Top 10 Signs That Your Online Marketing Has Hit the Wall
What are the top 10 signs that your online marketing has hit the wall? Here goes:
10. The only person to “friend” you on Facebook in the last 6 months is an inflatable kangaroo
9. You just spent $5,000 on printed marketing collaterals, only to discover your marketing agency’s proofreader is dyslexic and your URL has a typo
8. Severe writer’s block on your biz blog finds you drafting a post “Which are Cuter, Puppies or Dust Bunnies?”
7. So many people have “un-followed” you on Twitter that your “follow” number is now negative — and all Twitter Support can say is, “Gee, we’ve never seen that happen before.”
6. The last time someone commented on your blog was 2006 — and that was your Mom
5. You sold your soul (er, I mean a link) for a T-shirt, only to learn everyone else gets $100
4. You let your domain name lapse, and it’s now owned by an online gambling site from the Cayman Islands.
3. You have one review of your new YouTube video that cost $3,000 to film — and it gets one star
2. You are talking with a prospective advertiser for your site who wants to know if the visitor traffic figure was per day or per week, and you say, “uh, no, that was the total for last year.”
1. The only thing you rank for in Google is #138 for “miserable failure.”
* * * * *
If you’re wondering what the above ten items are, they’re part of a new keynote presentation I am working on for conferences and events. I decided to illustrate 10 online marketing points by poking fun at them, David Letterman style.
The inspiration came during the Small Business Marketing Unleashed Conference recently. Wayne Small, who came all the way to Ohio from Australia, brought a terriffic icebreaker: an inflatable kangaroo, named Ken Garoux (pronounced ga-roo). At the opening night’s networking event, people started pasting their business cards on inflatable Ken. Before you knew it, Ken had a Facebook page and was “friending” everyone.
So as I sat and listened to the sessions during the Conference, I was taking notes and doodling based on what the speakers and attendees talked about. And voila, this Top 10 list was born.
Let me know what you think. If you have any funnier snippets, please leave them in a comment below. Or point us to your own Top Ten.
September 24th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Very funny stuff! What’s up with the inflatable kangaroo?
September 24th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Hilarious!
September 24th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
How fantastic! #9 reminded me of the Federal Duck Stamp released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this year. Instead of having 1-800-STAMP24 printed on it, it has a phone sex number instead (I’ll leave it to you to find out what the printed number was, ha.)
I’ve been working on a “Top Signs You Work For A Small Business…” list. I’ll make sure to pass it around when completed.
Thanks for the morning laugh, Anita!
September 24th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
#11:
You know your online marketing has hit a wall because you only seem to get invites on Facebook by folks that have names like “ComeAgin5″ “OrientalLVR77″ and “MLMWizard.”
Joel Libava
September 24th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
That’s funny, love the kangaroo. Joel, your #11 is a good addition!
September 24th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
#6 - Hey, don’t make fun of my mom! She happens to be an avid fan.
September 24th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
These are all very funny - #6 in particular gave me a chuckle for some reason as did #5. Good stuff, wish I had one to add. But gimme time, I’m thinking about it . . .
September 24th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Wayne wrote about his inflatable friend, Ken Garoux, here: http://blog.sbsfaq.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=239
September 24th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
seems like a few year’s someone pretty well known to us all had their bio come up number one on Google for “miserable failure”….
September 24th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Funny list Anita. Perhaps another is that you get excited as your web traffic has gone up dramatically, then check and realise it was only your own visits to your website.
September 24th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Anita,
When will you attend David Letterman’s show?
I have been involved in item #4.
“4. You let your domain name lapse, and it’s now owned by an online gambling site from the Cayman Islands.” For more information, read my post, Martin Lindeskog Name Domain.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Hilarious list! There is so much truth to your list. I think that delivering it in such an entertaining way helps others to laugh (including laughing at themselves) and to perhaps realize what might be going wrong!
September 24th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I laughed out loud when I saw #8. If we had a blog I’d be like that. Struggling to write about something …… anything.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
These are inspired. I only wish I had more to add - but you’ve listed some of my realities (should I write about dust bunnnies) and the traffic is from the entire year - yes that would be me
September 24th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
My tip for promotion: being interviewed by magazines, newspapers, or on radio and television can spread the word quickly about your capabilities. Landing interviews is not that hard to do if you remember to start small. Begin by approaching easy targets like association newsletters, neighborhood newspapers, and local cable programs or talk radio.
