By David Maister
Along with everybody else, I face the challenge of creating awareness of my activities. I often describe my reputation as being like the measles—spots of great inflammation, surrounded by vast areas of untouched territory. When I wrote a book and asked, "How do I promote it?" the answer came back, "Build a Web site." But then I had to ask, "How do I get people to my Web site?" They said: "Give lots of speeches." "But how do I get on the speakers' circuit?" "Write a book, of course!"
Having put a lot of effort into making my resources available online in a variety of formats (so that people would have a choice when accessing this information), I still had the task of making busy people (many of whom were not heavy Internet users) aware that all these new resources existed. Jeff Merrifield, who works at a global accounting firm, helped me grasp the first key point: "Unfortunately, most people are just too overwhelmed with electronic input and filter out everything that is not urgent or from a trusted source." This perspective was reaffirmed by someone who said, "Your topical (important and urgent) blog posts are my favorites." Topical, important and urgent! Of course!
We don't best communicate information when we want to convey it. Instead, communication is most effective when we ensure that what we have to offer is accessible and useful right at the point when someone in need starts looking for it. We tend to assume that people will search for what we have to offer. They will, but only if we make it really easy for them to find things!
Among other things, my traffic statistics showed that many people who visited my blog never ventured to the rest of my site and were unaware that the site also contains, for example, related videos or audio podcasts. The same was true in reverse: my podcast audience was not necessarily aware of my other materials.
I also had not quite appreciated what a high percentage of executives, professionals and other business people are barely active in accessing the Web as part of doing business. Even long-term clients, who had opted in to receive regular e-mail communications from me had never been to my Web site (or hadn't done so in six months or more) and had no idea what I had to offer there.
Someone suggested that I could serve my community by expanding the materials on my Web site beyond those I had authored myself. For example, if I really wanted to serve the audience's interests, I could usefully review other people's books in related fields and provide guidance and links to other Web sites and blogs that I thought my audience would like. With a little more thought and effort, I could truly be more useful as a guide (on the topics I specialized in) through the disorganized mess that is the Internet and the blogosphere.
Then I got some good feedback from someone who said: "Your marketing message is somewhat lacking. The overall site structure of your Web site really doesn't lead a reader to any particular theme or message. You cover a lot of ground in your writing, and there are ways to handle that effectively, but unfortunately you don't do it so well."
It all seems so basic in retrospect, but originally I had organized my materials by type of media, as in "Go here for my articles, go here for my videos." I changed that to "Go here if you're interested in marketing, go here if you're interested in managing." I had begun to put ourselves in the shoes of different audience members and ask, "What kinds of needs would they have, and what specific kind of information might they be looking for?" The resulting topic-driven resource libraries were immediately popular and intensely used.
Then, the marketing director of an elite U.K. law firm stressed the importance of "repackaging" material to serve the needs of different, specific audiences.
To a large extent, this is what I have tried to do with my new resource libraries discussed earlier, as well as with my podcasts. These podcasts are mainly derived from chapters of my books and my articles. For me, part of the challenge and the fun of putting my podcast series together has been the chance to reorganize material into what I hope is an internally consistent sequence of thoughts and advice. It's kind of like creating a record album of "David's best dance tracks" or "David's best slow ballads." My tracking statistics (and feedback devices) are letting me know that the material has found a new, much broader audience.
I always appreciate feedback. If you have any additional suggestions for me, go to www.davidmaister.com .
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.