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Time to talk "business."
Well, no- I’m ranting today.
Ignore and run from this man if you see him. And don't sit next to him on an airplane...
“Uh-oh, Here goes Fellman again, spouting off on something he has no idea about.”
So what else is new…?
Don't want to talk about coral this morning...
Time for me to talk about Marketing a bit..Specifically, why “conventional” marketing is apparently played out, and why some of the “new” marketing needs to be better understood, or taken in context!
As a business owner, I am constantly approached by vendors hawking their systems to “help me reach customers through “Search Engine Optimization”, “Lead Generation”, Social Media Optimized Engagement, etc.
Yesterday, I was approached (on a VERY busy day) by a vendor with a very impressive phone presentation designed to make me realize how much better Unique Corals could be if we buy into his firm’s “SEO package.” The vendor seemed to take delight in basically telling me that we had no clue what we are doing, and that failing to embrace their “system” would result in us forever toiling in obscurity. He spouted out all sorts of statistics and “numerics” that allegedly show how various numbers quantify into this and that. It sounds very impressive. I had no idea what the heck he was talking about, which was pretty cool. I should have hung up as soon as the guy said, "You need to understand how this works because your current way of marketing is hurting you." HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW US! Yet, this visionary could make that brilliant conclusion...Wow.
Didn't he know that I'm old enough to be crotchety, close-minded and opinionated? Probably not, either.
Okay, but I did have to laugh just a bit, as I had just reviewed our latest Alexa Search Rank (for those of you who don’t know this, Alexa is an information service that gathers information related to web traffic on your site, and ranks you in popularity on the web relative to other websites.). It’s one simple “metric” that I could relate to and, as an old school (ok, my degree was in the last century) marketing guy, it sort of made sense to me.
According to Alexa, we are currently 75,288 among all websites in the U.S., and 429,218 in the world, in terms of popularity. Before you laugh at the number, let’s look at our category; Other popular, big-name vendors in our category, who I will leave nameless, rank at 2,073,780, 3,553,5478, and 1,318,059 ( 249,271 in the U.S.). Dang! Seems cool, right?
Or is it?
The average time on our site is 8 minutes and 41 seconds. By contrast, the average time on site for the other vendors in my search was 3 minutes, 11 seconds. Supposedly, that means people are spending plenty of time on our site looking at different pages. Does that mean that our site is better or more engaging? Maybe. Or, it could mean that it’s easier to find stuff on the other guys’ sites and customers spend less time searching! LOL Searches that lead to our site are up 511% over the last 3 months! We must be doing something right. Right?
Maybe. Maybe NOT. But that’s just…stats.
You could interpret all this stuff however you want, IMO. So who knows. To me, the real measure of success is the conversations we have each day, and how many of the people engaged in our conversations have become friends and customers. People who BUY STUFF from us. That’s a big part of why we’re in business, right?
I mean, our hobby is just a bit different, and reefers are not “statistics.” In fact, the behavior of reefers often defies classification and categorization. And people are not just dollar signs.
Okay, I’m not “Mr. Internet”, and I am certainly not the greatest, most technically-proficient reef-related businessman out there, but I do understand one fundamental thing: I know my customers, and I know my category. I find it almost comical when I’m approached by people and organizations promising me to increase my “reach” and “penetrate my market” through various means, often involving complicated software, numerics, foreign firms, and lots of gobbledygook that I can’t even decipher.
Why not just interact with reefers instead? (hmm, you can't sell that to someone, right?)
One thing I have discovered: Reefers are a very specialized group of people. We aren’t just “consumers” that you can quantify and track and throw into neat packages of numerical data. We’re motivated by the love of our hobby, and we get excited by some pretty obscure stuff, and are not easily impressed by throwing out a random pic on Twitter or Instagram, or some exotic mobile-enabled application.