September 24th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Shout out to Susan - yup - I have had the traffic jump from my own visits phenomenon as well
September 24th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
Good stuff, Anita…
September 24th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Anita,
Great list - too bad I can relate too well to #6. I’ve seen it firsthand - stop blogging regularly and people stop commenting. Thanks for infusing humor into your presentation. Sometimes we get too serious!
Janet
September 24th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I Love You
http://salesdujour.com/images/my-online-marketing-campaign.jpg
September 25th, 2008 at 3:56 am
Wow. Gary Hart, you must have enjoyed Anita’s top ten list to tell her that in your comment.
Anyway, Thanks Anita for sharing this.
September 25th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Anita,
Nothing like a little comment spam to keep things light, huh?
Sarah, thanx!
Joel Libava
September 25th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Yeah that’ll work! But will they remember the message behind it?
September 25th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Good to see you at the SBMU conference Anita. I thought the sessions were
extremely helpful, informative and offered solid ideas to take back
to our businessess. Thanks for the free book too! Perhaps I’ll share my comments on the book.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I just want everyone to know (especially my husband if he sees this) that I’ve never met Gary in person. He’s a regular commenter here, though, so I cut him a lot more slack than a new person and that’s why I left the comment in here.
Thanks, Gary, for commenting, but if you could clarify it might be helpful.
September 25th, 2008 at 9:59 am
12. The only “people” who are following you on twitter are blog-tweeting-bots for spammy stuff.
13. Your daily google search for your top keyword returns multiple sites that all say the same thing: want to find the secret info that google doesn’t even know about — CLICK HERE!
Fun list, Anita!
Twitter: SweetSue
September 25th, 2008 at 10:17 am
They are funny, but it should be paired with a serious article on the subject.
Anytime soon?
September 25th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Please accept my apologies for my overzealous, minimalist phrase that lacked context and should have been - I love Anita’s writing!
Of the dozens of articles that I read daily, few are written with flavor or color. Anita invests tremendous time, energy, and personality to make Small Business Trends more than just another resource.
By the way, my wife of 25-years does not allow me to love anyway else and I obey this rule faithfully.
September 25th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Gary, thanks for the clarification!!!
And I really appreciate your kind words — it’s good to have people like you who appreciate this community and help make it what it is.
Anita
September 26th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Funny but mean!
September 26th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Hi Luz,
Oh, I didn’t mean it to be mean spirited! Not at all.
On the contrary, I personally identify with the feeling that at some point we all hit stumbling blocks no matter how hard we try.
Believe me, I’ve had lots of trials and tribulations over the years on my own Web efforts. For instance, #2 actually happened to me several years ago.
Everybody hits a wall at one point or another — I’ve hit many. If we don’t laugh about it, we’d have to cry.
Anita
September 26th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Number 9… Number 9… believe it or not but it happens. Eventually had to buy the type-o domain and use it as the marketing domain hours before launch of the website! Believe it or not!
September 26th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Thats an excellent article! Nicely done!
September 26th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
#12- You find yourself posting on business blogs to get more high quality link ins…in other words online marketing is like any marketing endeavor, it takes effort and persistence.
All joking aside, why must a website grow exponentially? Mine has held steady at basically the same traffic level (400 a day), making me a nice living for over 4 years.
September 26th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Very funny. How do I befriend the kangaroo?
September 26th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Great top ten!
One more…
You send out a great e-mail campaign to every client, with all the bells whistles. You know it will be a knock out! You check your stats later, and no one opened it.
Great…..
September 27th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Hi Robert,
Ken Garoux the inflatable kangaroo’s Facebook profile page is: http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1532161949
You have to be signed in to Facebook to see it.
He’s a real party animal.
Anita
September 28th, 2008 at 9:22 am
haha, very good but im not sure if you should be ranked higher or lower for miserable failure…
is it better to be the best of the worst or the worst of the best… if that made sense
maybe ranked #2 out of 2 possible results….
nice!
September 28th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
some good once anita, as far as youtube videos are concerned, I always disable rating of my promotional videos
September 28th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Hi Pushkar, thanks for pointing out that you can disable ratings of YouTube videos. That’s helpful to know. Anita
September 28th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Hi Anita,I just replied to your comment about squidoo in my blog here
I need to do some catching with SBT I guess, I am subscibed to it since ages, but just lost touch of it
Pushkar
October 1st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
That image of the kangaroo was hilarious enough.
Great list. Some are just hilarious. Others are like.. yikes.. i wonder how people have gone through that before!
October 18th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Good stuff, I love the item with the only friend on Facebook being an infklatable kangaroo. While this is meant to be funny (and is), you brought up some great examples I have seem multiple times over the years, many of which are simply the result of apathy.