If you wanna walk like a wild web woman, you gotta talk like a Wild Web Woman!  Hope this is a healthy dose of Friday comic relief (and fun insight to our behind-the-scenes marketing work lingo)

HAPPY FRIDAY! (All WMTers say that EVERY FRIDAY!!)

Since we are all about proactive communication at the agency, I wanted to take this opportunity to clarify the “WHY” of our name.

The true nature of our name Web Marketing Therapy stems from our deeply rooted belief in the power of helping professionals and organizations help themselves.  Our name was a result of years of listening to client feedback.  We were told things like:
We feel like you just did therapy on our marketing! You just took all the overwhelm out of my marketing management.  I want to get on your marketing therapy couch.  You (Lorrie Thomas Ross, WMT’s founder) are like my marketing therapist!

So in 2009, we changed our name to Web Marketing Therapy to embrace our mission to be advisors, supportive marketing managers and help take the stress and overwhelm out of marketing!  The definition of therapy, as provided by dictionary.com is as follows:

For us, it’s all about providing a therapeutic approach to marketing for our clients. Let’s break it down:

1. The treatment of disease or disorders, as by some remedial, rehabilitating, or curative process: speech therapy.

We aren’t treating diseases of the body or mind, we are treating dis-ease of marketing. Dis, meaning apart or out and ease meaning a freedom from pain, discomfort, labor or difficulty. Our three pronged approach is based on the concepts of diagnosing the marketing problems, prescribing the appropriate cure or treatment and guiding our clients to a healthy marketing way of life.

2. A curative power or quality.

Web Marketing Therapy isn’t about duct taping your shoddy marketing plan to take you into next week. Real marketing breakthroughs happen when you start curing deep seeded marketing problems to establish a healthy marketing foundation. We wouldn’t go to a real therapist with the hopes of getting well in a day, and the same applies to our approach to web marketing. We think about marketing from a holistic perspective to provide an all-encompassing healing approach for our clients.

3. Psychotherapy; It’s about communicating issues and finding insight into problems with the goal of personal growth and behavior modification.

We want our clients to learn to assess marketing problems on their own and to understand why their old approach to marketing isn’t working for them. With training and advisory we want our clients to learn how to tackle the issues before they arise and learn to modify their marketing behavior!

4. Any act, hobby, task, program, etc., that relieves tension.

We know lots about this and encourage our clients to do what they do best, and what makes them happy, and letting us handle the parts that bog them down! If you thrive at writing blog posts, but want to cry when faced with a Tweet, don’t fret! We want to support you in the things that make you happy and relive tension, not create it!

The Wild Web Women also know that having a passion or hobby is so very important to a healthy marketing way of life. That is why we use our blog to encourage our team members and readers to take a break and have a great time. The About page on your website is the most looked at page there is and clients want to know the fun, exciting things that people in an organization do that make them unique. So take the time to go for a run, paint, play your guitar, dance your heart out… it’s good for your health, your marketing and your business!

So, as you can see, Web Marketing Therapy isn’t just for therapists. On the whole our approach can easily be applied to any type of business. To learn more about what we do and how we do it I encourage our readers to subscribe to our Healthy Marketing Advice blog and to check out our book by CEO Lorrie Thomas Ross (aka The Marketing Therapist); The 36-Hour Guide to Online Marketing and her course on lynda.com called Online Marketing Fundamentals!

We received this amazing email today from one of our sparkling clients, Calla Gold, Santa Barbara Jeweler.  She hit her 100th blog post mark (way to ring in the Chinese New Year!!  Dragon marketing effort indeed!) When she shared her success with us, it melted our marketing hearts and kick-started the week on a magical foot!

The email below is a healthy example of celebrating success, having an attitude of gratitude and boosting our egos as marketing advisors, trainers and support people!!  **awwww! virtual web marketing magical moment**

Congrats to Calla on rocking the web!

Marketing Ego Boost – Golden Client Success (Email sent to WMT by Calla Gold, passionate professional and wild web marketer!!)

Hello Team,

You branded me, you made my blog in the image of my brand and attached it to my shiny new website that you made happen so I could promote my own brand and taught me how to care and feed my brand and my blog.

You saved me from spinning off in a million promotional directions. You focused my actions with the marketing plan you made for me.

You’ve done so much to increase my visibility as a business. My blog posts regularly show up on search! It’s so cool. I was nowhere online with a seven year old static website when you met me.

Happy Client,
Calla Gold

PS. And you can quote me!

Thank you Calla for your kind email and for being such a passionate professional!

Oprah Winfrey has a great quote that reinforces this, “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

So you may be wondering: How does all this relate to your web marketing puzzle?

Well, a great exercise for the new year is to make a list of the current marketing collateral you have in place. This is the foundation that you have already built for your business (i.e. name, tagline, logo, website, blog, email list etc.). Try and list the haves and resist the urge to list the have-nots. Building on what you have already accomplished is a way to keep a consistency with your business messaging. It also saves you time – you won’t have to reinvent the wheel everytime because the initial content will be there to support you. You might find some marketing gems when backtracking through your materials. See if Jessica inspires you as much as she did her 9,174,836 YouTube fans and have a happy and healthy New Year!

The Woman's Advantage 2012 Shared Wisdom Calendar

This has been quite a year for Web Marketing Therapy and our fearless leader, Lorrie Thomas Ross! From writing a guide to Online Marketing that one can master in 36-hours, to welcoming a new addition to her family (daughter Edyn Ashley Ross), releasing a video on lynda.com on Online Marketing Fundamentals, and finally being featured as an influential and quotable woman in the 2012 Woman’s Advantage Shared Wisdom Calendar.

The Woman’s Advantage is a line of informational products, books, audio CDs, and calendars designed by nationally recognized expert, Mary Cantando for successful women business owners. Lorrie was introduced to Mary Cantando’s savvy business advice through her weekly eNewsletter. Cantando was featured on our Wild Web Women® radio program and offered her expertise to our listeners – click HERE to listen to Mary talk with Lorrie about Online Etiquette with “Mind your Web P’s and Q’s”.

Here’s the healthy business advice that was included in the calendar: “BE NICE! It’s amazing what a little class will do for your brand and business!”

I really love Lorrie’s quote and have tacked it to my bulletin board for a great reminder throughout the day. As a team we work strategically with our clients. We also know how being nice counts and how it can bring much needed inspiration to business owners.