Unhealthy Search Dependency: Part III - The Pervasive Presence

Welcome to the third and final installment on search dependency. You can read parts I and II here:

Unhealthy Search Dependency: Part I - Business Safety
Unhealthy Search Dependency: Part II - Meaning And Moving

In this installment, I address the idea of creating a pervasive presence in order to insulate and protect your business from the negative impact falling in search rankings might have on it.

Better yet, I share some ideas on how you can create a better business, based on some sound principles that I have picked up from others, as well as some suggestions of my own. I use the term pervasive presence to describe—rather broadly—not only branding, but all marketing efforts and the conduct of business.

It is nothing more than my particular description of creating an identity and the relationships that go along with it.

The Pervasive Presence

How do you avoid the stress of worrying about page rank? You simply do not depend on it for the core of your marketing plan. Too many people do, and they will go bald and suffer ulcers as a result. But, what can you do?

You create a pervasive presence.

Pervasive means you are everywhere. You permeate your business sector, your selected markets, and the minds of others who are there. But, you go beyond that. Your presence is felt even among those who might not necessarily be involved in those markets or engaged in related business.

It also means you are not dependent on search results. It means everywhere someone goes to seek information about your field, your kind of service, or your kind of product—they run into mention of your company. Your presence becomes a persistent and pervasive part of their information seeking. That is key to business in the Information Age.

This means your company needs to be creating content, creating press releases, and generating lots of PR—all the traditional stuff. And doing so offline and online both. This means you are proactive in your attempts to be seen in places and on websites your target demographic frequents, and even some it does not.

But it also means a lot more. It means you get involved.

To Sidetrack A Moment: The Involvement Principle

I learned a great principle from Sean Agnew, CEO and founder of Blue Metallic Entertainment Group/ENN. I saw him speak at the DFest music festival, which is an annual event in Tulsa. He is a friendly, smart, an all-around great guy, and is one of the savviest music and entertainment marketers around.

He calls it “The Involvement Principle.” It is a formula for achieving success and finding fulfillment. It can be applied to any aspect of your life. It happens to work handily for creating a pervasive presence. I liked what he had to say, as it mirrors my own beliefs, so I took notes. What follows is simple but highly effective. It is my summary of what he had to say.

The Involvement Principle

• Participate
• Communicate
• Get out of your comfort zone

Participation leads to involvement. Involvement leads to fulfillment. It takes courage to get out of your comfort zone, but, when you do, you become more effective in life and aware of opportunities around you.

Why Guerrilla Marketers Are Successful

The comfort zone for most businesses is ‘traditional thinking’ and ‘what everyone else is doing’ when you get right down to it. Looking at others engaged in the same business as you automatically as competitors rather than potential partners is an example of living in your comfort zone.

One of the reasons guerrilla marketers succeed is that they are operating out of the traditional comfort zone by design.

An example of what Mr. Agnew is talking about might be someone helping out the local music scene by starting some sort of service that is lacking. Then, do it well—what marketers have always done. But, with the focus of being involved in the community of musicians and the regional industry. Not just hiding in a shell or building.

Going out of your way in purposeful attempts to engage and create relationships is smart. As I have said, relationships are what business is about.

My Philosophical ‘Heresy’

Business is about relationships? Yes, it is primarily about relationships.

It is not about money, nor even profit. You could operate a business and make no profit if you were so inclined. You could even lose it, and many do. Money is not what business is about, but it is certainly an important factor.

However, it is not any more important than good human resources practices or a good business plan or good management. The business world sees multi-million dollar efforts fail every year. Money does not make a business successful. Understanding relationships does.

The simple fact is that I can engage in business successfully if I choose, and need not make profit. If I make enough money to pay my bills, cover my operating expenses so that I am not losing money—am I not successful?

Ah, here is where many begin to take issue with my views. They measure success in dollars rather than in succeeding at what it is you set out to do—which is the correct way to gauge whether a business is working or not. If your goal happens to be creating the most profit possible, then if you are succeeding at what you set out to do, you will be raking in lots of money.

If, however, what you set out to do, is ensure that every non-profit organization has a content management system (CMS) so that they can build an online presence (perhaps you want to help change the world for the better while earning a living), your success will not depend solely on money. It will depend on ensuring they all have a CMS. You may have to charge much less for your incredible software than you want, but if you wish to succeed in the terms most applicable to your business goals, then that is what you must contend with.

Every business model does not require earning huge profits to be a success.

We do not have to engage in business in the traditional manner at all. We can shape it however we like, and engage in it as we think is proper. Living economy principles are a good example of how and why operating a business and giving up some profitability in order to create a better business atmosphere and economic situation for everyone involved might be desirable.

Granted, most people enter business to make money. Money is often the only gauge people use to measure success (it is the primary principle behind guerrilla marketing for determining success). But money is not what makes a business succeed or fail. Creating and maintaining successful relationships determines that.

If your relationships work, your business will succeed. It is that simple.

Keep that in mind when thinking of how to create a pervasive presence.

