The Myth of “Set it and Forget it” Marketing.

We are in the business of automating everything that’s possible to automate, and making your marketing as easy as possible. Unfortunately, Ron Popeil’s popular late-night commercials may have been true for kitchen appliances, but it’s just not that easy for the marketing processes vital to your business.

Ron Popeil made the phrase “set it and forget it” famous in his late-night infomercials. It’s become such a part of the culture that many people think it applies to building relationships other key business functions!

Our task is to manage, and monitor change with an eye on cost, ROI, etc.

As an example, the ABCI business model has morphed from hosting websites on our own servers (we were an ISP) to three successive commercial service providers, and we are considering a fourth.

Technology keeps improving (Moore’s Law still works!) We must balance additional capabilities with the additional cost – not just money but manpower, education and experience as well.

Moore’s law is the observation that, over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. The law is named after Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Intel Corporation, who described the trend in his 1965 paper.

It’s since been extrapolated that technology doubles every two years. We believe it! And it seems to be picking up speed. But that is all just “back office” stuff. . .

Technology changes just as rapidly (if not more so) for the marketing side of business as well. Take a look at all of the new software for developing or creating brilliant pictures, interactive websites, etc.

Your Facebook page, LinkedIn page, Twitter account and your website all need a “facelift” frequently and regularly as the technology changes – after all this is the “face” of your business!

All these faces of your business grow to have a “stale look” as the new technology becomes available and some of the more progressive business update their sites.

In fact, since your website or LinkedIn profile might be the first thing a prospect sees, he or she will inevitably make some judgements about whether your business is “up to speed” – he may assume that if your website hasn’t been changed in three years, that your airplanes are old, your accounting systems neglected, and your customer service slipshod.

Fair? Of course not!

But people are busy and we use the first information we come across to make decisions quickly.

Selecting a new “fresh” look for your business is not a trivial task. There are so many choices available! And with the new technologies, new education is required for IT personnel, and in some rare cases additional hardware may be required.

ABCI leads the way for our clients – we try technology on our own accounts before we suggest our clients to follow. There are several reasons for this approach.

We get to see first hand if we like the “look and feel”; we learn first hand about the “gotchas” and how security, bandwidth and ease of use is affected – we get first hand education (we discuss various issues with the developers of the new software, etc.) and experience before we involve our clients websites, LinkedIn and other accounts.

So, by the time we suggest that our clients make changes to their various sites, we have already been there and done that – and can provide estimates of time, materials and money involved before we start!

And in most cases, we can provide a “sandbox” version for them to preview before the opt to proceed.

Rule #1- Do no harm!

Our philosophy is that upgrading your site should be as easy as possible for you. We will need your input, and fresh information.

But the process of re-vamping your website, your social media presences, your sales presentations and your printed materials should not be disruptive or extraordinarily expensive. It’s just a set of yearly, quarterly, monthly and even weekly tasks that keep things up to speed, take advantage of changes in technology and the market, and keep you top-of-mind with busy customers.