Dec 23, 2009 Posted in Marketing Ideas

Where Your Customers are Going to Research You

It used to be that anyone thinking about doing business with you would first consult with their colleagues or friends to see if any of them had worked with you before. If not, they would likely turn to the Yellow Pages and give you a call. That would put you in a good position because you have total control of the information they receive about you and your company.

Five years ago, that same potential customer would get online and visit your website, learn about your products and services and contact you if they were interested. Again, a good situation for you to be in as you have total control over what appears on your website.

Today, things have changed. Social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. have become so powerful that they constantly appear at the top of the search engine rankings. More importantly, consumers are more apt to trust the information found on these sites because they believe this information is posted by non-partisan people ie. your happy or disgruntled customers and it is more likely to provide them with an honest assessment of what you have to offer.

This isn’t just speculation, it is now reality as the image below clearly indicates. However, before we get to that, I’d like to point out the ramifications of this new reality. First, for the most part, you can’t control what is being said about you on social media sites. You can only be aware of the conversations, participate in them and direct them as best you can. Second, the truth is that your competition (and not real customers) could be slagging you and nobody would know it.

The solution? Most people won’t go past the first ten results on Google to find information about you and your company. Your own properties need to dominate the first ten and ideally twenty spots to minimize the damage.

Here is the image I mentioned earlier. Statistically speaking, your site is becoming less influencial when it comes to how your customers are a) finding you and b) deciding whether to do business with you or not.

The winds of change are a-blowin’.