SmarttTeam authors e-marketing book

For immediate release Feb. 2, 2009

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Marketing a business on the Internet is not like it is in real life. That’s the message being sent by the ‘SmarttTeam,’ a pair of e-marketers at SmarttNet who recently published their first book on the topic, titled, ‘The 6 week online business makeover: SEO & Internet marketing for small businesses.’

“We wanted to show people that on the Internet, you have to do things that you normally wouldn’t do in real life,” explains Amy Cope, an e-marketer at SmarttNet and one of the co-authors of the book.

As an example, Cope mentions a section of the book that talks about search engine optimization (SEO), the art of getting a Web site to rank high on a search engine query. Part of that involves structuring a Web site so that people are not led to a store first, but rather later on in the sales process.

To quote the book, “customers [on the Internet] don’t want to be sold right away. Rather, they want to browse around, read some interesting and useful information and then buy a product that solves their problem.”

“It’s a common mistake that Web site owners make,” says Cope. “People on the Internet today are mainly looking for information, so it’s important that your site has lots of it, or otherwise you’re just a turn-off and people will click away from you.”

Other chapters in the book include “Market Research,” “Content Creation,” “Using Social Media,” “Online Advertising” and “Video Marketing.” Joyce, another e-marketer and co-author of the book notes that although Internet marketing is not like real-life marketing, there are some parallels.

“Take online advertising for example, those ads are mostly text-based, whereas in real life you would care about graphics a lot more,” she describes. “With social media, you can say that is like networking in real life, but on the Internet you reach people a different way because you have to get them to click away from the social site they’re on to come and visit you.”

The SmarttTeam used the six chapters of their book to form a six-week guide that would help business owners learn the ins and outs of e-marketing. However, they mention that the e-book alone, though comprehensive, is not enough.

“The problem is that e-marketing rules are always changing, and that’s why it’s important to have an e-marketer taking care of things, so you’re not making mistakes down the road,” explains Cope.

The SmarttTeam is offering the book for free in electronic format on their Web site at www.smartt.com/freeguide. The book is featured in an advertisement run in the How-to Book 2009, published by Business in Vancouver, along with an article adjacent to it on “How to avoid Internet marketing mistakes.”

For more information, or to arrange an interview with Amy Cope or Joyce, call 604 473 9700 or e-mail joyce@smartt.com