Dear CEO:

I want to thank you for the opportunity to reach out to you today, I know that you are busy…..so I will try and keep this brief.

Your web presence is poor, non-existent, incognito, losing you money and quite honestly….sucks! It lacks the true meaning behind having a website and that is to increase your profits, yes that is correct….increase your profits! Now you are asking how do I know this?? Well, it is quite simple…..your potential buyers (prospects) cannot find you, which means you do not exist in their eyes, which means they will never have the opportunity to buy from you, which means you are losing money.  Feel free to continue to spend your hundreds of thousands of dollars on trade shows, trade journals, print advertising, TV commercials, Radio Spots, direct mail and the many other traditional forms of marketing available. Meanwhile, realize that 90% of all buying research and decisions takes place through the internet.

I know what you are saying, we are doing SEO, SEM, Social Media and some other forms of Internet Marketing Services and I have to stand right up and tell you…..you are not! You might be dabbling in it, playing around with it, testing things, increasing traffic and perhaps feel that your outsource firm or internal efforts are maximizing your potential, when the truth is due to their uneducated, lack of knowledge….you are losing money. Your Internet Marketing campaign must be conversion and profit focused and most external and internal teams do not have the experience or knowledge to make that happen……so you keep losing money.

You see I have been through this with your marketing department, sales manager, IT department and various other executives within your company and they seem to have this fear that you will deny this need even though it is a MUST HAVE. I have strongly demanded that I cannot believe you would take this approach since this is such a missing link to your overall marketing strategy and one that cannot be ignored any longer. Perhaps, you should re-engage your marketing department and various other execs showing them your support of such an initiative.

See my job is to take your online presence to a whole new level that you cannot even comprehend and I know that sometimes there is not even a budget established. Not having a budget is truly not a good enough reason to lose an enormous amount of potential income especially for a strategy that is so precisely trackable. Go find out how many people viewed that TV Commercial you ran or saw the full page magazine ad you placed in that trade journal…..not gonna happen, is it?

Well I have taken up enough of your time today and I will follow this letter up with repeated phone calls and contact points until you see the error of your ways and want to start making a difference and increase your companies profits. After all, you would not want me to start reaching out to the owner and/or board of directors…now would you?

Make it a great day!

Sincerely,

Your Best Shot At Internet Immortality

We e-mail. We search. We blog, txt, & tweet.

For the first time, a person running for the most powerful position on earth did, too. Now that the race to the White House is complete, what happens to Barack Obama’s immense social media presence?

Most of those who follow @barackobama know that the information provided by his Twitter account was never earth shattering. There was never a tweet about how bad he needed some Starbucks or rants about how frustrating it is that his internet connection is slow.

That said, will the new President-elect continue to use the power of social media in his new role? His Twitter account continues to grow today at about 3 followers per minute.

I’m not the only person wondering this. Here’s a random sample of tweets from Twitter Search this AM.

DavidStewart: Do you think Obama will stay on Twitter as President?
erika_strange: @czdebel I think obama will be too busy when he’s president to update his twitter account.
Thracks: @czdebel I think that it would betray Obama’s message to let the twitter stream die.
bakapetro: Will Obama use twitter after inauguration? It would be cool, but, personally, I doubt it
topslakr: Since Obama was elected he has not posted to twitter. Does that mean he is done using it? I think a lot of people are hoping he stays active
minda31180: So now that he’s been elected president, is Barack Obama going to continue updating his twitter?

Here’s the deal. Most of his social profiles will only require a job status update and address change come January. His Twitter account really only receives one or two updates per day, telling you where he is and what’s he talking about. Does that sound like such a difficult project to maintain?

Most Twitter users already space their tweets with other daily tasks. Millions of the people who voted for him developed their trust and support because of his use of social media. Much like Thracks and topslakr above, I think something should be done to keep his use of social media presence alive. His campaign was never 100% transparent with the use of social media to begin with, although the way his campaign used the internet was extraordinary.

So… I ask…

117,000+ Twitterers want to know… and will be following.

For some more reading on Obama and social media, Jon Burg posted a thought-provoking post on the same topic – “Where Vision Meets Reality.”

Today. Is. Election Day. Because no one has told you yet… get out there and VOTE!

Now that I have encouraged you to stand in line at the polls, I guess I too need to step away from my desk and do my civic duty. Before I logout for the day and go stand in line with countless others getting their vote on, I thought it’d be nice to recap how the candidates used internet marketing in their campaigns.

I wasn’t THE first person to blog about this, but I did write a post here on the ProspectMX blog in September discussing 2008 Election Internet Marketing. If you’re into reading about election marketing, you might like to check it out.

Here’s some more reading on internet marketing and the election. Oh… and don’t try to decipher my vote by reading these posts. By no means should the links below be taken as an indicator of who I’m voting for. Thanks.

Now… onto the Link Love!

• Election Day Paid Search Comparison (Direct Online Marketing)
• Swing State Comparison for McCain and Obama (Hitwise)
• Obama McCain SEO – My 2008 Election Prediction (Portent Interactive)
• Obama McCain Keyphrases Used On Search Engines (Planet Chiropractic)
• Why Obama Kills It Online, McCain Not So Much (Stephen Espinosa)