more easily then, so it is easier than doing it for our own sites, where the money comes in much later. If it were more difficult, it would probably be more interesting.

But 90% of marketing consists of nothing more than doing what you know to do.

• Show up at the event.
• Submit another batch of links.
• Write an article and post it.
• Analyze your site traffic and conversion patterns.
• Re-optimize your website for search terms.
• Reply to one more question that you’ve replied to 100 times already.
• Hand out one more business card that you know someone will just lose or trash.
• Return one more phone call that probably won’t go anywhere.
• Make one more round of the social networking sites to drop comments.
• Post one more article to your blog…

It is all very boring after a while. So we get lazy, or we only do the ones we feel like doing – which is ok, as long as you do enough things, but which kills a business if you only do one thing and procrastinate the rest.

Once you have the text written and the logo designed and the literature created, it is just doing it. Over and over.

Our clients fall into two groups – those who do as we instruct (or who pay us to do it for them), and those who do not. We see them succeed or fail based on that effort. If they do it, they learn and succeed. If they do not, their business sits there without growth and without sales.

90% of life is showing up – and the same is true of marketing.

It is important to understand that if you recognize differences in the way people from other cultures think, that it is not a matter of prejudice. Rather, it is one way of beginning to bridge the gap in a way that is workable.

Our client base, and our associate base, has broadened quite a bit lately. And I have learned many things because of it, in why I have always felt a certain way about some people I associated with, never even identifying what it was that made me feel that way.

One example is, in dealing with someone from a middle eastern business background. Haggling is second nature to them. They do not understand why we would NOT haggle. Setting a flat price with them is not understood. They have perceptions and responses going on through it that would not occur to me, but which are second nature and important to them.

A client had a bill that was overdue from a man from a middle eastern background. The client tried to get them to pay, but they kept trying to talk the client down. Finally the client filed a lien, which got an instant response. But still, the intent was to not pay full price – in the other man’s culture, to give in now would be a loss of stature. So our client added up the interest due, and presented that for collections as well. The other man haggled on THAT, and the client let him win. The funny thing is, that it ended up costing the business man more than if he’d just paid it in the first place, but since it gave him the feeling that he had won a point in the end, he was satisfied. Our client ended up with more than he’d have asked also.

This all sounds sort of silly to someone living in the US in isolated western communities all their lives. But it was an education to me, in how people can just think about things differently. It stood me in good stead when a client of mine started to haggle. One of my colleagues said she would have just told him flat out to pay or go away. But I did realize that this was his expectation – that if I understood how he thought, we could still have a good business relationship. I did not give him what he wanted, but I did knock my price down a bit, enough so that he could accept knowing he had won a point.

Since then, I’ve learned many other things from this client – the manner in which he does business operates on a different set of principals than it does for us. Not better, or worse, just different. When he first spoke of “old bazaar”, I did not know what he meant. I have since learned that it means many things. And that many of the standards that he operates around, are responsible for some misunderstandings between cultures, and a sense of distrust.

You see, in a haggling culture, you present your wares in the best possible light. It is the customer’s responsibility to examine, and point out the flaws, to lower the value, and the merchant’s responsibility to point out the good points and enhance the value. It is an expected exchange, and both feel certain that if they do it well, they’ll end up with a good balance in the end.

In our American culture though, if a price is inflated, we feel that the business owner is trying to cheat us. We would not generally consider offering a lower price, we’ll turn and walk away and find a stated price that is more reasonable. We consider pricing to be evidence of integrity. They consider it to be a matter of perception between two people.

We think they are telling us to pay full price without complaint. They are actually telling us that they’d really love to get that much but that they’d never expect you to actually pay it!

This is only one set of cultural differences that can influence business relationships. It is important that you understand if you are marketing in a culture that you are not native to, that things may be different for reasons that would not occur to you. It is also important to understand that when you are dealing with clients, suppliers, or contractors from other cultures, that their long held traditional behaviors and thought patterns may influence your interactions in ways that are easy for you to misinterpret. A little bit of consideration can go a long way in easing tensions and avoiding conflict.

