Correct in An Empty Room
Ian Lurie Apr 24 2007
In marketing, it pays to start with your audience’s ideas, even if they’re wrong. Nowhere is that more true than search marketing: Pick the keywords they expect, and you’ll have a shot at changing their minds. Demand that they understand, in advance, that the phrase they use to describe your product is wrong, and you’ll fail. For example:
You consider your product a three-wheeled transporter.
Everyone else calls it a tricycle.
You don’t want to call it a tricycle because it’s just so unique. It transcends tricycle-ness. It revolutionizes transportation. It may change the world!
That’s just fine with me. But when you go to search engines looking for customers, you’d better us the phrases they understand. Optimize for ‘tricycle’. Buy ‘tricycle’ for your pay-per-click campaigns. Explain the difference after folks get to your web site.
Otherwise, you may be right, but you’ll be talking to an empty room.
Ian Lurie
CEO
Ian Lurie is CEO and founder of Portent Inc. He's recorded training for Lynda.com, writes regularly for the Portent Blog and has been published on AllThingsD, Forbes.com and TechCrunch. Ian speaks at conferences around the world, including SearchLove, MozCon, SIC and ad:Tech. Follow him on Twitter at portentint. He also just published a book about strategy for services businesses: One Trick Ponies Get Shot, available on Kindle. Read More
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Which is why we are an Internet Marketing Agency, not a Conversation Marketing Agency, though we really are the latter.