Dumping Your Web Marketing Can Offer Benefits

Oct 31, 2004
by

Zane Safrit, CEO of Conference Calls Unlimited struggled with pay-per-click fraud and other lead-generation efforts via the Web. That is, until he decided to stop all marketing and lead gen efforts via the Web. Suicidal? Hardly.

As Anne Holland, of MarketingSherpa, recently discovered in an interview with Safrit, it catapulted the company to new heights. How did he do it? That’s right, Brian Clark fans, via a big “word of mouth” push among his loyal customers.


I make this entry on the heels of Wayne Porter’s recent entry (now turned discussion) wherein a group of pros are discussing the age old practice of “loyalizing” customers. What is most striking about MarketingSherpa’s case study is the complete abandonment of all things Internet… and a shift to complete reliance on “old world” strategies (using customer testimonials to sell from, “high touch” / personalized grass roots “good will generation” tactics, driving people to the phone rather than a static Web site).

The results? “Based on paid accounts and paid minutes of use, we’ve grown by over 40% this year!” Safrit says. What’s more, after nine months the site now has three times more monthly visitors than it did when the company relied on outside Web ads.

Read about it for free until November 5.

About Jeff Molander

Jeff Molander is the authority on making social media sell and corporate trainer to small businesses and global corporations like IBM and Brazil’s energy company, Petrobras. He’s an accomplished entrepreneur, having co-founded what is today the Google Affiliate Network. He’s adjunct digital marketing professor at Loyola University’s school of business and author of Off the Hook Marketing: How to Make Social Media Sell for You.

Website: JeffMolander.com

Blog: Off the Hook Blog

Answers: AskJeffMolander.com

You can find Jeff on Twitter @jeffreymolander.

Filed under: Online Marketing + Search Engine Marketing
  • http://www.magnoliatexas.com Jon Sterling

    I agree – One of the best marketing techniques we have is to print business cards with only our web site name with a photographic background ( A magnolia of course) and we get more direct hits now after distributing them in local resturants and local business functions / seminars.

    Thanks,

    John.