Most of you have probably heard of the website eHow.com, a website that basically offers hundreds of thousands of articles, on every topic imaginable, for the sole purpose of coming up in the search engines and subsequently driving ad revenue. These relatively new types of websites have been dubbed “Content Farms”, and the concept is troubling to say the least. Don’t get me wrong, the business model is sound, but the information being published as authoritative is far from it.

While writing this post, I flashed back to 8th grade when my teacher said, “Not everything you read on the internet is true.” Granted, I think we all know this. But, as a company grows and becomes more popular, its brand becomes more reputable as well, deserved or not.

I’m not going to summarize the graphic below because it’s already very well done. As you read through it, keep in mind that these content farms complicate your search results and will affect what sort of recipe you’ll be trying tonight. More importantly, if you have a website competing for rank, your company’s position on Google is being attacked everyday… and not just by your competitors. Even businesses who are not your competitors are terrorizing your rank on Google, and if they were not your competitors yesterday, they will be tomorrow.

The following info-graphic, provided by Online MBA shows exactly how these content-based articles come into existence, pumped out like newspapers off a press. Click here to view the graphic full size.

An imaginary interview with a business struggling to find its voice:

How do I know what my voice sounds like?
Don’t worry. You’ll know when you hear it. After you know, and start to broadcast yourself, everyone else will be telling you what a nice voice you have, too.

What will my customers be listening for?
With a few exceptions, most people will not be actively listening for anything. Potential customers just need to believe they are your one true love. Your voice must convince them of this.

So I want to trick them, isn’t that kind of unethical?
Oh no. Your true voice won’t be a lie. Once you find what defines you, and express that openly, convincing them of your loyalty won’t be a problem. Honesty, integrity and your passion to make your customers happy have always been ingredients for successful relationships.

In other words, you must actually believe that each and every one of them is your own true love.

I don’t get it. How can everyone be my one true love?
It’s not easy, but remember that no one wants to be part of a crowd. Everyone wants to be the FOCUS OF YOUR ATTENTION… so show them that they are.

What is the secret?
Great question, glad you asked, but I already told you, it’s in your voice. Your beautiful, unique voice.

What if I have a great voice, perfect and unique, but I don’t know where to start singing.
It’s important that you don’t speak clearly in the wrong places. Your potential sweethearts won’t hear you. A good social media program can make a good voice shine, but there’s no easy path through Facebook or Twitter. No golden road that only a few know about. No treasure maps with big red X’s.

The beauty of social media is that it raises the unique voices and buries the rest. That’s the way it works and there’s nothing you can do about it. The only way to the top is to find the right voice for your business and then start singing. You know you’ve got the right venue when they start lining up at the door to buy tickets.

So, they’ll love me just for who I am?
Only you can answer this question but if for some reason the answer is “NO”, you could be lonely for a while. When it comes down to it, your products and services are THE differentiating factor that makes your business unique. Everything else is superficial. Your customers are going to stay with you because they love what you give them and, as a result, they’ll love you.

What’s the Bleepin’ Point?

In case you’ve missed the subtlety of my message, I’ll just say it. The value your customers are looking for is in your business. It’s the people you employ, your products, your services and your prices. Your voice is how you relay that value to your customers. When you find it, sing it loud and clear.

This is based on an article from Marketing Profs about an eBay experiment to educate customers about their services.

eBay invited six French fashion bloggers to engage in a crafty campaign called Wardrobe Commando.

The objective: The bloggers were to select one reader each for a full-on fashion revamp. Hailing from different regions of France, each blogger created a video of herself consulting with her reader of choice. Then the fun began.

Phase one: Each blogger convinced her “ugly duckling” to sell items online that actually made her look like a total fashion victim! In the process, each girl learned how to photograph and post items on eBay, complete with catchy salesgirl language.

Phase two: eBay footed the bill for hot new duds that turned the presumably dowdy ducks into sultry swans! The campaign likely drew thousands of readers—at the very least those who followed the work of the bloggers.

