The series finale of Dexter aired last night. True to Dexter form it was unpredictable, unsettling, and strangely satisfying. This blog is a tribute to America’s favorite serial killer, who can actually teach us a few internet marketing tips for your online strategy.
1. Overcome your dark passenger
Dexter refers to his need to kill as his dark passenger. He feels like this dark passenger is what controls him. If he can just figure out a way to not give in and give it want it wants he would save himself and others in his world a lot of grief. But it’s a part of him that he constantly has to fight.
When developing an online strategy we all have a dark passenger too; especially if we’re just starting out learning this internet marketing thing. It’s called self-doubt. Don’t let excuses and “I’m not good enough” control you. Find a way to get started and don’t worry about being good enough. When you feel overwhelmed, take control by fighting the temptation to quit and asking for help.
2. Have a plan
When you’re plagued with self doubt what should you do? Make a plan. Dexter always plans his kills. He has an overarching strategy that he uses with each one: stalking the victim to learn their behavior, drugging them at just the right the time, taking them to his pre-determined kill room, killing the victim and disposing of the body.
You should have a well thought out plan for your internet marketing. It’s called the inbound methodology and it works. You attract people with content they’re looking for, give them a way to access that content, nurture them with other helpful information, and hopefully turn them into customers.
3. Follow the code
How do you attract people to the content you’re offering? By using search engine optimization (SEO). Dexter followed a strict moral code to decide on the people he killed. In the simplest sense he was a “good” serial kill because he only killed people who did bad things that met the code.
SEO is like a code to follow. There are certain things that Google tells you to do that will help qualify the people who visit your site and hopefully become a lead. It starts with keyword research and understanding the terms and phrases your potential customers are searching for. Then it’s following the best practices you can read about here to tell the search engines that your website meets the code and doesn’t need to be killed, or in internet marketing terms, dropped in search rankings.
4. Choose your victims
Since Dexter only killed a certain type of person, he knew how to find them, what drove them, and studied their habits to make sure he didn’t make a mistake.
Have you identified business personas as part of your internet marketing strategy? These are fictitious characters of your ideal customers. By developing them you learn who your target audience is. Think about their characteristics, personalities, the questions they would ask, the needs they have, and how your company’s product or service could help them. Then you can go in for the kill and get their attention.
5. Set up your kill room
When Dexter is ready to make his kill, he chooses a kill room and sets it up the same way each time using the same tools. Your website is your kill room. Set it up with the right tools to attract your victim – er – customer. These internet marketing tools are:
- Blog
- Social Media Accounts
- Keyword Research
- Calls-to-Action
- Landing Pages
- Downloadable Offers
- Link Building Techniques
- Email Nurturing Workflows
- Online Video
They each serve their own person, and you might not need or be able to use them all at once, but knowing they are available is the first step.
Spoiler Alert: I hoped Dexter would live happily ever after, but I knew that he wouldn’t. The thing is he had a choice: Keep trying to overcome his dark passenger and make a better life, or give up and give in to his need to kill. You have a choice too. You can give up on developing an internet marketing campaign for your business and kill off any potential customers because you feel like you just can’t do it; or you can choose to work at it, get help from an internet marketing company like us, and keep your business surviving online.
Like the final episode of Dexter, internet marketing can be unpredictable and unsettling, which is why you have to keep up on trends and educate yourself about what your customers want, but seeing the results of your internet marketing strategy can be strangely satisfying too.
If you’re listening to your dark passenger, but are ready to overcome it, contact us for a free consultation!
