I had an interesting conversation with a businessman recently. He knew I was involved in marketing and he had just invested in a new web site. He was especially proud of it and asked me to take a look at it. I agreed to do so, but before our conversation ended, he let me know that he believed he had unlocked the secret to online marketing and was in marketing nirvana. All he needed to do was post a story on his blog once a week, link it to three social media sites (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) and thousands of people would read what he posted, like what he had to say and come calling with cash in hand to purchase his services!

He reminded me of a joke my good friend John Smith told me once. He said an elderly farmer and his wife had lived in a rural area all of their lives and had never been in a big city. They had one son who had moved to Chicago and become quite successful, working in a high rise building in the city’s financial district. One day he convinced them they should come to Chicago to see where he worked and, to his surprise, they accepted. His father drove his old pickup truck to the front of the place where his son worked. They had never seen buildings so tall! The old farmer told his wife to wait in the truck while he went inside to track down their son. The old man entered the building, where he was greeted by a receptionist, who called the son and asked the man to wait in the chairs by the elevator. The farmer thanked the receptionist and took a seat by the bank of elevator doors. Now he had never seen an elevator in operation. He marveled at the number of people who stood in front of the doors, pushed a button, waited for them to slide open and then gathered inside before the doors shut again. Minutes later, a bell would ring and the doors would open, letting the group out of the small room. It went on and on. The old man caught sight of an elderly lady wearing a dark blue dress. She was alone and she too walked up to the elevator doors and pushed the button. The doors opened, she entered the room on the other side as the doors slid closed again. A minute later, the bell rang and the doors opened. Out stepped a very beautiful young woman wearing a blue dress.

At that very moment, the man’s son came up and greeted him, "Hello Pops! How was your trip? Can I do anything for you before we go see my office?”

"Forget about the office,” the old man exclaimed with wide eyes watching the young lady walk away, "go get your mother and put her behind that door!”

There is a misconception among many business people today that investing in new media will somehow put you in marketing bliss, where you meet all of your sales goals without even trying. Marketing doesn’t exactly work that way. It is true that online marketing strategies will help you reach masses of people, but it doesn’t guarantee that they will give you the time of day, let alone buy anything from you, just because you have invested in new technology. Marketing still is about putting your best foot forward, giving people a reason to buy from you, enticing them to give you a try and creating leads. This requires a sales effort to take the leads and follow up with them. If anything, online marketing will create more work for your sales staff, not less. And because everyone has a web site and access to social media, the circle of companies you are competing against has gotten much larger with online marketing and everyone’s opinion gets counted. Whether you like it or not, business sources like Google, who list your business on their "free” search engine site, will post and rate information about your business. So if you are hoping that your old customers will turn into new customers by browsing your new web site, take a dose of reality and listen to my advice.

Come up with a strategy for your marketing that includes these things:

•Decide what to post online (blogs, videos, social media posts, etc.) and forecast how it will impact your target market

• Figure out what your competition is doing and do something different than them, but make it much better than what they are doing

• From this, form a marketing plan of action.

Next, measure your success in penetrating your market. Are people responding to you? This is easy to do with social media and web site analytics. Is your message resonating with your market? This also includes going face-to-face with your customers. Ask them what they think. Ask them what they need. Refine your marketing based on this information.

You also need to decide how you will deal with disgruntled customers. Online marketing can fall apart if your customer service stinks. This should include getting in contact with your customers through your sales force. Listen to what is being said. This will tell you if you are being effective or not.