When I was a young musician, my teacher insisted that I read “The Inner Game of Tennis.” I was skeptical at first, but in the end, it was far easier to digest and relate the game of tennis to my musical life than the contents of any musician’s manual.

The following post is a dead giveaway of the amount of time I spend in the kitchen. However, just as with tennis and music, there is an easy correlation between cooking a delicious meal and executing a successful online marketing effort.

Below, I’ve outlined five elements through which I attempt to break down our process in a way completely unrelated to technology or business. Why? Well, delicious food has a far more comfortable connotation for most people than computers, no? And for good reason!

When you begin cooking, or even cooking in a new style, it’s hard to know where to start. Even with a list of ingredients, without some instruction, it’s nearly impossible to know how to prepare or combine them or the order in which to use them. With some cuisine, it’s even difficult to know where to find them at all! The same goes for marketing your business. You may have heard of all of the ingredients (research, keywords, meta data, link building, optimized press releases, social media, etc.) But what does it all mean?

1. Use a recipe. Dinkum has a “recipe” that is just right for your company. We have a library of tools that we know like the back of our hand, including when and how to use them. Part of our process includes getting to know you and your business, what you do, and what your goals are. Once we understand this, we devise a strategy.
2. Quality of ingredients. We never take a cheap, easy, or underhanded approach. This would not be good for anyone! Just as it takes great care and attention (and perhaps a little extra expense) to grow delicious organic food, the long-term benefits can be huge for both consumers and the environment. Will your site jump to number one on Google in a week? Nope. But will we meet each of the important goals that have been outlined by building and following a solid long-term strategy? Absolutely.
3. Importance of prep work. It’s a team effort! You know your business best. In order for us to do our job well, your contributions to help us gain a complete picture are invaluable. Take care with your intake form and engage with the research we come back with. It can be difficult to carve out time, but these pieces lay the foundation. Have you ever tried to cook without doing any prep work? I have. It’s a frantic mess that takes longer than it should, and the food rarely tastes as good! You get the picture.
4. A little love goes a long way. Just as thinking creatively about a meal and preparing it with love can make all the difference in its quality, once a strategy is in place for your site, implementation and follow through are what makes it all come together. Can’t get us that press release? Need help with some blog posts? We understand, and we’re happy to help. Progress depends on action, so even if the only action that can be accomplished is communicating what you need, take the love you have for what you do and make it happen.
5. Enjoying the fruits of your success. Increased traffic, sales and brand recognition are only some of the benefits you’ll realize by utilizing the SEO and SEM services of Dinkum Interactive. Over time, as your initial goals are met, we will continue to come back, revise, strategize and set new goals. In other words: Enjoy your meal, take what you’ve learned, and let’s keep cooking!

I would be remiss if I didn’t add one more thought to this post: Dinkum Interactive isn’t a supermarket or even a farmer’s market where you pick and choose ingredients (a bit of SEO, a dash of social media).  While many companies offer just that service, we’re more like a fine restaurant or (better yet) a team of personal chefs!  We see the best results when you leverage the expertise of our awesome team to help you evaluate your goals, choose a recipe, gather the ingredients, cook the meal, and judge the results along the way. You never know – a dash of salt or a shake of the pepper mill might be all that is keeping you from that perfect meal.

Photo Credit:  http://www.sxc.hu/photo/781602