I’m just a one-man band living off the long-tail

Folks ask ‘why aren’t you growing your business?’

What they mean is ‘why aren’t you hiring staff, taking on premises…’ doing the things that make your business look bigger.

They think I’d be happier commuting to work. Working for clients I don’t get along with, but hey, it pays the bills.

Each to their own, I guess.

My answer is usually accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders and a simple reminder (to me) that I’m just a one-man band making a living off the long-tail.

So what does this mean, exactly?

12 years ago, following the sale of my retail business, I craved something different. I was offered the opportunity to head up a marketing agency in Central London. I jumped into it. We took on premises. We took on staff. We went about our jobs of meeting the needs of our clients. After 9 months I walked away. I couldn’t do it anymore. 1 of 3 founders, I didn’t share the same vision. I didn’t want to build an agency for every business. I wanted to build something to mean something to somebody.

So I set my own agenda.

I started my 3rd company. Ecommerce Growth Co. This time, I worked from home. Rule one of business – manage your overheads efficiently. I had no overheads.

I was fortunate. My consultancy hit the ground running. It hit capacity pretty quickly. The temptation to ‘grow’ was there. Should I? I didn’t. I just raised my fees. Something I was taught about supply and demand many years ago on an Economics degree course. About the only thing I remember from those 3 years.

12 1/4 years later is there a secret to success? Yes. It’s knowing your market.

First off. I’ve never had to (or needed to) make an outbound sales pitch. I wouldn’t really know where to start, if I was perfectly honest.

Secondly, my client roster led me to focus on retail. My background was retail. My work started to focus on ‘the message’ rather than ‘the button’. I was helping ecommerce clients grow their business more efficiently through inbound marketing. I was simply teaching and practicing what I was doing within my own business. Putting my knowledge out there and seeing what it led to.

I’m no SEO expert. I don’t practice SEO. But, Google has been very friendly to my business. I quickly learned that there were very different approaches to building business enquiries. You go the obvious route. Or, you head to the long-tail.

I enjoyed working within the long-tail. Not big businesses, not small businesses. Just like Goldilocks, I favoured the choice in the middle. That’s where the opportunity was for me. Retailers focused on their next stage of growth.

Back to SEO. I owe a lot to Google. I’ve set my business up in the way I preach to my clients. At the core, the very heart of your business is your knowledge. Call it ‘the blog’ if you’d like. That’s where you are right now – the core of my business is me. Ecommerce growth. Nice and self-explanatory.

You hire me, you don’t get a team of specialists, you just get me. Ian. Hello.

Then, I’ve set up modular websites which focus on the areas I like to work within. Selfish approach, I know.

We start off with DTC businesses. Product makers. I love this market. Agile minds, agile approach and agile processes. It’s all agility, if you read most of the stuff they spout. It’s usually all about the software. That doesn’t wash for me. I, like every angle, like it to be about the customer. They’re the ones we need to please.

So, I set up Acquisitional.com – a website catering to SaaS businesses who need a little customer-centric thinking to sustainably grow their business. Acquisitional provides an enquiry every 2-3 days. A good workable enquiry. It may be for a one-off piece of work, a series of workshops, or a little more. What it does it put me in touch with people that I know I can work with and I know I can help.

Bad news content people? It has no blog. It has no social channels. It’s just a series of landing pages talking to my potential client in a language that, I hope, will resonate.

Google liked Acquisitional. They got on.

This is a niche. It’s a small, small market. However, it’s a market that I can now dominate. No.1 search ranking for terms such as SaaS Email Consultant, SaaS Content Marketing Consultant. Low volume traffic. High conversion rate. Low maintenance.

There is no SEO technique. I just create content and politely pitch my wares. I let people know that I’m just a one-man band working the long-tail. I let them know that what I do for my clients and myself, I can help them achieve themselves. It’s an old-fashioned win-win.

So, Acquisitional.com worked well for me.

So did PPC Doctor. A site I created 3 years ago tailored specifically to the retail sector.

I enjoy the retail angle. The sales process. Thinking outside of the funnel. Working in a constraint of 2 rows of 35 characters.

My proposition, through PPC Doctor, is relatively simple. I align the products my clients sell with what their audience are actually looking for. Simple stuff really. The stuff that applies to every element of digital marketing.

My home isn’t in the world of PPC. It’s far from it. I’m honest. I don’t believe PPC (in isolation) is a sustainable route to market for any ecommerce player. I challenge my clients to think about a world without PPC. Is it really that important? I guess I ask the questions that agencies won’t.

I don’t manage PPC campaigns for my clients. I don’t build PPC campaigns for my clients. My proposition is to allow clients to retain the management in-house (or to switch away from an agency) and learn how to run the campaigns more effectively in-house. This isn’t rocket science. This is common sense I teach.

Google loved PPC Doctor too. Thanks Google.

Clean sweep of the medal positions 1,2 and 3 on page one. Again, I’m no SEO practitioner. But, I’m seeing results from SEO. Sense the irony?

PPC Doctor and Acquisitional were where my revenues were earned. The business aspect of my business.

Now, all my focus is here. Here, on my blog, at my business core, this is where I preach what I practice.

I’m just a huge believer in this idea of the modular business. In the middle is where you share your process, your experience and your knowledge. Orbiting your little world of sharing are your products. Those products aren’t necessarily life forms. There’s nothing there apart from answers to key questions. They’re flat and not the prettiest websites. I built them myself. They generate enquiries.

Then, you invite people into your own world.

This is the blog, the podcast, the speaking, all the bits that reside here. The soul of my business.

I’m fortunate here too. Google loves this site too with top positions for key terms such as ‘ecommerce consultant’, ’email marketing consultant’ and ‘ecommerce marketing consultant’

Here I practice what I preach and preach what I practice. Again, all working within a tiny little niche market. Position 1 out of 82million. Just a one-man-band working the long-tail.

My client proposition is based upon my own endeavours. If I can do this (without an SEO hat on) as a one-man band, what could we do for your ecommerce business?

You do get an opportunity to experience the busier waters.

• You get asked to answer tough questions by big players in the industry – Unbounce
• You receive recognition as your work crosses into neighbouring industries – Crazy Egg
• You receive accreditation from further afield – PPC Hero
• You get invited to speak at industry events in far out lands – Marketing Week Greece

Just because you work the niche, you do get to extend your influence across the boundaries. That, I feel, is a point that many businesses ignore when they take the decision to focus on a message for everybody.

My whole proposition asks you to consider how to ‘Champion Your Niche’. How to work in the long-tail and how you can own that space. It’s taken me 19+ years in this industry to refine my proposition to where it is now. You do that through learning. You do that through peeking over the walls and seeing what’s happening in the other industries around you.

Let me try and wrap this article up now. I do appreciate I’ve borrowed your time for too long.

You don’t have to follow best practice. You don’t have to spend days or weeks planning out keyword strategies or content calendars. You can build a business working within the narrowest of niche markets. You can build a brand less ordinary.

In doing so you get to reach the people in business that you can truly impact for the better. I’m using my modular business approach to allow me to succeed as a one-man band where I’m not vying for attention or pushing my message out through the social channels in hope of a bite. I’m just getting my head down, making clients happy and marketing in my own way…. as a one-man band working the long-tail.

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