BusinessWeek on Getting Noticed

I ran across a great article from the BusinessWeek web site on Getting Noticed.  “Doctors, accountants, and other professionals need to market their businesses, too,” says the subhead. Professionals may be experts in their particular fields, but most have absolutely no training in how to market themselves.  Nor is this an isolated problem, as 75% percent of architects, 66% of accountants, and even 30% of physicians work in smaller offices, where the duties of building a client base fall squarely on the professionals.

Some of the ideas mentioned include:

• appearing as an expert guest on a local TV show
• providing a popular though perhaps unprofitable service that brings traffic (e.g., botox injections)
• hold events for current clients and guests, or for the community at large
• picking a niche specialty that professional peers will see as supplemental rather than competitive to their own practices
• network, network, network.

I know you’re going to tell me that none of these things have anything to do with being visible online.  My point is that there really isn’t any dividing line between real-world visibility and online visibility.  The two should supplement each other, so that activities in one area support activities in another.