I don't know about you, but our industry has obtained over the years a vast array of TLA's (three letter acronyms).

To name a few, we have; CLI (Called Line ID), CPE (Customer Premises Equipment), DDI (Direct Dial In), DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), PBX (Private Branch Exchange) and VPN (Virtual Private Network).

As an employee in the communication industry even I struggle to keep on top of all these abbreviations myself. Therefore when talking to the client, I have to consciously remember not to rattle off a string of such non-coherent terms.

It was when I was building my TouchLocal account that I realised thinking as a customer was going to be SO important if I ever wanted new business to find us.

Worryingly I also realised it would be nearly impossible for me to list a group of ‘non industry bias' keywords. For example; in searching for an internet provider I would always search for ‘digital su... Read more

The vastness of the internet only really becomes apparent when you try to find yourself on it.

A Google search using our company name in full, ‘Key Account Management', finds us on page 2. A search on telecommunication product specific terms produces a result not worth commenting on. I've heard of the term ‘GoogleWhack', (a result page featuring only a single item, resulting from a search consisting of two words), but only now do I grasp its significance in the face of such a vast amount of searchable data. I've received spam emails galore inviting me to seminars titled, ‘optimise your Google search status', but have always rejected them on the basis that..........well that it was a spam email.

The cost of being a sponsored site on Google, paying a ‘per click charge' or even trying to list significantly searched for ‘AdWords' was something we were not going to sign off on easily. Eve... Read more

Key Account Management (KAM) has always operated a website in some form or another. Over the years its appearance has changed in accordance with what's been expected in the business community.

It's fair to say that our customers can keep up to date, on our website, with a full product spec. They can access the free online billing platform that enables them to drill down an invoice to a single call. And it's true that if a customer so desired to, they could find out a little about ‘who we are'.

However, as a revenue stream that generates direct sales and indirect sales enquiries; our website has never been equipped for such a task.

So I decided to scribble down the aspects of a typical virtual shop in order to understand how I bring the customer to our door.

1) We must be located.

2) We must be desirable. Offering a large stock of searched for, perfectly substitutable and 'inte... Read more