Actions You Can Take To Create A Pervasive Presence Online

• Get involved. See ‘The Involvement Principle’ above. Start an organization, participate in an organization.
• Seek out and create new relationships. Nurture them and help them grow.
• Build fanatical loyalty. This means you need to take a page from Rackspace.com’s famous Fanatical Support ™ and become fanatical about taking care of your customers. Seriously, check out Rackspace’s philosophy. There’s a reason their customers love them.
• Be everywhere. Write articles for other sites. Get interviewed. Pay all your employees to insert a company related signature in their personal emails. Get linked to by others in your industry and create relationships with those in your industry.
• Do not forget ‘the street’ in your efforts. You may be a pure-play Internet company, but if everyone within a square mile doesn’t know someone in your company personally, you’re doing yourself a disservice. If at least half the businesses within three miles of your location do not know you exist, you’re also doing yourself a disservice. And I don’t care how crowded the metropolis you live in is, this should be a consideration.
  
  Stop and ask yourself how many businesses there are within three miles of your location. How many of them have gurus and specialists that it would be a benefit to have as a contact or friend? How many of those companies could use your services, products, or expertise? How many people would those companies tell about you if they saw you as a community leader, a company full of friendly and engaging employees who are helpful, knowledgeable, well-known and credible (remember, you’re everywhere!)?
  
  Just because you are online and can do business globally, do not forget that the easiest relationships to build and the ones that can be the strongest are those at your front door that you can work on most often and easiest. Simply going into the local copy shop and knowing the staff and joking with them regularly (and giving them some decorated cookies around Christmas time) will ensure that if your business is about ‘X’ or does ‘X’, when someone mentions ‘X’ in the copy shop your business will be mentioned.
  
  That people forget about this very human aspect of business is why Dilbert comics make us laugh.
• Brainstorm ways to become more pervasive. Create an informal committee to meet occasionally and do nothing else but think of ways you can extend your reach. Whom are you not reaching, and why? How can you? Is it practical? If not, what would be? And do it again, and again, until you can no longer think of anyone you are not reaching.
  
  And it need not be your target demographic that you reach. It can be an edge demographic, those whose interests, activities and needs are closely related to and overlap the interests, activities, and needs of your primary target demographic.
  
  If I am a manager of an independent hotel and I am booking online, what might I do? I set up my hotel for high-speed Internet access, hire a network administrator to keep it running. I have three conference rooms that are not always booked. How about starting a regional hospitality IT organization and hosting the monthly meetings at your hotel in one of those unused conference rooms?
  
  You spring for some donuts and coffee and juice, and your IT employee now gains a network of people to go to for help and advice. You book a few more rooms once per month (off-setting costs), and you might get a write-up in regional papers (especially if you make them aware of your efforts, hint, hint). You also now have a direct information flow into your business regarding a critical service your hotel provides to customers—Internet access and services.
  
  Your employee will stay abreast of developments and should you ever need to find a new employee to fill your network admin position, you will have several professionals with whom you have established relationships looking for you. Heck, one of them might even apply.
  
  What is certain, is that if you are trying to implement something new and run into difficulties, your employee will have people to turn to for help. After all, it is likely they are doing similar if not the same things. If members of the little group you started happen to also work for a large corporate chain, they may enjoy the chance to show off their expertise and insider knowledge, especially to help out the business behind a professional association which they are a member of. That is merely one example of how relationships work and can be beneficial.

In Closing…

I know we have wandered around quite a bit in relation to search marketing. You were warned by my blog’s title that this might be the case, I hope. I also hope you have at least found this series inspirational in some small way.

Keep in mind that what makes a successful online business is the same thing that makes a successful traditional bricks and mortar business. Technology and methods must be put into context, but the underlying principles remain the same. Understanding customers, as author Robert Speigel suggested once, is the key to success in either case.

Keep in mind that I tend to focus on the small and medium-sized business. Obviously, huge corporations may not feel they can engage in some of the simple examples I have mentioned or that they are appropriate. They can be. It is simply a matter of figuring out how to adapt. Do not confuse tactics with the underlying principles of strategy.

It is important that I point out the article which inspired this post is not one I take exception to, but rather that it set my mind to thinking on the topic of business dependencies. It is quite a good article, actually, and I am glad to suggest it to you, as I am looking forward to reading more articles by Mike Grehan in the future myself.

Move to a New Domain Without Losing Rankings (or Hair), by Mike Grehan—on Clickz.com.

I did want to expand on a related subject, though, hence this series. I know every business and every IT staff and every marketing department has wildly different operating situations and needs. That is a given.

There are principles that anyone can adapt and apply which will help create a better business environment, however. Certainly, lessening stress is a worthy goal. I do not know any people who would rather have a stressful day at the office than not. Excitement, sure, but stress?

Check out the links interspersed in the series and please add your comments to the various parts. If you are a music lover, you owe it to yourself to make plans for DFest in Tulsa. It is growing every year and is tons of fun. Three nights, about 100 bands, great discussion panels, fried turkey drumsticks, and good beer…what else do you need?

If you stuck it out and read all three parts of this series, I greatly appreciate it! If you liked what you read, drop me a line by using the contact form on the About page. If you have a differing or dissenting opinion, I would love to hear it as well. I love discovering new viewpoints and ideas—it is what makes blogging so much fun.

Now, I’m going to enjoy the afternoon and some sunlight. I love Spring, and it is time to get outside and enjoy it.

Until next time…have a great day.

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Read more…
Unhealthy Search Dependency: Part I - Business Safety
Unhealthy Search Dependency: Part II - Meaning And Moving
Unhealthy Search Dependency: Part III - The Pervasive Presence