Saving a Life: A True Story

To the left is a picture of Gypsy, my Chihuahua puppy. Before I bought her, she belonged to a friend who lives in an older house. The kind with wood floors, windows that aren’t quite plumb, and a large yard.

In the middle of the night, when Gypsy was 9 weeks old, she gave out a tremendous yelp that woke my friend and her boyfriend from a sound sleep. Gypsy was howling with pain, and they looked everywhere for the cause.

They found a fair-sized scorpion nearby. Gypsy had been bitten by the scorpion. My friends watched her carefully, and Gypsy started showing signs of distress. Her breathing became more rapid, and hoarse. She started coughing.

My friends were frantic, because there are no vets available at night, within an hour drive, of the rural area we live in. And they weren’t sure Gypsy had that long.

My friend went online and frantically typed in what to do for a scorpion bite in a puppy. And discovered that Benadryl could help with the allergic reaction Gypsy was showing (by now, she was wheezing and vomiting a little). She went to another friend’s, got some liquid Benadryl, and gave Gypsy the recommended dose.

She had texted us all, and we all waited apprehensively to find out whether Gypsy made it through the night.
She did, and is healthy and growing, as you can tell by this photo.

The interesting thing, when I look back, is that my friend didn’t pick up the phone to call for information. It was 3 a.m., and she figured no one would be awake. She went online to learn the information that would help her possibly save a puppy’s life.

And it was there. And forever embedded in her mind is gratitude to the site that provided this information, when she needed it most.

There are lessons to be learned from this.

People do go online to seek information to solve a problem – often an immediate one.

They remember where the information they found is most reliable – and will tell others. My friend told everyone the next day how Gypsy got saved, and where the information was.

If you provide healthcare information, this information needs to be accurate and up-to-date, since people will use itt

If your information helps them, people will be grateful, and become loyal customers of your site and brand.

This goes far beyond “marketing” into offering a “service” online. And this is what differentiates a trusted brand from simply another online marketer.

I just had four articles published on EzineArticles. They’re a series of 3 articles on the topic of “How to Market Your Small Business.”

In “How to Market Your Small Business: Part One,” I share some tips on web design and optimization for the small business.

In “How to Market Your Small Business Part 2: Email Marketing,” I discuss the “how to” of writing effective emails, garnered from my years of writing for email marketing firms.

In “How to Market Your Small Business Part 3: SEO Basics,” I discuss just that: some good foundations for organic search engine optimization.

If you are a small business owner, I hope these are helpful to you. You deserve the best possible chance to build your presence online!

Okay, I’ll admit it. I own the world’s cutest dog (this is a completely unbiased opinion, shored up by comments from neighbors and friends of “Oh, how cute!” when they first see her).

I’ve owned Gypsy for a month now. She’s a four month old teacup Chihuahua, and I’ve watched her learn to fit into the neighborhood – and learned some valuable lessons from this ball of energy.

First, Gypsy is small. And there are some very large dogs in our neighborhood. The good news -and the bad news – is that Gypsy doesn’t realize she’s….small.  Like most Chihuahuas, she thinks she’s much bigger than she actually is, and acts accordingly.

The first few days, she stayed in our yard (I live on a rural street), and listened to the other dogs when they barked. She only barked back (quite aggressively) when another dog came into our yard (yes, this is Texas, where the dogs aren’t all penned up).

And, much to my surprise (I was nearby, keeping a close eye on how things went), her bark scared the bigger dog off. She found her “inner bark,” much to her delight.

Gypsy then started seeking out other dogs. She didn’t sit in her yard, wondering why there weren’t any other dogs playing with her. She went out and started sniffing around, and if she saw or heard another dog, she introduced herself by barking and wagging her tail, and sniffing each other’s…(she is a very “social” dog).

And they either responded positively, by wagging their tails back and crouching down into a play position, or negatively, by growling. The growls were only if the dog (usually a bigger dog!) felt threatened by this small “newcomer.” (You can draw your own parallels in the world of online marketing).

Most dogs were friendly, glad to meet the “new pup on the block.”

Gypsy listened to when the big dogs barked, and passed it along to other dogs on the street (the “bark chain from 101 Dalmatians really does exist!) Barks will start down one end of the lane, and are passed one by one until they reach the dogs at the end of our lane.  This is much like “tweets” where helpful information is passed along and shared.

Gypsy started leading the way, and helping other dogs. If there was an interesting piece of old horse hoof from our corral, she helped other dogs find it by going there, and pointing the way. She helped alert them to danger (or, interesting animals passing by) by starting to bark. Now, at times, she is the one who starts the bark chain going.

And the other dogs listen. It seems that Gypsy’s small size doesn’t matter to them.  What matters to them is that she just alerted them to a squirrel running along the telephone wire towards their yard, or about a new dog passing through the neighborhood.  She doesn’t just sit and bark all day, like the yapper down the road (the dogs and humans have learned to ignore him). When she barks, she means it.

It’s interesting what I’ve learned from this little pup, in just over a month.

Off topic: Just for fun, I thought I would share Gypsy’s favorite song: “Nala the Chihuahua” by the SqueeGees

The stats are coming in, and mobile is increasingly becoming THE platform to market on (along with Pinterest, but that’s for another blog).

For instance, I was gathering information for an article about the gaming industry for a client  the other day. And industry stats by eMarketer indicate that mobile gaming will be adopted by 33.2 percent of the population by the end of this year. So…a third of us will be gaming on our mobile phones.

