Much like real-life, factors affected by aging a site include:

  • MATURITY
  • RESPECT
  • REPUTATION
  • GREATER TECHNIQUE
  • AWARENESS VS. OBSCURITY

Just like in life, age = reputation, refined skills, and brand awareness. If you sell a service in one area for 2 weeks, it’s going to be difficult for you. If you’ve been selling your product or service for years, you’ll get a ton of referrals and organic reviews.

What’s in fashion, goes out of fashion, just to become “vintage” or “new age” a couple generations later. Cyber communication is going through a similar process.

Age isn’t everything, but unless you’re a savant – it’s necessary

Most things get better with time. As they say “practice makes perfect.” On bigger, older sites, video ads, and content marketing strategies, force you to watch commercials on a digital platform regardless if you desire to watch them while playing games, scrolling your timeline, or watching informational videos on Youtube.

It’s a pay to play era where everything you do that’s rewarding requires some sort of investment on your part (time, effort, attention, etc).

There are banners on every webpage with ads, and gurus on various platforms trying to sell you a solution or ideology that “worked for them and will work for you.” You can reach just about anyone in the world within a few seconds, for pennies on the dollar, as frequently as you’d like. That’s just how it goes. And unless you’re a savant – or in this case – your website have viral content, you have to let it age to compete.

Old School Marketing Tactics Still Work

People are getting tired of feeling taken advantage of. Cold-calling is becoming more difficult because business owners and consumers have been anesthetized by this bombardment of highly relevant, seductive, and misleading era of media information. Consumers can’t differentiate between a solid product/service that’s going to help them solve a real-world problem and plain old “good” marketing.

Conversation Marketing

Ok, so this isn’t a real type of marketing but it’s hard to come by these days. There are so many fake people, with fake personas, fake reviews, fake case studies, and fake businesses. It isn’t a business until it makes money and so many people are out there working for Best Buy, and selling you their services without any prior success. They’re using your money to learn on the job.

My point: selling in person, especially with technical products, is powerful.

In the old days, business owners could sense if they were being lied to because they were face to face with the salesperson. They could see the product, and ask more questions. They could judge how sharp the salesman seemed, and if they felt confident or shaky about their abilities.

The could also leave a lasting impression of the company, service, and reputation by appearing in person. Today this is still an effective marketing technique for your business.

Word-of-Mouth Marketing

A referral is the most powerful form of marketing. Second to that is social proof (reviews, testimonials, etc). Everyone wants to make money, and every business wants happy customers.

Word-of-mouth marketing seems like the slowest form of marketing, but it’s trustworthy and direct. In some cases you might have to place an ad in front of a customer 6-10 times before they buy, but a personal recommendation may only take one or two touches.

You also won’t need to keep building trust with each individual person. One review can influence hundreds of potential customers. Avoid connecting your customers with the brand, and try to connect with them directly. People want to work with people. They don’t care about your vision, they care about your results.

Foot In the Door Marketing

Foot-In-The-Door marketing is when you take a down payment on the first phone call. Getting a customer to buy something small before selling them something more expensive is powerful. Free trials and “50% you first 3-months” can earn a lifetime customer.

Modern day marketing needs more of this. We need to add value for consumers first before asking for anything in return. The greater the gift, the more indebted the customer will feel.