Who is Cache and what can he do for you? Cache is a digital construct created to inform, enlighten, and entertain Web-marketers interested in learning how best to market on the Web.
Now don’t be alarmed, Cache isn’t interested in selling you anything – no e-books, no DVDs, no magic elixirs or potions, no sir – just a pixilated-paranoid, pied-piper of ideas and concepts designed to improve your Web-business.
The Cache-man has put a little something together he modestly calls, ‘Cache’s Web-Marketing Manifesto:’ ten things every marketing manager, business owner, and sales executive needs to know about business websites.
Cache’s Web-Marketing Manifesto
1. If it isn’t working, stop tweaking and blow it up
If what you’re doing isn’t working, or if it’s working about as well as a 1973 Yugo, then it’s time to start over. You can only make so many modifications and adjustments until your site gets a bad case of digital disconnect: a cyber version of Capgras Delusion where the brain can’t connect the content to the emotional context.
2. If you’re relevant, search engines will find you, it’s their job
Isn’t it time you stopped chasing the imaginary pot of gold at the end of the Google rainbow, and start thinking of practical ways to connect to your audience.
Search engines are supposed to find you, it’s their job, it’s what they do, what they get paid for. All this stuff about you can’t do this or you can’t do that because it’s not search engine friendly is so yesterday.
If you have something to say worth listening to whether it’s text, audio, or video, search engines will find you. And if they’re not, perhaps you should take a look at what you are saying and how it’s being said.
3. Being relevant means you actually have something to say, something to contribute
Meaningful content doesn’t mean a catalog of merchandise that’s the same as the six million other guys selling the same stuff. If all you’re offering is an online catalog and order system, all you’ve done is turn whatever you sell into a commodity and commodity sales go to the lowest seller. Say goodbye to Mr. Profits.
4. Retaining your audience long enough to get your marketing message depends on how you present your content
Having something relevant to say will attract an audience, but in order to keep that audience around long enough to absorb your core, marketing message you must present that message in an entertaining performance that creates an experience.
The Web has matured and evolved over time into a multimedia platform that allows you to really connect to your audience by turning your website into an experience. Just because you’re selling something, a product, a service or even an idea, doesn’t mean you can’t present it in some memorable manner.
If your presentation doesn’t get your audience’s juices flowing then you’ve wasted your Web-investment and your audience’s time.
5. Without creating an experience your message will never be memorable
You’ve been careful creating your website content, but ask yourself this? Why would anyone remember any of it? And if they do remember it, why would they remember that it was your company that said it? Just because you’re good at what you do, or you sell the best product in your field, doesn’t mean you’re going to get the business.
Memory is based on pattern recognition, association and emotional triggers. If your content and presentation is without context, without some memory inducing experience, then my friend you’ll be instantly forgotten. The companies that get the sales are the companies that turn their presentations into an experience.
6. Creating an experience starts with engaging the audience and the best way to do that is with a signature Web-host that presents your story
The easiest way to create a memorable experience on your website is to use a website host, a personality that will deliver the content and context of what you offer in a way that penetrates and sticks in the minds of your audience.
7. Treat the presentation of your website material as if it was a performance, not a meeting with your banker or board of directors
A signature Web-host brands your company by creating a memorable image through the use of verbal and non-verbal performance techniques, clever scripting, and digital presentation enhancements, including music, sound effects, editing, and style.
8. Don’t be afraid to push the limits
The Web is not a place for the timid. You’re no longer competing just in your local market; you’re competing with the world, where the Web, email, Internet phone service, and international shipping make buying from England or Australia, as easy as buying from the USA or Canada.
No matter what you do or how good you do it, there are other companies around the world that do the same thing, and chances are they do it as well or better than you. So who’s going to get the business: the company that presents their message in the most compelling manner, that’s who.
9. Narrow your focus by turning your brand into a single adjective or short phrase
The single word “Plastics” from the 1967 movie, ‘The Graduate’ was voted the 42nd most memorable movie quote of the last 100 years by the American Film Institute.
The biggest challenge most companies have in being understood is their ability to narrow their offering down to a precise concept, idea, or adjective. Can you say what you do in six words or less? How about a single adjective or noun?
10. You cannot be something you’re not
Customers are not stupid; they’ll see through any phony presentation or prevarication. You cannot getaway with misrepresenting what you are, or what you do. Eventually you will be found-out or more likely, people will instantly see-through your efforts to present a false image.
If your marketing problem lies deep within your corporate culture, no matter how clever your advertising or marketing campaign, nothing will overcome it. You will have to change your corporate culture before you attempt to deliver a message that redefines you and what you do. You must be true to yourself and to your company’s culture.
Cache Closed
Cache was summoned from the misused and discarded concepts found in the ditch beside the information highway. His mission is to demonstrate and enlighten Web-entrepreneurs on how to deliver meaningful content in entertaining, informative and even viral presentations. His bizarre behavior and style may not be suitable for the stuffed-shirt purveyors of yesterday’s methods, but he does speak to today’s open-minded Web-savvy marketing manager. For all things Cache, visit his website CacheClosed.com.