Times are tough.

In times like these, clients tend to focus on the value proposition. "Throw it at the wall, see if it sticks" is not a phrase you hear a lot in recessions.

Instead, your customers will tend to have their eyes transfixed on your value proposition. "How does this spend make me better off?"

Whilst we may think search marketing services are essential, the spend on search services typically comes out of marketing budgets, and marketing budgets tend to be the first thing companies cut when things get tight.

So, they might need more convincing that usual.

If you weren't doing so already, it can be a good time to go over your proposals and pitch, and look to emphasize, and add to the value proposition you offer.

A few points to consider....

1. Address Genuine Needs

Address the need a client has, which may be different than the need they articulate.

This may seem obvious, but often people aren't quite sure exactly why they need search marketing, or they may have wrong ideas about it. Their genuine business need may be buried. You need to tease this out.

To do so, listen. Hard.

One common mistake people who are "fixers" - seos tend to be fixers - can make is that they'll go through the motions of listening, but really they're just waiting for an opportunity to launch into their solution.

A client will tell you a lot, and perhaps cover a lot of angles you hadn't thought of, if you let them talk long enough. They will like the fact you are interested in them and their problems, and it will make your eventual solution sound more considered and tailor-made.

Because it will be.

If you don't solve a genuine problem, your relationship is more likely to be a short one. Services that don't solve genuine business problems are more likely to get cut.

2.Go Beyond

Look for ways you can enhance your offering.

Look to solve genuine problems in closely related fields. For example, a client may lack a content strategy. They may want to publish content regularly, but haven't got around to doing so. You could enhance your offering by incorporating this work in your offer, reasoning that it dovetails nicely with your SEO strategy, thus killing two birds with one stone.

This can also get you on-going work, if pitched right, and may involve little more than hiring the services of a copywriter.

3. Establish Feedback Mechanisms

Feedback is important.

Not only does it give you added insight into what the client is thinking, it also offers you the opportunity to demonstrate your value proposition in action.

You said you would do X, you do X, then show them you've done X. This helps build trust.

Clients will often elaborate, if given the opportunity, which can give you more ideas on how to "Go Beyond", and how to "Address Their Real Needs".

4. Look At Jobs As Partnerships

If you've ever bought services, you know that selecting a service provider can be a pain. It is time consuming, and there is risk involved. A wrong choice can lead to opportunity cost, and having to repeat the process all over again.

No one wants that. People want partnerships with their suppliers. They want someone on their side.

Once you've landed a client, try to see them as a business partner. This is certainly how they will view you if they like you. They are unlikely to go back out to the market unless they are disastisfied, so try to make their business, your business.

Take the approach that you will boost your own business by building theirs.

5. Every Job Is An Opportunity To Build Hybrid Skills & Knowledge

Let's say you have a travel client.

Learn everything you can about the travel industry. Press the client for information. Research and understand the wider industry, not just the search marketing opportunity within that industry.

One of the golden things about being a consultant is that you get to look inside people's businesses. This information is valuable and difficult to obtain by other means, yet you're getting paid to learn it. You're learning about real business issues, who's-who, and the language of the industry.

You then become more valuable to any other travel-related client as you're now "a travel guy". You can pitch convincing to them, because you speak their language, understand their problems, and you've got industry history.

At a recent SEO conference there was a question asked about getting a geo-local page to rank better for their own specific brand + the location (where they were competing against resellers & aggregators in that vertical). I was a bit tired at the end of the day, so I am not sure if I got my point across well enough there...so I figured it would make sense to follow up here. :)

When the above question was sussed out more fully it turns out that the core issue was not that of rank, but rather one of demand. Even with them + all the aggregators that particular branch was simply not profitable, especially when compared against other branches in neighboring towns.

The core issue here is this: SEO fulfills demand, but SEO doesn't create demand.*

* There are some exceptions to that, like in complex long B2B purchase cycles & people selling abstract products & services like art, but generally its true for most businesses.

Where SEO is Exceptionally Valuable

If you are selling a commodity product that is similar to other commodity products (or you are 1 of 1,000 similar reviews on the web - like an affiliate) then ranking a bit better for the brand you are targeting will lead to more conversions for you the affiliate.

But all of that opportunity is built on the back of arbitraging existing brand equity & consumer demand, it doesn't really create new demand in and of itself. Sure some sorts of reviews can make certain products seem more compelling than others, but the sort of demand creation needed by the above organization has to come from broader generic search queries and/or arbitraging competing brands.

