Marketing has changed dramatically since JM Online started in 1998.
Google changed how people find businesses. Social media changed how brands communicate. Smartphones changed how people interact with companies. Now AI is changing how people discover and evaluate them.
The platforms will continue to change.
Our approach to marketing starts with something that doesn’t: your website.
Your Website Is the Foundation
We don’t think your website should be treated as just another marketing channel.
It’s the place where almost every other channel eventually leads.
Someone finds you through Google.
Someone clicks an ad.
Someone sees your LinkedIn post.
Someone gets referred by a friend.
Someone hears your company name and searches for you.
Eventually, many of those people will visit your website.
That’s why your website has to do more than look good.
It needs to explain what you do, establish credibility, answer questions, demonstrate expertise and make it easy for the right people to take the next step.
Your website is where your marketing has to prove itself.
Every Marketing Channel Has a Job
We don’t believe businesses need to be everywhere.
They need to be where their customers are, with a clear reason for being there.
Google Search might help you capture people who are already looking for your service.
SEO can help you earn visibility without paying for every click.
Social media can create awareness and build familiarity.
Email can keep you connected to people who already know your company.
Paid advertising can put your business in front of specific audiences quickly.
Content can demonstrate expertise and answer the questions customers have before they’re ready to buy.
These aren’t interchangeable tactics.
Each one should have a job.
The mistake is doing marketing simply because you’re supposed to be doing marketing.
Awareness and Demand Are Different
One of the distinctions we think businesses often miss is the difference between creating awareness and capturing demand.
Someone searching Google for “commercial roofing company Omaha” already has a problem and is looking for a solution.
That’s demand.
Someone seeing a video about why commercial roofs fail may not be looking for a roofing company yet.
That’s awareness.
Both can be valuable.
But they require different strategies, different content and different expectations.
A good marketing strategy doesn’t just ask, “How do we get more people to see us?”
It asks:
“What do we need to accomplish with the people we’re trying to reach?”
Don’t Build Your Strategy Around Someone Else’s Platform
Google will change.
Social platforms will change.
AI search will change.
New platforms will appear.
Others will disappear.
That’s why we’re hesitant to build a company’s entire marketing strategy around any single platform.
You don’t control Google.
You don’t control Facebook.
You don’t control LinkedIn.
You don’t control ChatGPT.
You do control your website.
That’s one reason we believe a strong website is so important. It gives your business an owned digital foundation that can adapt as the rest of the internet changes.
Your strategy can change without having to rebuild the foundation every time a platform changes its algorithm.
The Goal Isn’t More Marketing
It’s better marketing.
You can publish more content.
Run more ads.
Post more often.
Target more keywords.
Generate more website traffic.
None of that guarantees you’ll generate more business.
The better question is whether your marketing is moving people closer to becoming customers.
That’s why we increasingly think about marketing in terms of the entire journey:
Attention → Website → Trust → Action → Customer → Revenue
If you can’t connect those pieces, it’s easy to spend money on marketing without knowing whether it’s actually working.
What We Believe
Our approach to marketing is pretty simple:
Start with the business objective.
Then determine who needs to be reached, what they need to believe, and what action you want them to take.
Choose the channels that can accomplish that.
Build the website and content needed to support them.
Measure what happens.
Then improve it.
The technology will keep changing.
The platforms will keep changing.
The way people search will keep changing.
But businesses will always need to answer the same fundamental questions:
Who are we?
Why should someone choose us?
How do we reach the right people?
How do we turn their attention into action?
That’s how we think about marketing at JM Online.