What is Online Gravity?

Why is Having a High Online Gravity Important?

Having a high online gravity is important because, for reasons explained below, we are now living in a “pull” marketing world. In this world your ability to “pull” your prospective customers into your marketing funnel will define your success or failure.  Old school prospecting methods such as cold calling and canvassing are on life support because your customers are hiding behind a protective cocoon of technology. Voice mail, caller ID, email and now text messaging all represent barriers to old school intrusion strategies. Today your message has to be where your customers and potential customers are looking for help, when they are looking for help and your message actually has to BE HELPFUL!  And that means having a high online gravity created by large amounts of high quality content distributed in a variety of locations and modalities.

Broadband Access Provides the Tipping Point to the “Pull” Era

The new millennium introduced most of the developed world to reliable and affordable broadband internet connections. Broadband access was the final link required to shift the balance of power between publishers and their “push” marketing, advertising and education (print, radio, television) model to a consumer driven “pull” model.

You see, prior to widespread broadband access your computer hardware and operating system, even the search engines like Google and Yahoo were all limited in their ability to deliver the information you needed, when you needed it to allow you to make well informed decisions. However, now that you have broadband you can rapidly gather decision making information, do comparative research, and have access to other’s experiences via review sites and social media sharing sites in a matter of minutes.

Mobile Internet Access Amplifies the “Pull Era”

As technology continues to evolve we are becoming an ever more connected world. Each day thousands more people around the globe get access to the internet via mobile smartphones and smart devices. What is making this possible?  In a repeat of the broadband story, it has been a combination of mobile infrastructure (towers, switches, etc.), user computing power (smartphones) and again “broadband” access – only in the mobile world they call it “3G” and “4G” networks.

This means that a consumer’s ability to search for information about your company’s products and services has become instantaneous with all friction removed. The instant after your potential customer thinks about your product or service category they are online doing research.  And if your online gravity isn’t sufficient to pull them in your chance of getting their business is severely limited.

This “always on”, instant knowledge gratification world represents the largest, most significant shift in information and knowledge transfer since the invention of the printing press.

What is Online Gravity?

Online gravity is a qualitative measure of your company or brand’s ability to “pull” people who have an awareness of a need or are searching for information about your product or service category towards you. A perfect example of a company or brand that has a high online gravity is Wikipedia. Have you ever noticed how virtually every search you conduct yields a Wikipedia result?

Well, in your market you can become the “Wikipedia”, that trusted resource that your customers and potential customers turn to time and again for decision making knowledge.

Let’s look at some low, moderate and high gravity examples to demonstrate how this works in businesses like yours.

Low Online Gravity Example

Accounting Firm “A” has a 5 page brochure website.  It has some pretty pictures, some fancy “flash”, talks about the partners and their expertise.  However, the site is not buying phrase optimized and can’t be found unless someone types the exact firm name into the search engines or better still, the exact URL.  Firm “A” has a very low gravity, maybe 5 on a 0-100 scale of online gravity. As a result they enjoy next to zero new revenue growth from their online efforts.

Moderate Online Gravity Example

Accounting Firm “B” has a 20 page website.  Most of these pages contain helpful decision making content and the entire site has been optimized around the most productive buying phrases for their regional market. Better still, each month Firm “B” adds a least one new page of optimized content to their site, helping to increase the site’s mass and therefore its gravitational pull. The company also systematically distributes press releases online that target specific problem areas within their target audience. This in turn places “satellites” that are closer to their potential customers, once again increasing their pull. These strategies help boost Firm “Bs” online gravity to around 20. 

About 10% of Firm “Bs” new business revenue is directly attributed to their online gravity and the leverage it provides them in their market.

High Gravity Example

Accounting Firm “C” gets it.  They have a 70 page site that was built for them around their target practice areas by a firm that specializes in creating “websites that sell”  Each page and silo is optimized around the key buying phrases in their market.  Firm “C” systematically adds optimized pages to each practice area every month and adds several pieces of valuable content to their blog each week. These strategies have paid off with #1 Google rankings for nearly every important buying phrase in their target market. Mass has increased, distance decreased and online gravity has increased dramatically.

In addition, the visionary leadership of Firm “C” has partnered with an outside online consulting firm that specializes in creating lead generation marketing systems that are fed by online gravity. 

These consultants have put a content generation and social media machine in place and Firm “Cs” gravity is increasing every month by increasing the number of satellites orbiting their brand and by decreasing the distance between their brand and their potential customers. 

Some of their strategies include:

• Local directory submissions
• Article publishing and distribution
• Video publish and distribution
• Social media updating
• Educational webinar events
• Press release development and distribution.

Firm “C” has created a high online gravity, about 70/100. As a result, 49% of Firm “Cs’ new account revenue comes from clients “pulled” into their online lead generation system.  The firm’s partners are very happy and work a lot fewer hours than their friends at the country club.

When their friends at the club ask them how they do it they simply smile and say, “Buy me a drink and I’ll share with you what a guy named Scott Metcalfe taught me about something called “online gravity.”