The internet marketing industry is still very young and evolving rapidly.  Small business owners don’t have the time to keep up with the latest trends and tactics, especially in regards to seo, ppc and social media.  The result is that professionals in the field hold the responsibility to educate, inform and lead their clients in a direction that provides the best opportunity for success.

The process of guiding the client in the right direction has a few required steps.

1. Do your due diligence in regards to the client, the industry and their competition.

2. Listen to the business owner and try to get a sense of what it’s like to be in their shoes.

3. Re-evaluate your understanding of what makes the business tick based off of your learnings.

4. Educate.

5. Strategize the best course of action.  Does the client need SEO, PPC, both, etc?  Will social media work?  What budget is required?

6. Implement campaigns.

7. Show the value of your hard work to the client (preferably with success metrics

8. Re-evaluate the direction of campaigns based off of measurements.

9. Re-educate.

10. Course correct and repeat steps 7 - 10.

Notice the theme of re-evaluting.  We all have a tendency to hold on to our preconceived notions, but forcing ourselves to take a step back often will improve perspective.  This holds true both as we understand our clients’ businesses better and as we practice what we preach by adapting to the ever changing world of internet marketing.

In the end, the client should know their business best.  But does their understanding correlate to the ever changing online world?  My advice is to simply be up front and clear.  Don’t be afraid to say “I disagree.  In my experience this technique would work best online” and explain why.  It takes a rare breed to push back on someone who writes your check, but that is one of the differences between constantly finding new business or making the relationships you have last.

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We’ve all heard for years that online marketing is the most affordable, measurable form of getting access to targeted customers.  So that means that every small or medium sized business owner has been spending online for years, right?  Wrong, but that trend is rapidly changing.

A few years ago all that mattered was having a web presence, which meant simply building a static website with some sweet animated GIFs.  Then, the early adopters, the tech savvy or friends of the tech savvy, started doing ppc and possibly seo.  The numbers making the jump were few, but the success was great.  The doorway has opened a bit wider now.  Small business internet marketing providers now have technology specifically made for managing and optimizing smaller spends.  Previously, these types of optimization tools were only available for companies capable of shelling out thousands per month.  Many SMBs still thriving during the current economy attribute their success to search marketing performance.

Do it yourself options also exist, but there is a level of expertise required to achieve optimal success.  It’s also important to consider that as the industry has grown lower priced solutions have popped up allowing business owners to focus on what they do best.  A lot of us own many hats, but in the end we tend to stick to the one that fits best.