Oh sure, every reefer likes to see a pic of a cool coral, or a nice reef, but the next question, after the “Ohh” or All!” or “Like” is, “Is that real, or totally photoshopped?”, “Who posted that?”, and “Is it available for sale?” Beyond that, reefers are social creatures, and are more interested in interacting and doing business within our “tribe.” Outsiders are both questioned and often not trusted…It takes time to penetrate the veneer of “reef culture”, doesn’t it? You can’t just sned pics of corals all over the ‘net and expect instant “street creed” as a top-notch coral vendor. Every vendor on this forum has paid (or is still paying) their “dues” to be admitted to this party.
The real "social media" for reefers...
What these “experts” don’t seem to get is that our hobby has its own “culture”, and to reach the culture doesn’t require some razzle-dazzle search protocol or fancy statistic-based algorithm. In fact, to REALLY reach a reefer you don’t even need Twitter and Instagram. (What!?!). Yeah, you heard me. Just because someone “follows” us because we post a pic, does that mean that they will buy coral from us, or even communicate with us? I think more people BUY from us when we TALK to each other.
“Humanistic” marketing is what works. Sorry obscure tech-talking gurus.Interacting in an authentic manner with fellow humans builds relationships which lead to people liking you and doing business with you. Not getting paying to get your name on every search engine in the galaxy, or buying "likes" on Facebook, or...
This was driven home recently when a fellow vendor complained to me about what he perceived to be the “lack of visibility” of his company. He was all over Twitter and Facebook, blah, blah. He had lots of “likes”, yet his growth and sales were flat. After talking with him a bit, I concluded that he had it all wrong in terms of his viewpoint. He should be quite successful…he’s a great guy with nice stuff. He needed a minor tweak in his attitude, thats all.
What you need is a DIALOGUE. A discussion…Talking with reefers, not AT them. To understand reefers, you need to BE a reefer. You need to understand our problems, our thinking, OUR “world view” and position. We don’t just want to be shown pretty pics and told that we have 29 new corals available to look at today. We want to be engaged- to be a PART of something. We want authentic community, real relationships and try engagement. (Hello, Mr. Zuckerburg and fellow “marketing” nerds- a “Like” is not “engagement.” It’s the electronic equivalent of “yeah.” ). Engagment is TALKING with a human being, not hitting the "like" button.
Seriously, right? In my humble opinion, we’ve gotten so caught up in this apathetic “acknowledgement” of our existence on a social media platform that we have failed to recognize what its true purpose was- to get people talking to each other. That’s what’s so cool about forums like R2R.
Reefers are...PEOPLE!
Sure, statistics are important and helpful, but they are not the measure of success in this game, IMO. Your brand is an “ecosystem”, with all sorts of connections to it’s external environment. And it thrives on one thing: People. Specifically, people who are into your stuff. People who you talk to.
OMG, where am I going with this? Does it sound like I am pounding my chest saying that all of the engineers and dot.com billionaires are stupid? NO, that’s not the point. The point is, we are a community of people with common interest, and to reach our community, you have to be a part of it. You can’t be an outsider and just expect that your greatness and product(s) will be your in. You have to eat, drink, live, pray, and digest this reef stuff…
To be different, you have to be your authentic self. Period.
As a famous advertising executive once proffered, “If you’re not standing out from the clutter, you’re contributing to it.”
Wow, I think I may have a bit of an attitude today because I’m sick and tired of hearing people who know obscure buzzwords, apparently have advanced degrees in unrelated fields, are great at pulling up weird statistical inferences and spouting internet-talk (like the term “bleeding edge”..Just stop.) calling me and telling me that they are “marketing” people, especially within the context of our category. I am even mad at MYSELF- I’m talking about Alexa numbers, for goodness sake! Yikes!
I don’t hate social media and all that stuff. I just don’t understand why we place so much stock in some of these things. It’s kind of funny. I’m not longing for the days of billboards and radio ads, but I think we are deluding ourselves sometimes thinking that all of this stuff at face value is “the way.”
Is this what I need today? Nah, maybe I'll just go surfing.
Okay, enough of me ranting for now…I need your feedback…I must be wrong, maybe…Right?
Besides, it’s time for me to update our Facebook Page and see what we put up on Twitter this morning.
“Hypocrite!”
As always,
Stay out of trouble..
