Underground Web Designs Blog

Every business wants attention. If nobody ever entered your store, phoned your office or viewed your website you would have a pretty hard time making money. But how do you get this attention? What can you do that will cause people to notice you, to enter your store or visit your website?

One of the best ways to attract attention is to do something outrageous… and it’s often easier than it may seem. If you have a store and your business is located on a busy street, a simple sign out front with a quirky message will get attention. In fact, I was at a restaurant that had done this last night. They booked a last minute concert and put up a sign at 3:00 PM. By 7:00 PM when I arrived the 150 seat concert had sold out! And this wasn’t a blockbuster band either, but a local one.

The same thing can be done online as well. Urban Prankster.com is a site that features people who have gotten attention by doing outrageous things. A picture on a website, or a video on YouTube of something unusual will get attention… this video of a “drug vending machine” by Imbue has had almost 13,000 views on YouTube in less than 2 weeks!

Another classic example is the “Will It Blend” videos. What better way to draw attention to a common kitchen appliance, in this case a blender, than by posting outrageous videos of it blending everything from iPhones to Nike Shoes?

Of course, you don’t want to do anything that discredits you or ruins your brand, but don’t underestimate the power of outrageous actions to bring attention to your business. What outrageous and unexpected event, video, or even picture could you use to draw attention, and potentially customers, to your business?

One of the greatest things about the internet is that it allows you, the business owner, to instantly recieve feedback from your marketplace. In fact, sometimes allowing users to contribute to your blog, website, or business directly can lead to some pretty unique situations.

The classic example of this are “LOLCats”, such as this one:

Click for more animals.

For those who don’t know, the website ICanHasCheezburger.com encourages users to write funny captions to pictures of animals, politicians, and other things and then upload them to the site for everyone to enjoy. The result? A constantly updated site with lots of traffic and (I would imagine) lots of impressions on the ads in the sidebar.

I’m not saying that the ad revenue is the only thing that can benefit from powerful user feedback. Indeed, any website that can provide an engaging user experience will not only receive more visits than a dull, static one, it will be remembered much better by those who see it as well.

As a business owner, it’s worth considering how you can reach out and engage your web audience in such a way. Blog comments, polls, and feedback forms are really only the very simplest of feedback devices. How can you make your website and ultimately your business more engaging, exciting, and memorative to your online audience? Maybe it’s with a simple game or puzzle, or maybe by allowing them to “design” a customized version of your product just for them? Maybe you sell a very unique commodity and can represent on your website exactly how many you have left… and show in real time when someone buys one?

The internet gives you options that were truly impossible before. Your audience can now interact with your business in real time and can actually contribute to your website or your product. Don’t pass up that opportunity!

Please Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you happen to like any of Seth Books and buy one after following a link from this site, I’ll make a few dollars toward expanding my own business library. Of course, you’re free to look up the books yourself if you want! 

As I mentioned in my last post about the traditional advertising vs. authentic communication, different marketers use different methods to spread the word about their online businesses. Seth Godin is the poster child for the “authentic communication” approach in marketing. His books, such as The Purple Cow, All Marketers Are Liars, and Meatball Sundae all center around this theme.

Today Seth’s latest book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, hits the market. This time around Seth is talking about how we’re all part of a group, or a tribe. As business owners, we can either create a brand and then try and sell it to people, or we can develop a tribe and then create products for them. Whether your business is selling houses or selling peanuts, if you can help the people that love what you do connect with each other, not only will the power of word of mouth marketing begin to work for you, but you will not need to search for any more customers! By bringing people together you create a community that will provide you feedback about what they want. If you in turn listen and create products specifically for them you can be sure they’ll sell, because you’re meeting a specific need, the need of your tribe.

I won’t say too much more about Tribes, other than that I highly recommend it. Seth Godin explains the concepts much better than I ever could. In the meantime, if you want a taste of what a Tribe can accomplish, check out the Tribes Casebook Seth released today. This 200+ page PDF was created entirely by members of an elite tribe Seth has been cultivating and is available for everyone as a free download. Download it and read some of the stories, both present and past, of tribes and the people who have led them. After you’ve read through some of the stories, think about your business. How can you cultivate a tribe around what you do?

If you read much online business literature, it seems there are two camps about how to do business online. The first focuses on more traditional advertising, while the second focuses on authentic communication. Which one works better? To be honest, at this point I don’t know. I’ve read good arguments for both. Before we get in too deep, how about some definitions first. What exactly do I mean by Traditional Advertising and Authentic Communication?

Well, when I think of Advertising, the first thing that comes to mind are big TV ads or billboards it Times Square. It’s big, it’s in your face, it’s usually expensive, and it’s only purpose is to make you buy something. On the internet this translates to extensive use of Pay-Per-Click campaigns, highly tested and optimized landing pages, and exacting sales copy designed to create an irresistible desire in people to buy a project.

By contrast, “Communication”, in the context of selling something, involves a much more personal connection with your audience; at least to me it does. To me communication is what blogs and social media are all about. It’s about putting your stuff out there and asking people flat out what they think of it. YouTube, Facebook, Squidoo, and Digg are all great examples of this. Communication is all about word of mouth and “viral” marketing.

Now, the question of which works better? Like I said at the beginning, I don’t know. When I first got into online business, I was deeply prejudiced against traditional advertising. Coming from a consumer’s point of view, I didn’t (and still don’t) like it’s generally impersonal, in your face nature. As I grew a bit more experienced however, I came to see that for all it’s faults, traditional advertising does produce results, which is good from a business owners standpoint. On the flip side, while much more “consumer friendly”, communication based advertising can be much harder to make work. It requires a lot of time, and a fair bit of skill to write things people will read and engage with. It takes even more skill (and dare I say luck) to produce a successful “viral” campaign.

Personally, I still prefer “communication” based marketing, because as a consumer I prefer feeling like my opinion and feedback is appreciated and acted upon. Because the internet is such a flexible medium and makes communication so easy, I think it would be a shame for it to become filled with blatant “interruption advertising”. Having said that, I’m not 100% sold on either method, and would love to hear what you think and how you market your business.

Do you use “traditional advertising” or “communication marketing” to sell your products or services, and why did you choose the method you did? Please post your experiences in the comments section!