How to Create Demand

If someone ranked just below us in the search results for "seo book tools" with reviews of our exclusive domain finder tool, our competitive research tool, and a few other tools we offer then they might make a limited number of incremental sales for us, but if we wanted to create significant incremental sales we have 3 options

• build our brand
• cross market
• try to gain exposure on broader related generic keywords

Brand Building

There are many ways to build brand, from public relations to offering additional products and features to interacting at more events to writing more frequently on our blog to advertising, etc. etc. etc. The good thing about building brand exposure is that branded keywords tend to be the keywords with the highest conversion rates...so when you build your brand you create a surge in traffic and a surge in conversion rates.

When I lived in State College, Pennsylvania the guy who owned StateCollege.com mentioned that at one point he put a huge blimp up in the parking lot of the football stadium advertising his domain name. He was fined for doing it, but it was just a cost of doing marketing...a cheap source of exposure.

As a regional office you might not be able to do that much with brand though: you may lack the budget for branded advertising & there might be some types of restrictions on the types of things you can do to gain awareness.

Cross Marketing

This is an area where the people asking the question at the conference could have done well. They could have done more aggressive cross marketing within their organization and with other organizations.

Part of what created demand for this whole region / area was a huge theme park of sorts. So in theory they could have also ran special promotions with that theme park offering discounts to frequent visitors. Perhaps they could have found out who went to that theme park and sent them mailers with seasonal discount offers.

If neighboring branches were frequently sold out and this branch was not then what they could have done is find out who amongst there customers are frequent customers and who amongst those people are budget conscious...promote the concept of saving a lot by being a bit further away amongst those who value money more than time.

Further segmentation could be done separating out business functions from tourists. Offer businesses that are holding meetings a discount on meeting room rentals at the cheaper spot that is further away & try to load most of the tourists into the venue with higher demand. Beyond that, demographic targeting can be a strong option. Some areas hold yearly festivals for certain alternative lifestyles.

In the online sense of cross-marketing, both SEOmoz and Raven have been aggressive at running conference discounts and/or offering free conference passes when you set up at one of their higher tiered account levels.

Coupons and loyalty programs can also help on this front. One could also petition the local chamber of commerce to create some sort of seasonal celebration or promotional hook for the town, which would help almost all the local businesses. Is your town the home of the cranberry? There has to be some type of hook or angle.

The world is full of unique places & there is something interesting in your back yard if you look close enough.

Exposure on Broader Related Keywords

The above company which thought they needed to rank better for "their brand name" + "their location" could have driven some additional incremental volume by ranking better for the related query stream, like:

• "their product category" + "their location" (putting themselves in front of more of the generic related traffic stream ... they can also run direct ads on other sites that rank well and have relevant traffic streams)
• creating a page focused on "their product category" + "near popular local attraction" (coming up with alternate ways people search with the same intent ... there are boatloads of options on this front for those who create content focused on solving specific business problems)
• running ads on competing local brands stating things like "free ___ feature" or "up to _% cheaper than brand x" (arbitraging competing brands ... this can be effective, but can easily be misplayed & lead to blood + tears)

The latest video from Matt Cutts talks about the value of SEO to Google.

The questioner asks:

"Why does Google support SEO specialists with advice? Google's business is to sell text ads..."?

Matt explains that Google sees SEO helping, rather than hindering, their business model long term.

How?

SEOs create - and encourage site-owners to create - the very sites that Google's technology demands i.e. context accessible by an automated crawler, largely text based, and clearly marked up.

By having sites that jive well with Google's technology, this lowers Google's costs, and helps make Google results more relevant in the eyes of the end user. The larger their index, the more chances Google has to answer the query. SEOs love creating crawlable content!

This means the end user keeps coming back, which in turn translates to Google's bottom line.

It's also a good idea to give webmasters something, else Google risks an more adversarial relationship, which again can cause Google problems.

So SEO is good for Google's business - the "good" type of SEO, as defined by Google, of course.

Win-Win

Matt, as always, is giving the side of the story Google wants you to hear.

His position sounds reasonable, generous, and inclusive, and it is - in many respects. But make no mistake - Google aren't there for webmasters. Google will do what is good for Google. If SEO was bad for Google, Google would not be reaching out to the SEO community, in much the same way they don't reach out to, say, the malware writer community. They just stamp it out.

Matt is a master of public relations. Webmasters can learn a lot from Matt in terms of how to handle their own public relations challenges.

