Applying The Immutable Laws of Marketing in SEO, part 2

Marketing and SEO go hand in hand – SEO is simply a new tool to achieve the same position that you used to have to get by taking out ads in the Yellow Pages, and by creating crazy jingles for radio and TV . Today we are continuing our partial  look at the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (as defined by Al Ries and Jack Trout), as they apply to your internet marketing activities. Check out our web-based analysis of the first four laws as a starter, if you like.

Owning a Word

Laws 5 and 6, which state respectively that “The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind”, and “Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind”. These realte to the entire discipline of SEO … only you have to own a word in Google’s mind, but not necessarily in your prospects. Nice parallel … but we did know that anyway!

Strategy Determination

Ries and Trout observe in the seventh law that the strategy you should use depends on what rung you occupy on the ladder. The ladder is generally understood to mean the hierarchy of products within a category that exist in a consumer’s mind … and the main difference is what you do when you are number one, versus number 2, 3, 4 or lower. This gets a little complicated when you start thinking about details though – a web marketing firm will be an essential partner for implementing this one!

Follow the leader?

The ninth law comes next in our partial review of Ries and Trout’s genius – and it states that if you are shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader. That is, if you are competing with a very strong brand in your category, and can realistically expect to get to the number 2 spot on the strength of your company and product … you should do the opposite of what the #1 company does. People want an alternative, not an imitator … and there are plenty of ways to give yourself that label through your web marketing activities.