And Stay Wet
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
Well, no- I’m ranting today.
Ignore and run from this man if you see him. And don't sit next to him on an airplane...
“Uh-oh, Here goes Fellman again, spouting off on something he has no idea about.”
So what else is new…?
Don't want to talk about coral this morning...
Time for me to talk about Marketing a bit..Specifically, why “conventional” marketing is apparently played out, and why some of the “new” marketing needs to be better understood, or taken in context!
As a business owner, I am constantly approached by vendors hawking their systems to “help me reach customers through “Search Engine Optimization”, “Lead Generation”, Social Media Optimized Engagement, etc.
Yesterday, I was approached (on a VERY busy day) by a vendor with a very impressive phone presentation designed to make me realize how much better Unique Corals could be if we buy into his firm’s “SEO package.” The vendor seemed to take delight in basically telling me that we had no clue what we are doing, and that failing to embrace their “system” would result in us forever toiling in obscurity. He spouted out all sorts of statistics and “numerics” that allegedly show how various numbers quantify into this and that. It sounds very impressive. I had no idea what the heck he was talking about, which was pretty cool. I should have hung up as soon as the guy said, "You need to understand how this works because your current way of marketing is hurting you." HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW US! Yet, this visionary could make that brilliant conclusion...Wow.
Didn't he know that I'm old enough to be crotchety, close-minded and opinionated? Probably not, either.
Okay, but I did have to laugh just a bit, as I had just reviewed our latest Alexa Search Rank (for those of you who don’t know this, Alexa is an information service that gathers information related to web traffic on your site, and ranks you in popularity on the web relative to other websites.). It’s one simple “metric” that I could relate to and, as an old school (ok, my degree was in the last century) marketing guy, it sort of made sense to me.
According to Alexa, we are currently 75,288 among all websites in the U.S., and 429,218 in the world, in terms of popularity. Before you laugh at the number, let’s look at our category; Other popular, big-name vendors in our category, who I will leave nameless, rank at 2,073,780, 3,553,5478, and 1,318,059 ( 249,271 in the U.S.). Dang! Seems cool, right?
Or is it?
The average time on our site is 8 minutes and 41 seconds. By contrast, the average time on site for the other vendors in my search was 3 minutes, 11 seconds. Supposedly, that means people are spending plenty of time on our site looking at different pages. Does that mean that our site is better or more engaging? Maybe. Or, it could mean that it’s easier to find stuff on the other guys’ sites and customers spend less time searching! LOL Searches that lead to our site are up 511% over the last 3 months! We must be doing something right. Right?
Maybe. Maybe NOT. But that’s just…stats.
You could interpret all this stuff however you want, IMO. So who knows. To me, the real measure of success is the conversations we have each day, and how many of the people engaged in our conversations have become friends and customers. People who BUY STUFF from us. That’s a big part of why we’re in business, right?
I mean, our hobby is just a bit different, and reefers are not “statistics.” In fact, the behavior of reefers often defies classification and categorization. And people are not just dollar signs.
Okay, I’m not “Mr. Internet”, and I am certainly not the greatest, most technically-proficient reef-related businessman out there, but I do understand one fundamental thing: I know my customers, and I know my category. I find it almost comical when I’m approached by people and organizations promising me to increase my “reach” and “penetrate my market” through various means, often involving complicated software, numerics, foreign firms, and lots of gobbledygook that I can’t even decipher.
Why not just interact with reefers instead? (hmm, you can't sell that to someone, right?)
One thing I have discovered: Reefers are a very specialized group of people. We aren’t just “consumers” that you can quantify and track and throw into neat packages of numerical data. We’re motivated by the love of our hobby, and we get excited by some pretty obscure stuff, and are not easily impressed by throwing out a random pic on Twitter or Instagram, or some exotic mobile-enabled application.