Here are a few pointers, based on Matt Cutts approach:

Public Relations Is Relations With The Public

Matt doesn't talk from on high. He doesn't talk at his audience. He talks with them. He attends events where his audience congregate, and he encourages interaction and questions. This activity serves to build a personal relationship, which helps make his messages easier to convey and sell.

Look for ways in which you can go *to* your audience/customers. Where do they hang out? Address them on their own terms, and in their own environment. Regularly encourage questions, criticism and feedback. When it comes time to announce new products and services, your audience is likely to be more receptive than if your communications are anonymous and sporadic.

Ok, this might be all very well for Matt Cutts. Everyone pays attention to Google, because Google are important. However, no matter how big or small your audience, you still must find a way to relate to them.

These days, it's not so much what people say, it's often who is saying it. Modern media is driven by personalities. The content of the message is seldom good enough to stick, unless it is truly remarkable.

People listen to Matt in ways they don't listen to an anonymous Google press release because of the personal relationship he has worked hard to establish. This works just as well for small businesses. In fact, this is one of the big advantages of a small business - the personal touch. Google is a big company, but they work hard to appear like a small one, at least in terms of their personal relations approach with webmasters.

Matt also gets out in front of issues. If there's something going on in the web community relating to his area, he's almost certainly quick to comment on it. By doing so, he can control and frame the conversation in terms that suit Google. If there are industry issues that relate to your work or company, use them as an opportunity to grab the spotlight. Try to become the media go-to person in your local community for issues by building relationships with media and news outlets.

PR consultants aren't quite as necessary as they used to be. They aren't redundant, but the most important lesson to learn from Matt Cutts is that PR is something you need to embody. It's not just a function that you slap on, or hire in, when it suits, and still be as effective. Make PR flow through all you do.

Matt's greatest skill is not making it look like PR at all.

Effective marketers leverage marketing channels.

Scammers & spammers ruin them for everyone else.

There is a long line of this on the web...

• Email was personal, then it was easy to automate & done in bulk.
• Guest books and blog comments were a way to add value, then they were sources of free links.
• Links were a signal of relevancy, then they were bought and sold in bulk.

As people get burned the web as a whole gets more cynical. The scammers steal from the plates of honest folks as the web adjusts to a new level of cynicism...each round more cynical than the last. This is why you have to prove to people that they are going to get a 20x return when they buy from you, because a half-dozen scammers already ripped them off, and by the time they find you they simply have no trust in internet marketers (and perhaps none for humanity).

This is why people view SEO as a scam like anything else in marketing...most people who jump online get hosed.

Sometimes cost protects a channel. For instance, since people have to pay to be a member of our forums we don't really have to deal with spam in there. But as far as media formats go, things that start off as expensive can often be made cheaper through systemization & outsourcing ... so any given format that was once too expensive to do poorly eventually becomes accessible to do in bulk with marginal quality (blogs can be autogenerated, so can books, video is getting cheaper, and infographics can be done cheaply if you are not concerned with quality).

The thing about infographic promotions is that they are easy to like...part of what makes the media so appealing is the great lengths they go to in order to find new, innovative, and interesting ways to format content. Years of learning go into creating a graphic like this - which can be consumed in 5 minutes. But any interesting format gets used then abused.

Are most infographics created by independent webmasters designed for promotional purposes? Absolutely. They cost thousands of dollars to create (in terms of research, editing, formating & promotion) especially if you do good ones.

The big issue with any format is not the format itself, but pollution in the marketplace. Pollution leads to cynicism, which destroys the market for EVERYBODY who is not the bulk spammer churning out trash.

Not too long ago there was an IamA thread on Reddit highlighting how infographic promotions work & making them seem seedy. That led to an infographic being created about how off-topic infographics are being used to promote sites of marginal quality.

What did the guilty parties do in response? They not only didn't stop or change strategy, but they increased their volume and started offering to pay people to syndicate their infographics.

I know you’re really busy, so I will try to make this quick and painless. My name is Sarah and I work with a company that creates and distributes infographics. I was wondering if you’d like to be part of our infographic distribution list. We are willing to pay you for every infographic you post.

Here are a couple examples of the work we do:
mashable.com/2010/05/10/ipod-revolution-infographic/
huffingtonpost.com/brian-clark-howard/the-meteoric-rise-of-crai_b_649183.html
neatorama.com/spotlight/2010/06/17/13-things-worth-knowing-about-super-mario/

We would love to provide you with content while paying you for it. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions. I hope to hear from you soon!

Thanks!

What does Super Mario Bros. have to do with Home Owners Insurance? It's an easy way to buy links. But likely one that won't last long given that these people are killing the medium with irrelevant trash.