Here's your NoSpin Debunker for April 21,
2003 Marketing a Good
Website Marketing the ZHealth Publishing
Website Last debunker we talked
about ZHealth Publishing's website. ZHealth has an excellent homepage,
and the rest of the new website site is strong as well. Besides good
overall content, it's got unique, compelling information via its
ZHealth Online Reference Library, a
couple ways to capture email addresses of possible prospects, and
new reference materials that can be purchased online.
If you don't have a good website like ZHealth, you're already fighting a
steep uphill battle. But a good site and a buck-fifty will get you a
small (aka "tall") cup of coffee at Starbuck's and that's about it.
Websites are tools, only, and do not work well in a vacuum. Yes,
theoretically anyone on the planet with a PC and Internet connection
can find a good website 24/7, but unless your site is proactively
and regularly marketed, it will generate only a pittance of the
results that it should. And you will be continually
disappointed. So what should ZHealth Publishing do to market its
young website? Let's assume that like most young companies, they
don't have a huge amount of marketing dollars available. What can
ZHealth do to market its e-commerce web site with a reasonable
investment of dollars? Here are a few suggestions: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) The next couple Debunkers are going to get back to
search engine optimization approaches in more detail, but we'll jump
ahead here. Unlike 90%+ of businesses, the ZHealth Publishing site is making
effective use of key word title tags and key words in included in
content on its homepage and other pages. That's a good start, but
search engines are not aware of every new site when it goes up.
Search engine submissions. To facilitate search
engines beginning the process to find and place www.zhealthpublishing.com, ZHealth can submit their site to at
least the top engines for automatic initial listing. Highly
recommended are the "free" Open Directory Project as well as paid
submissions to Yahoo (Express) Directory, Looksmart, Inktomi, FAST, Ask Jeeves, and BCentral, etc. Costs vary and in
some cases depend on the number of urls submitted. Pay-per-click. It is evident that ZHealth Publishing is already using
Overture and Google Adwords "pay-per-click" to
get highly placed "sponsored" rankings. For many businesses,
pay-per-click is an excellent, quick way to get Top 3 sponsored
listings and quality traffic for selected key words. More on
pay-per-click SEO in a subsequent Debunker.
Links on other sites. Also, ZHealth can't get its link on enough
other sites, and in particular sites related to medical coding books
and services. These links can obviously bring more traffic, but also
they would also help in search engine placement, especially with
Google (that basically "finds" sites via links with other sites and
bases a good part of its non-sponsored rankings on "link
popularity"). ZHealth can "trade" links with other
sites and put those links on the ZHealth site. This takes some time
and effort, but over time is well worth the investment.
Distribution Agreements with Other E-Commerce
Vendors A next step might be to develop
affiliation/distribution arrangements with other e-commerce vendors
that also offer medical coding publications online. That is,
agreements with established e-commerce vendors that already sell
medical content: from Amazon, to specialty medical content vendors,
to associations and organizations related to radiology and
cardiology and medical coding. Such e-commerce sites are going to
take a cut of the action (and some may make more financial sense
than others)--but could provide not only significant additional
opportunities for medical coders, billers, and clinicians to find
out about (and purchase) ZHealth publications-but also
additional credibility for the new company's books and references.
Email Marketing ZHealth has provided
its consulting and training services to a large number of hospitals,
nationally. Hopefully, the company is capturing multiple email
contact addresses at each of its clients in a contact database of
some sort. These companies will be THE best initial market for
selling ZHealth publications. But it's
likely that ZHealth is NOT top of mind, even
with these folks. Former customers need to be reminded, regularly,
by email (at least biweekly or monthly) of the ZHealth Publishing web site, unique
"free content, and new books as they become available. ZHealth may decide to
provide "coupon" (time limited discount offers) to that group and
others who are signing up for its ZHealth Online "newsletter."
Hopefully ZHealth is taking advantage of these
"new" names and following through with its biweekly newsletter
mailing. ZHealth has good content on it site
that it can use to email to clients, initially; it's National Library provide data
excerpts and an Ask Dr. Z Question & Answer
capability that can be used in emails to clients and
others. ZHealth might also look into to purchasing highly
targeted opt in email list specific to its target its medical coding
audiences. Print Marketing Print is NEVER going away-and can help ZHealth market itself and its
website. Every time a ZHealth staff meet with its services
clients and prospects, minimally, they needs to leave business cards
(with a prominent www.zhealthpublishing.com). Another
low-cost print piece might be a "post card" that prominently
displays its www.zhealthpublishing.com homepage
and url. Down the road, targeted direct mail reminders to its
growing contact list could supplement its email and other marketing
efforts. Also, it might not be a bad idea to provide a rolodex card
(with url), a bookmark, or other inexpensive print piece to
accompany the books and references that it ships. In fact,
everything that ZHealth puts in print-from training
materials to presentations to the content that it sells--needs to
prominently emphasize the www.zhealthpublishing.com
url. Public Relations As a new company, ZHealth Publishing can definitely
generate initial visibility-and business-by making itself known to
the press in Nashville, TN where the new company is based as well as
medical press virtually anywhere else. ZHealth can send out brief releases
talking about the new company and then others about its publications
as they become available and hopefully generate few stories as a
result. ZHealth can also write more articles
for medical coding and related journals as it has done for The Healthcare Biller. This takes
some time and effort, but can definitely help promote the new
company and its e-commerce site. Market your Website-or Watch it Wither
Away The marketing recommendations above are just a few of
the basics that ZHealth Publishing other companies
can use to put their good websites to work-and make the "earn their
keep." Effective websites need to continually evolve, add fresh
content, and (for e-commerce sites) new products/services (and
offers) to be successful over time. But left by themselves-without
reasonable, well-coordinated ongoing marketing efforts--they will
quickly wither away. Please take the new 5-second NoSpin Poll--Where do you get your online business
news? Next time I will continue my Debunker series on
Search Engine Optimization and offer more specifics about bringing
quality traffic to your website. Tom Ranseen, Principal
615.383.7157 |