Even if you were too young to see it, you’ve probably heard the famous line from Field of Dreams “If you build it, they will come”. Basically it’s a movie about Kevin Costner building a baseball field on his farm so that ghosts of a baseball team can come play. Yes, that’s a terrible one sentence synopsis of the movie (which isn’t a horror flick by the way), but it doesn’t matter. What does is the phrase and mentality that “If you build it, they will come”. All to often companies take the approach of “If I have a website, people are going to find it.” But unless you’re a well known brand like Apple or Nike, that just isn’t going to happen.

I met with the owner of a local rock climbing gym last month. It’s a family owned business, and has been relatively successful over the years thanks to the power of word of mouth advertising. But when the economy tanked, their revenue line started to trend downward. We met to talk about how Internet Marketing can reverse that downward trend. So I asked, “What kind of advertising do you currently do?”
“Oh, we don’t have an advertising budget…” I was told. I may have looked somewhat stunned, as he quickly followed up with “But we do put fliers in peoples mailboxes”.

Here is what went through my head, and which we spoke about. First, there was no tracking implemented to determine if the campaign was a success. No phone number set up specifically for the campaign, no “Promo Code”,  not even the simple question “How did you find out about us” when employees answered the phone.  Second, the mailer had no clear goal. Was it to push website traffic? Boost calls? Increase “stop ins”? No clear answer provided. And third, the target audience wasn’t defined. Parents looking for a place to host their kids birthday party think a lot different from a teenager looking to learn how to rock climb.

The rock climbing business does have a website, but it also suffers the same problems as their flier campaign; no tracking, no call to action, unclear of target audience. Further, the website has no clear purpose. It exists as a kind of online brochure. Basically, it was a If you build it they will come situation. But who is coming?

I set up Google Analytics to find out. The majority of traffic coming to the website is either from people typing the domain into their URL bar, or by typing the business name into Google. That’s like wanting to buy an iPod and going direct to Apple’s website, or typing Apple into Google. It’s fine for Apple because they have a prominent brand, everyone knows they sell iPods. But do you know the name of a rock climbing gym in NJ? Unfortunately for this business, a Google search isn’t showing them in the results page. Even if visitors are looking for the service the gym provides, they won’t find them. So the website may be built, but “they can’t come.”

So if you do have a website and aren’t doing any search engine marketing, just remember Field of Dreams. Just because you built it, it doesn’t mean they (your potential customers) can come. Know where they are going? Your competitor.