Product Presence: Why your crappy Web Site is not enough... Part 1 of 3 in the Next Generation Marketing Strategy Series

Your web site is no longer enough.  I don't care how much $$$ you spent on it or how pretty it is.  Online marketing has moved well past the Web 1.0 "Cowboy Marketing" of simply herding everyone toward your web site. 

To succeed online today, you need to think bigger.  Today you need to create and manage a complete "Product Presence". 

Huh?

Marketing, especially Internet marketing, has changed a lot recently.  But many marketers (both small business owners and those at big corporations) are still stuck in a "destination web site" approach that was popular in the late 1990's. 

So I'm going to share with you 3 "next generation" marketing concepts in coming weeks.  These new approaches to online marketing are at the heart of my new book, so I'd love your feedback on them.  (Please comment below!)

Here's the 1st concept:  "Your Product Presence"
I propose that the modern online marketer's job is to manage a company's overall "Product Presence."  A Product Presence is the sum of all the online promotional activities and materials that you control. 

Yes, it starts with your web site.  But insisting that potential customers can only visit you there can be suicidal in today's distributed age.  As shown in the figure to the right, your Product Presence includes your web site but also extends outward across the Web. 

Your in-house promotional efforts like your web site and email noozles are obviously part of your Product Presence.  But it also includes:
- advertising placements you pay for,
- the promotions run by your Distributor and Retailer partners, and
- advertising done by any Affiliate Program affiliates. 
As you can see from the diagram, you must think beyond your web site to include the wider reach of your marketing efforts.

Traditional marketing was ephemeral and temporary.  Online marketing is archived forever throughout the network and especially by the search engines.  The resulting cross-platform legacy of your marketing, past, present and future, is your Product Presence.

Conclusion: Creating and managing your "beyond the web site" Product Presence is the challenge and opportunity for today's successful online marketers.  If all that you are doing is optimizing your web site to attract visitor traffic, you are missing a major portion of your company's Product Presence.

What do you think?  Does this new "Product Presence" paradigm make sense to you?  What did I miss? 

How about the graphic?  Does it clearly make the points?

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[This Product Presence post is Part One of a 3 Part Series on "Next Generation" Internet Marketing Strategies - stay tuned for Part 2, my introduction to "Distributed Engagement" marketing, and see Part 3 "Reputation Cloud" here!  Please subscribe to this blog by RSS or subscribe by email if you'd like read these upcoming posts.  And check out my new book, e-Riches 2.0: Next Generation Online Marketing Strategies here.]

Comments

[Zoraida Cespedes]

The "Your Product Presence" figure is very helpful. I have printed the article and will definitely use it as a guide for my goal to increase sales. I look forward to the next articles with steps 2 and 3.

P.S. Love the title of the article "Why your crappy Web Site is not enough".

[Eddie Lewis]

I'm a little confused. Your past few blogs have been worded in ways that make them appear to contradict the info in your book, but I don't remember the book, Internet Riches, ever saying that a "crappy website" was enough to make sales.

In a previous post, you wrote something about how sites are going to have to have relative content on them from now on. I don't remember the book every saying otherwise. You made it very clear in the book the importance of good copy.

I just don't see how these new blogs represent a change from the original information.

Yes, the "death of SEO marketing" means that things must be more "legit" to work. When I read your more recent blogs, my first thought was, "Praise God!!! Maybe NOW I will be spared the agony of finding totally irrelevant pages when I'm searching for things on Google."

I can't tell you how annoying it is when a Google search offers pages full of ads and affiliate links with NO valid content or copy. What a waste of time and an insult to our intelligence!!!

I think that kind of "marketing" may have worked for a very short time only because some people who are new to computers and internet technology may not have known that the pages they were visiting were just bogus sights put up by people hoping to score a percentage of clicks. But to call it marketing is FAR off the mark.

The stuff in your recent blogs doesn't seem so earth shattering to me and I'm surprised that it's being voiced this way.

Am I missing something?

[Janice]

Do you have a free store front company that you can reccomend. You mentioned Amazon in your book and Zilo on your but do you know of others?

[Scott Fox]

Hello Eddie,
First of all, thanks for reading my blog and book so closely! Great to hear that. I hope that all the info is helpful to you.
As you say, I have never recommended insubstantial web sites as a path to success. These most recent posts are somewhat reiterating related points for a few reasons: a) the blog has a wider audience that includes many people who have not yet read Internet Riches, b) these posts are an extension of the material in Internet Riches so I can get feedback from new readers about what to include in my new book, and c) I'm not finished yet - the next two posts in the Next Generation Marketing series are going to develop these concepts much further but needed these points laid out first to provide context.
I hope that helps explain.
Thanks again for the thoughtful critique. Please keep reading and commenting!
Scott

[Scott Fox]

Hi Janice,
Amazon and Zlio are the ones I know the best but there are many free e-commerce web site store services around today, and many more that are inexpensive.
Googling "free web site store" will bring you many to chose from.
Thanks for visiting.

[Eddie Lewis]

Thanks for the response. I think I get it now. For some reason, I was thinking of your blogs as an extension of the book, simply because I read the book first. It didn't dawn on me that there are other people who have never read your book. (Shame on them for that. lol)

Thanks again.

Eddie

[Kathy]

Liked the graphic! Copied into my notes for my upcoming marketing plan - it comes to me at just the right time. Thanks!