Anyone who has sat in the same room with more than two people during workroom breaks recently knows this is true. Folks whip out their mobiles, and start playing games (a popular word puzzle is now the current favorite with folks I work with!)

Our society has become increasingly game-oriented, not only on mobile but social media sites (Facebook is working at generating more revenue from this trend, now that they’re public).

Consumers online now want entertainment, and constant connectivity, via laptop if we’re at home or work, and mobile phone if we’re out and about.

So, is the focus for inbound marketing destined to be to create a playable game, on a mobile website? Exchange contact information in return for game play?  Certainly, we need to look at creative ways to market to a generation that takes gaming technology wherever they go.

We’ve all seen it. Medical sites that read like a quote from Gray’s Anatomy (and I don’t mean the TV show, but the anatomical text), and technical websites that use tons of insider jargon.

It sounds good to a PhD clinical researcher or technical engineer….maybe. But even they might not enjoy reading the complex verbiage and pomposity of some sites.

We’ve seen the other extreme, too. A website for a professional firm that sounds as if a salesman is hitting the reader up, with lots of bold font, and plenty of subliminal message techniques to get you to »click now «- for this time limited offer!

So, how should you approach your audience, if you are in charge of communications for a medical firm, a clinical research firm that wants to educate the public, or a technical firm whose audience is businesses, and not engineers?

There’s a happy medium between “techno talk” and sales hype. It’s called, “write in a clear, warm, engaging and educational manner.” Your content should sound as if you are sitting with your target audience, whether a patient, a potential software buyer, or a firm interested in having you consult with them – and you are educating them on what you can do for them.

An “educational voice” that doesn’t speak down, and clearly explains terms, is the best method in these situations. You’re the teacher, and they’re the student – and you respect this student, who wants to learn about you.

Clarify any terms that they might not understand. Use simple, clear language.

And above all, please don’t be…boring. Have a bit of fun, or use a warm, personable style.

You might even enjoy reading your own site!

There’s only one problem. You spend your days taking care of patients, managing clinic activities, and keeping up with educational requirements, not to mention charting and financial management tasks.

So, how do you reach out and touch somebody…online…and let them know the exceptional service you provide? Especially with all of the changes in online marketing.

Do you Tweet, Like or Link to get the word out?

This is where you’ll want help from someone experienced with using online media to market effectively.

It isn’t just words on a website (even “optimized” ones) that will bring in calls or queries to your practice.

There ARE things you can do that help.

1. Make sure that your website has tags, metatags and alt image tags that reflect keywords that are local to your area. Don’t just put “dentist” or “dental practice” on your site. Instead, you’ll want to put, “dentist, San Francisco, California” if that’s your location. People tend to search locally for healthcare, so let the search engines know where you’re located.

2. Use alt image tags that are optimized.

3. Place content on your site that is patient-friendly and optimized as well. This is a good place for some patient education materials, because you’ll gain two benefits: if you do veneers, an educational article about veneer options will help optimize your site for that keyword. If a patient in your locale is searching for porcelain veneers, then your site will come up when they search. It also helps answer common questions they might have, and receiving information helps build initial trust.

4. Go social where your clients are. If your clients are mostly younger and tech-savvy, then LinkedIn is where they hang out. You can create a profile, and visit professional organizations that are excellent resources: and help establish your professionalism. If you want to reach families, then Facebook is an excellent place to put a business page, with clear directions to your office.

There are many other ways to market online; these are just a few initial thoughts.

The fact that unique, quality content is now more and more becoming a requirement.

That “thin” content is being penalized.

The problem, in my opinion, isn’t thin content. It’s….cruddy content. Content manufactured by individuals with no interest in a topic, no industry or background knowledge, simply to make search engines happy.

And that has never really succeeded, no matter what trips and tips get traded around.

The top experts in search engine optimization have always said: give your clients quality content and they will come.

Combine this with good optimization, and they will find you.

Offer a quality product, excellent customer service, and you’ll get plenty of business – and return customers.

The secret? Over deliver on expectations.

Create an online site and environment that YOU would want to visit.

And then see what happens.

But people are crafty, and they won’t stop trying to get around search engines. If Google says “you need quality content”, then by gosh, they will create whole directories of key-word driven articles, each one almost the same, with 350 words, just to catch one variation of a keyword.

Forget quality. Forget the fact that I, as a searcher, click on a site and then click away so fast that Chrome’s taskbar can barely count it as a “bounce.”

Panda guidelines are making it a little harder to just pop up lots of poorly written articles, or scrape someone else’s content.

But people are finding ways around it, too. For instance, instead of posting new content, they are being advised to “refresh” or repost it. To pay article spinners to create articles, and then send them through plagiarism checkers to make sure it won’t get penalized.

What ever happened to writing simply and directly to people? And then using keywords to explain exactly what that web page is about? I know that getting rankings is extremely competitive. But if a product is good, and it has good reviews, it will get found online.

This is why social networking is rated so highly with Panda and other search algorithms. This fact wasn’t meant to cause people to suddenly rush out and create blogs that are simply sales hype for their product. It was meant to measure which sites get talked about and linked to by other sites, because the content or video is interesting, it informs, it’s funny, or it’s a product people want and need – and trust.

There’s less and less of that out there, though. Not surprising when you look at the going rates for articles on some job boards.