Inquiry Marketing a.k.a. Search Engine Promotion
Before the Internet existed, I studied and tested various methods to generate sales leads for small business. I had the opportunity to participate in a loyalty marketing program using a consumer membership card and loyalty program.
It seemed a no-brainer.
Business owners loved it and bought in. Consumers adopted it.
But it failed. Why?
The consumer quickly forgot about the program and stopped using it.
It was a combination of issues including confusion among the business participants and the consumers — in retrospect it was because we simply did not understand the relationship between the buying and selling cycles.
Sales Cycle
Today, marketing requires vision. That vision must be able to articulate how your understanding of the ‘buying and selling cycles‘ can be used to modify your marketing and sales approach to make your offering more relevant while building a relationship with your prospect or future customer.
Inquiry Marketing (a.k.a Search Engine Promotion) Comes Of Age
No matter your opinion about the best form of Internet marketing, the only business purpose of any web promotion should be to generate an inquiry.
Whether you want to make the phone ring, get an email inquiry or make a e-commerce transaction — the goal is the same, motivate the prospect to inquire or buy your products or services.
Misconceptions Of Web Marketing
Marketers from all walks of life have recognized the importance of search engines. However, many tend to focus on the ‘technology’ of search engine marketing (SEM) which has created numerous misconceptions that never seem to go away. For example:
- Most people think that SEM is about keywords and conversion.
- The second belief is that if you use pay-per-click (PPC) your web marketing will succeed.
Misconceptions have been created by web marketing professionals. The very nature of the web demands specialization and so web marketing professionals have become highly specialized.
As sales people try to educate their clients about their services salespeople tend to paint an all or nothing approach. If you have been victimized by some well meaning but misguided salesperson, let me extend an apology to you on their behalf.
Here is the problem with an all or nothing approach. It ignores the fundamental reality of what the Internet has accomplished — the buyer is in control. They determine what they like or dislike. If they dislike or your approach is off, even a little, they leave.
Achieve Balance - What’s Supporting Your Marketing Table?
If I used a table as a metaphor for marketing - and you have only one leg or marketing tool supporting the ‘table’, how easy would it be to upset the table? Pretty easy, all you would need is to bump into it and over it goes.
On the other hand, if I have multiple legs (multiple marketing tools) supporting my marketing table, you would have to knock out several legs and expend a lot more effort to knock over my table.
Which would you rather own? The table with one leg or multiple legs? Guess what? Your business is the marketing table! Please tell me you chose the table with multiple legs.
If you say you cannot afford to have multiple marketing legs supporting your business, I suggest that you close your business and keep your money. Why? Because you will be disappointed with the lack of results. You must be prepared to educate your visitors.
Buyers Seek Information
Remember, the buyer moves from web site to web site seeking information as they move through the buying cycle - advertisers must to get their message in front of the buyer and be ‘relevant’ to them if they hope to influence their customers purchasing decision.
Balanced Inquiry Marketing attempts to intercept a customers ’seek’ behavior of a searcher and ‘attempt to influence’ the buying behavior of the target customer by placing the company brand in the path of the interest after a need has been aroused.
A balanced approach to Inquiry Marketing includes four essentials:
- Identify customer research patterns.
- Provide relevant content throughout the buying cycle.
- Blend traditional (organic) search engine marketing with Paid Inclusion and Pay-Per-Click campaigns.
- Modify push marketing strategy i.e. traditional advertising & web promotion.
As the buyer moves through the buying cycle a relationship is formed, trust builds into emotional momentum that is released by the customer making either an inquiry or a purchasing decision.
Your Customer Does Not Care About You - They Care About Themselves
You have to understand your market’s purchasing behavior and then use the terms of their search query as a way to qualify their purchasing intent.
By the nature of their language (search terms) you can infer differing degrees of intent to buy. The last thing to do is to continue to create value as the buyer moves through your sales qualification funnel.
Inquiry Marketing Expands Search Engine Marketing
It is the method you use to conceptualize your search marketing that influences the success of your web marketing efforts. Inquiry marketing simply treats SEM as one tactic within a broader marketing spectrum and context.
Inquiry marketing is more of a holistic process that encompasses the buyers’ behavior, the individuals buying cycle and the exact words used to construct a search query. It can include the time of day, where a user is located, as well as their behavior after you have generated the initial need and interest.
The first iteration of Inquiry Marketing was introduced by the yellow pages. When the Internet came along it literally blew the lid off the yellow pages model. Contextual ad placement can also be a component of inquiry marketing because buyers visit various Web sites as they move along their inquiry process. How? By reaching out to them with relevant content as they progress through the stages of their buying decision.
Inquiry Marketing is crucial today as our buyers’ use of global search engines and utilities on the Web has grown to half a billion daily search inquiries. All of them are all looking for something! Never before in the course of marketing history have so many searched for so much, using so few tools.
Where Does This Leave Traditional Advertising?
There’s still a need for traditional push advertising because you still need to create a trigger to get people to want to learn about your products or service. Getting a customers to start the ball rolling and to inquire is still a big challenge.
The good news is that using ’search’ and Inquiry Marketing you can likely do a better job of working that inquiry and making sure that the inquiry turns into revenue.
It seems to me that many marketers overlook the power of natural search optimization. Perhaps they are simply caught up in old thinking by focusing on clicks and conversions. Or perhaps they do not think they can get a decent ranking in the search engines. My experience is that if you are prepared to do some work and be patient your efforts will be rewarded.
A Great Opportunity Awaits
We have to thank the search engine marketing community because it has demonstrated to the world that you can be more relevant by letting consumers find the solution themselves.
To participate in the Inquiry Marketing you will need to change your thinking because search has developed as the way that consumers reveal their buying behavior and intentions. How are you taking advantage of this evolution to market your business?
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