I believe this eBay experiment is fascinating. They’ve managed to give their customers a great time while sneakily teaching them to use their complex auction seller forms. If you’ve ever used eBay, you know that this is no easy task. The complicated terms and settings that they use in their forms are a huge barrier to using the services. If eBay wants to collect their fees and commissions, their customers need to understand how eBay fits into their goals.

Just like the love of your life won’t marry you until they understand how you fit into their future; the eBay customer needs to understand what they are doing or eBay won’t get the commission.

Show them how to use it

Listening is key, but demonstrating is king. Allow me to give an example from one of my own clients. Beauté de Maman has a wonderful skin care line for pregnant women. It’s natural and herbal and contains nothing toxic for the baby or mother… exactly what Beauté de Maman customers are looking for. But what we learned along the way is that not only do pregnant women want safe products, they want to know how to use those products for the best results. Questions like “Should I put on the stretch mark cream at night or should I put it on in the morning after my shower?”, helped us to understand what customers wanted to know about successfully using the products, before actually buying them.

Show your customers how to use your products down to the finest detail. The more customers know about how to use your product, the happier everyone will be.

Read the Original Article: Calling All Ugly Ducklings

In short, the answer is you should ask people’s permission before you put them on your list, but in reality, it’s the wrong question. People who aren’t interested in your services or your products and therefore your emails, probably don’t belong on your list. Stephanie actually suggests cleaning your lists of uninterested recipients and focus all of your energy on your more promising candidates.

She says:

Subscribers who really want to be on your file are always going to be more engaged and return higher response and revenue. Lots of “sleepers” on the file only return somnambulant results. Subscriber satisfaction and the resultant ROI is, after all, the whole point.

Permission As an Email Marketing Engagement Strategy

The phone rings in our office. Between us we’re wearing 7 hats, working on 40 tasks, with 15 windows and applications open.  I put on the eighth hat and answer.

“Hello, is this Coldfire?” A woman’s voice with a loud roaring noise in the background.

“Yes, this is Coldfire, who’s calling?” I close one window so I can focus.

“This is Samantha, I found your name, just now, on the internet. I was wondering if you help smaller businesses. I have a bigger agency helping but they don’t pay any attention to me. I think I need someone local who doesn’t mind smaller companies. My agency likes corporate clients. I think they don’t care about my business.

“Well, that is terrible,” I commiserated, barely hearing her over the roar. “What’s that noise in the background?”

“Oh, I am on the free way, I-95.” she blurted. “WAIT, I have a truck on my butt.”

I plugged my free ear anticipating screeching brakes and crunching metal. I-95 is the busiest road on the east coast, or any coast for that matter. Truckers in their huge rigs honestly believe cars should be banned and chase down the smaller, weaker vehicles filled with terrified passengers. Samantha is someone I have never met but clearly she was taking a huge risk by being on the phone in such a place while driving.

“I’m back,” she said and proceeded to tell me about the truck before telling me about her new online store, her desire to become known and all the usual things that everyone in her shoes wants for a song.

She began to tell me her story of being an online retailer who sold her business, but is starting over with new products that everyone is drooling over and magazines are pestering to write about. “All I need is a new shopping cart. I tried to do it myself but I simply do not have time to learn this whole thing. I just don’t.”

I tried to halt my recurring image of Samantha looking up website developers in Google on her iphone while barreling down the I-95. Choosing us because we were on top of the search engine. Then calling us to find out who we are and why she should use our services.

I do love these new customer calls but safety comes first. I convinced Samantha to get off her cell phone by promising to call her back after I looked at her current website. She agreed and hung up.

Whats the point of my story?

Online retail is back and, while it is not yet back with a vengeance, it is getting stronger every day. No question about it, e-tailers like Samantha are in a virtual panic to beat everyone back into the market with their wares. They know shoppers. They know that most of America loves to spend money and generally can’t spend it fast enough.

That’s why Samantha could not wait until she got back to her office. She is a shopper and she can smell the retail market starting to cook like good ribs over an open flame, the smell unbearably tantalizing.

We love to help the Samantha’s of the world. We just wish they would not get so hungry while driving.

Tell us a story about your hunger for business. Just log in and start driving… uh, writing. We would love to hear from you no matter which hat you are wearing.