The client of ours who started out by haggling, has been a good one. Utterly predictable, patient when he we had no right to expect him to be, and willing to trust me as long as I continue to do what I said I would. It was worth making a concession that I would normally not have made.

When that happens, it kicks more effects into motion – when it gets attention from one source, others pick it up, and it can then explode with traffic. If you have limited bandwidth to your site, this can cause a problem, but otherwise, it is what most people hope for.

The thing about a blog though, is that viral effects are generally temporary. You may work pretty hard to get a single post to go viral, just to have it trickle off in a few days. A few people will subscribe to your blog each time, giving you residual traffic, so it is generally worth making an effort to get a post to go viral. Just don’t expect one viral post to propel you into fame without some follow up work and continued effort with successive posts!V

It starts with the very foundation of your business. What your business is, and what makes it unique.

Marketing starts with your business model, and progresses to your business image, through the appearance and function of your website, and continues on through the methods you choose to promote your business and the words and imagery that you use in those promotions.

It is all one cohesive whole, and cannot be separated into pieces to isolate and disect. When a business isn’t working, a good marketing analysis will include things outside the scope of marketing itself, so that the real problems can be isolated and effective solutions devised.

Marketing is less of a boxable instruction set, and more of a way of thinking. Once you grasp the whole impact of your business, and find an effective way to define it, marketing comes out of that naturally. Then the skills and strategies that make up an effective marketing campaign can be implemented successfully.

It ends up being a lot of fun…

Writing is an asset to a business in three primary areas:

1. Marketing. If you can write, you can produce good ad copy, web page copy, article marketing, text ads for online marketing, email newsletters, published brochures and much more.
2. Communication. A good writer can communicate better with customers, employees, and contractors. This helps business run more smoothly.
3. Documentation. Strong writing skills help a business owner create a good plan to clarify their vision, to document policy and procedure for their business, and to create training guidelines. All of these things help to move a business forward and enhance the sustainability of the business through growth phases.

Many business owners are better writers than they think they are. Their writing needs only a little polish – and with time, they can learn that.

Practice also makes a huge difference. As we DO, we learn to do better. I can sit down and whip out an article for a blog or article marketing, which is 90% accurate, in about 15 minutes. When I began writing regularly, that took an hour and a half, sometimes longer, and my accuracy level on the first draft was much lower. If you write once a day, to an audience, for ANY purpose, your writing skills will improve. If you have a professional review your writing periodically, and give suggestions on improvements, you’ll gain skills faster.

Have the confidence to try. If you can produce a single page of writing, on a specific topic, without getting lost by the second sentence, then chances are, you can learn to write well for your business. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you just have to be able to DO it.

Good writing skills will enhance your business, and you’ll never regret having developed them.

Originally, search engines paid more attention to them, but no longer do. Some people say they do, but independent tests with our websites and blogs show that regular websites actually get indexed and get traffic faster, all else being equal. Blogs do have some options for getting traffic, IF you work at it, that websites don’t though, which can help to put them ahead for people who work them.

Blogging is very much a popularity contest. If you gain a following, blogging has great power. If you don’t, it fizzles and fails to ever lift off.

So why blog?

To do it, you gotta love writing. If you don’t, then it isn’t for you.

You also have to be able to produce writing on a regular schedule. If you don’t, then it doesn’t work, because one of the elements central to blogging is frequent and fairly regular updates.

If you fit that profile, and if you have a topic that is contemporary and timely, blogging can be a great way to either promote a business, or create one. It works best for social people also – those who enjoy interacting with other bloggers.

So why blog? Because if it suits you, it is a lot of fun. And when done right, creates a good web presence, or helps promote other websites.

Get out and start reading blogs, and commenting. If you are bit by the blog bug, you’ll know. If you aren’t, then let it go and don’t feel guilty!