Oh sure, every reefer likes to see a pic of a cool coral, or a nice reef, but the next question, after the “Ohh” or All!” or “Like” is, “Is that real, or totally photoshopped?”, “Who posted that?”, and “Is it available for sale?” Beyond that, reefers are social creatures, and are more interested in interacting and doing business within our “tribe.” Outsiders are both questioned and often not trusted…It takes time to penetrate the veneer of “reef culture”, doesn’t it? You can’t just sned pics of corals all over the ‘net and expect instant “street creed” as a top-notch coral vendor. Every vendor on this forum has paid (or is still paying) their “dues” to be admitted to this party.
The real "social media" for reefers...
What these “experts” don’t seem to get is that our hobby has its own “culture”, and to reach the culture doesn’t require some razzle-dazzle search protocol or fancy statistic-based algorithm. In fact, to REALLY reach a reefer you don’t even need Twitter and Instagram. (What!?!). Yeah, you heard me. Just because someone “follows” us because we post a pic, does that mean that they will buy coral from us, or even communicate with us? I think more people BUY from us when we TALK to each other.
“Humanistic” marketing is what works. Sorry obscure tech-talking gurus.Interacting in an authentic manner with fellow humans builds relationships which lead to people liking you and doing business with you. Not getting paying to get your name on every search engine in the galaxy, or buying "likes" on Facebook, or...
This was driven home recently when a fellow vendor complained to me about what he perceived to be the “lack of visibility” of his company. He was all over Twitter and Facebook, blah, blah. He had lots of “likes”, yet his growth and sales were flat. After talking with him a bit, I concluded that he had it all wrong in terms of his viewpoint. He should be quite successful…he’s a great guy with nice stuff. He needed a minor tweak in his attitude, thats all.
What you need is a DIALOGUE. A discussion…Talking with reefers, not AT them. To understand reefers, you need to BE a reefer. You need to understand our problems, our thinking, OUR “world view” and position. We don’t just want to be shown pretty pics and told that we have 29 new corals available to look at today. We want to be engaged- to be a PART of something. We want authentic community, real relationships and try engagement. (Hello, Mr. Zuckerburg and fellow “marketing” nerds- a “Like” is not “engagement.” It’s the electronic equivalent of “yeah.” ). Engagment is TALKING with a human being, not hitting the "like" button.
Seriously, right? In my humble opinion, we’ve gotten so caught up in this apathetic “acknowledgement” of our existence on a social media platform that we have failed to recognize what its true purpose was- to get people talking to each other. That’s what’s so cool about forums like R2R.
Reefers are...PEOPLE!
Sure, statistics are important and helpful, but they are not the measure of success in this game, IMO. Your brand is an “ecosystem”, with all sorts of connections to it’s external environment. And it thrives on one thing: People. Specifically, people who are into your stuff. People who you talk to.
OMG, where am I going with this? Does it sound like I am pounding my chest saying that all of the engineers and dot.com billionaires are stupid? NO, that’s not the point. The point is, we are a community of people with common interest, and to reach our community, you have to be a part of it. You can’t be an outsider and just expect that your greatness and product(s) will be your in. You have to eat, drink, live, pray, and digest this reef stuff…
To be different, you have to be your authentic self. Period.
As a famous advertising executive once proffered, “If you’re not standing out from the clutter, you’re contributing to it.”
Wow, I think I may have a bit of an attitude today because I’m sick and tired of hearing people who know obscure buzzwords, apparently have advanced degrees in unrelated fields, are great at pulling up weird statistical inferences and spouting internet-talk (like the term “bleeding edge”..Just stop.) calling me and telling me that they are “marketing” people, especially within the context of our category. I am even mad at MYSELF- I’m talking about Alexa numbers, for goodness sake! Yikes!
I don’t hate social media and all that stuff. I just don’t understand why we place so much stock in some of these things. It’s kind of funny. I’m not longing for the days of billboards and radio ads, but I think we are deluding ourselves sometimes thinking that all of this stuff at face value is “the way.”
Is this what I need today? Nah, maybe I'll just go surfing.
Okay, enough of me ranting for now…I need your feedback…I must be wrong, maybe…Right?
Besides, it’s time for me to update our Facebook Page and see what we put up on Twitter this morning.
“Hypocrite!”
As always,
Stay out of trouble..
And Stay Wet
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
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