The Three Marketing Musketeers

Robert J. Smith, BBA, MBA, MFA, Ph.D., is a business consultant and founder of Robert J. Smith Productions and Smith Profits.

In the 1948 film The Three Musketeers, starring Lana Turner, Gene Kelly, Van Heflin and Vincent Price, the IMDb logline reads, “D’Artagnan and his Musketeer comrades thwart the plans of Cardinal Richelieu to usurp King Louis XIII’s power.” Lucky for us, we don’t have to thwart a political uprising with brilliant swordplay. We merely have to beat our competition with proven marketing. Thankfully, just like D’Artagnan, we have three musketeers by our side. Those three marketing musketeers are LinkedIn, the media and the internet movie database (IMDb).

Those three marketing musketeers are the very same three that helped us improve our networking efforts in my previous article, “Network Like Your Business Depends On It.” Now that we’ve improved your networking efforts, let’s leverage those gains. By definition, let’s use those newfound gains to your maximum advantage.

Leverage your upgraded LinkedIn credibility.

How much have you already been able to increase your LinkedIn social selling index since reading my most recent article? Where do you rank in your industry and network now?

Your upgraded credibility on LinkedIn will help you make more and better connections. As stated in my previous article, my LinkedIn SSI ranks me in the top 1% of my industry and network. Yes, I’ve worked to maintain those rankings with media additions to my profile. It’s never enough for your marketing efforts to reach optimal performance; your marketing efforts have to stay optimized.

With a polished profile, I’ve been able to make many gains recently, such as locating a quality graphic arts team, for which I had been searching for quite some time; received a book publishing offer; received quality referrals for my company’s services and more.

While that may look like luck, I’ve found that the harder we work, the luckier we get.

Hopefully, you’ve seen vast improvements in both your industry and network rankings by improving your profile through the media that you’ve been featured in over the past month. If your media relations were handled properly, you’ve gained visibility in all major TV networks through hundreds of affiliates from coast to coast and border to border. Hopefully, you’ve completed at least one live television interview or podcast over the past month and featured it in your LinkedIn profile as well.

If you haven’t seen vast improvements in your SSI, here’s how you can improve your profile to quickly make those gains:

1. Your LinkedIn profile serves as your landing page for potential connections. Make sure it closely reflects your brand.

2. Your name should reflect any professional designations or academic degrees you would like featured (e.g., MBA for business analysis or MFA for creative work).

3. Make certain that your images are clear, and use them to give your audience some insight into you at work.

4. Use your company slogan as your headline if you have one. If not, simply create a compelling headline that lets readers know what to expect from you and your business.

5. Rather than “YourCompany.com,” consider a hyperlink to your site that gives prospective clients a reason to visit (e.g., “Increase profits with Smith!” with a link directly to your site).

6. Create a custom LinkedIn URL. Detailed instructions are found here.

7. List publications, projects, volunteer work, etc.

8. If you haven’t yet received any recommendations, provide them to others. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how well the law of reciprocity will work for you.

Leverage your upgraded media credibility.

As our company website states, “Profit begins with PR!” I don’t recommend that anyone discontinues their business advertising. Our advertising did very well for us when we wanted to get off to a fast start. Now, however, we rarely advertise our services. There are four reasons for this:

1. We’ve created systems that provide us with a steady stream of never-ending referrals. If your business provides products and services that exceed customer and client expectations, you should be able to do the same. I certainly hope that you do.

2. We leverage our media credibility with every one of our hard-earned referrals, and you can do the same with yours.

3. Our public relations efforts have virtually eliminated our need to advertise. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to remember the last time that we ran any advertising.

4. We leverage our media credibility to earn even more media appearances for ourselves and for our clients. You will find this to be the case for both you and your business if you haven’t already.

Leverage your upgraded IMDb credibility.

In “Network Like Your Business Depends On It,” I shared the fact that your podcasts, television and film appearances (more on how business executives may acquire these in a future article) can qualify you for your very own IMDb profile, which will add to your credibility. I’ve picked up plenty of business as a direct result of my IMDb profile. Hopefully, you have as well. If you haven’t set your profile up yet, what are you waiting for? Your competition won’t create it for you.

As you learned last month, professionally created and well-written IMDb profiles can help improve Google search rankings and positioning. Hopefully, your IMDb profile has already earned you and your business No. 1 Google search rankings. If your listings have not reached No. 1 yet, you can work toward those rankings. Hopefully, you have at least reached the coveted “front page” of Google searches.

We all know that the majority of people who Google search products and services never leave the front page. In fact, the majority of people never leave the top of the front page. That’s where all the click-throughs are. Human behavior dictates that most people will never take the time to even look past the first few results. As an example, how often do you scroll down to the bottom of the front page? How often do you look past the front page — if ever?

Put these three marketing musketeers to work for you in your business. Watch your customer/client base, your sales, your revenues and your profits grow as a direct result. Cardinal Richelieu never had a chance against The Three Musketeers. Your competition won’t stand a chance against you, your business and the three marketing musketeers either. As Alexandre Dumas penned, “All for one and one for all!”

Forbes Business Council is the foremost growth and networking organization for business owners and leaders. Do I qualify?