Piecing Together Your Online Marketing Puzzle

Piecing Together Your Online Marketing Puzzle

Reader Comments (30)

  1. You’d be amazed at how many site owners forget to start with the corners. Everyone is so focused on the next big thing they forget about the basics. A good base is necessary for success because it guides and supports everything else that you do.

  2. The absolute most important thing in this list is your UVP. Everything else is contingent upon it.

    If you can define this in a way that serves a need in the market, and you’re passionate/knowledgeable about, the rest is cake.

  3. I love this metaphor… at first, I wasn’t sure how you were going to pull it off, but you managed to do it.

    It’s interesting you used Toyota as an example of a company that stands for quality. About a year and a half ago, they had a bit of a rough time with their “sudden acceleration” problem, but they managed to get past it pretty well. I would be interested to see what customer surveys say about Toyota today compared to, say, four years ago. I would venture to bet that they still get high marks for quality, in spite of that little controversy a couple of years ago.

    • Yep, John – the post was a bit of a high-wire act there!
      I thought about the Toyota issue while writing. The thing is that Toyota still occupies the “quality” position in everyone’s mind. They’ve been able to reinforce that positioning for decades allowing them to weather periodic hiccups.

      Thanks for the comment!

  4. People won’t find their correct parts of lives until they try various ways πŸ™‚ Life is a puzzle. Marketing is also a puzzle. Solving it the right way or not, it depends on you and your skill

  5. This is an AWESOME analogy!

    It’s true that so too many entrepreneurs get so caught up in jumping on the ubiquitous bandwagons and forget about the fundamentals. Those are the ones who are focused on the short-term and probably make up a good chunk of those who fail within 5 years.

    After all, if you want a house to stand for decades, you’d better lay a damn solid foundation, right?

  6. Great article – neatly packaged. The structure could be applied – perfectly – to any proposition, off or on-line.
    Thanks for sharing!

  7. Just did some puzzles with my kids yesterday. Amazing now much better they did when I showed them the corner/color concept. I’d say this is your best CB Post.

    Design, Traffic, Conversion, Hosting β€” The four corner pieces of copyblogger

  8. Love this article! The whole metaphor is made so much more vivid by the fact that we do puzzles in our office ALL THE TIME. SO much of this marketing world is like that puzzle. Thanks for the great insight, Stan!

  9. Starting strong by piecing together the foundation is so important! I’ve been able to piece my puzzle together successfully by using marketing automation software (Office Autopilot). Especially with corners 2 and 4, the software has been a game-changer for my own small business. Before, I would never have been able to nurture my leads and customers so efficiently while continuing to innovate my product, there just aren’t enough hours in the day! I highly recommend getting a good software to help you put the pieces together the right way.

  10. I love the missing piece analogy! All marketers should test their headlines, their keywords, their social media updates, everything. If you are not testing, you have no way of knowing what worked and what flopped.

  11. I put together puzzles with my “nana” (yes, I called her that too) over 45 years ago and this brought back great memories. It’s funny – I never would have imagined that this simple activity taught me how to create order out of chaos in so many areas of my life. I’ll need to thank her when I see her in heaven.

  12. I love this analogy! This is how my mom taught me how to do puzzle. She always told me to start with the corners and work my way into the puzzle. I never thought about using it to build my online marketing platform.

    I agree that successful business owners LOVE their customers and learn about them. Furthermore, the “empty chair” technique is brilliant. It serves as a great reminder that “the customer” is important and a company and its employees are to serve them. Since I’m a freelance writer and work from home, I’ll visualize “my customers” on my computer screen because I use email and Skype to communicate with them, and they find me by visiting my website. Thanks for the great idea!

  13. Thank you, Stan. What I love about your apporach is that you present it to us as a game – child’s play even. This immediately gets me into the mindset that writing this plan will be fun – something to be enjoyed. Yes, their will be challenges, as in any good game, but ultimately, if I pay attention to the rules of the game and put all the pieces in place, I will be rewarded with a wonderful picture.

    Best to you,
    Robin
    @robindickinson
    Cheeky toonist and hard-nut business facilitator πŸ˜‰

  14. I love the way you have put this together. I love jigsaw puzzles so I can immediately relate to your metaphor. Thanks for the tips.

  15. Certainly its been great way of giving tips that how business owners can make up their business plans and execute them to their beneficial way.

    Learned new aspects from your article and its been worth reading the post, thanks for sharing πŸ™‚

  16. Hey Stan,

    I love the jigsaw analogy – plus we just had visitors to our little cottage in the countryside and recently completed a 1000 piece jigsaw after too much rain on our walk made us seek shelter, a warm fire and something to do inside with some nice cups of tea. Perfect. Then this evening I just caught up with a few emails and read your article… even more perfect. Great stuff, thanks for sharing!!

    Alan

  17. This is good guidance to devise your own unique path to developing your website marketing plan. Use your own unique strengths and client successes to build an online marketing plan that works best for your business.

  18. Thank you for this insightful post. I believe putting the “corners” in place is what makes our efforts a”business” and not a “hobby”. I think it is also worth noting that when it comes to Internet Marketing and all the complexities it involves it can seem like a jumbled up puzzle with pieces all over the floor until we start putting it all together see it evolve “one piece at a time.” In other words it takes patience and persistence.

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