Marketing today is simple. It's brand plus technology. To multi-national corporations, brand is the result of branding and branding is the result of hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising spent each year over many years.

For the 98% of the companies that need results each weekend - the local and regional companies - branding is two things. It's word of mouth plus sales. Word of mouth is the what people say about your business. It's called perception. No matter who you are or what you do, the perception is ultimately the reality. Control perception and your company controls word of mouth. It's important. Where word of mouth is today is where sales will be tomorrow. If your sales are doing what you want, your brand is AOK, wouldn't you agree?

The second part of the marketing equation is technology. And technology today is the Internet - nothing more, nothing less. As Bill Gates said, "It's the machine. We're rapidly moving towards one machine. All machines are hooking into that machine (the Internet).

The Internet is a mystery to most businesses. Ten years ago the rush to build websites gained viral momentum. Seven years ago, as the reality of the Dot Com Bust settled onto many investors' bottom lines, the rush was to make the content on those same visitor-less websites more entertaining and more user-friendly. Enter Java Script, HTML code and Flash into the website vernacular.

Now, the Internet has two types of websites - brochures and business centers. Brochure Sites are for those businesses that don't need traffic coming to their site in the course of converting interested prospects to dollars. Business Center sites want to utilize their websites as a marketing process hub.

If it's enough for someone to find out about your website accidentally, or through the normal course of business, then DLB and our Internet Marketing process known as Non-Linear Internet Marketing combined with our award-winning Branding talents are not for you. You have a brochure website.

If you want to harness the power of the Internet and throw a powerful one-two punch employing the unique, results-oriented local branding processes designed to control word of mouth in your target audience, then DLB has something no one else does: accountable, predictable and measureable results-oriented marketing. Also known as kick-your-competitors-collective-butts-and-take-much-more-of-than-your-fair-share-of-sales marketing!!!

You see, it's no longer about demographics. It's about words. We've left the Information Era. Information has lost its power because there's too much of it. Whatever you find to be true on one website through one group's research can be disputed through another website's research. And they're both just as scientific as the other in their approach and methodologies. It's validation of Will Rogers' oft-quoted dictum, "Theres lies, damned lies and then there's statistics."

As a result, we've entered the Internet Era where information is subjugated to connectivity. MYSPACE exists without original content. It's about connecting. Every pundit with an opinion has a blog. The blog is the proverbial tree falling in the forest failing to make a sound unless someone is there to hear it. A blog needs viewers. Viewers arrive through connectivity.

And connectivity is the key to what to most is a mystery - the Internet. The Internet is the first entity in the history of mankind that isn't owned. That's why it grows at the rate of 6 million indexed sites a day - no owners means no limits.

Connectivity creates linear paths through the non-linear Intenet that is comprised of billions of sites. Connectivity combined with brand is what makes all advertising and marketing go in the year 2006.

And the longer you and your business wait to get connected, the further you fall behind. It's not about content, it's about connectivity.

This is the reason why so many TV and Radio Station and Newspaper websites exist as advertising add-ons. Their owners are heavily invested in the systems of content development and delivery. "If it works in traditional media, then it will work the same way on the Internet, right?" they ask innocently. But they don't.

There are too many other options that the potential viewers, listeners and readers are already connected to. Traditional media sits by watching helplessly as the water of advertising revenue pours over the dam towards the Internet. Why?

Because it's not about content, it's about connectivity. And the traditional media barons have no other choice than to continue to try and discover why their content doesn't gain the expected audience. No connectivity, no audience.

Create connectivity and win. Without it, you struggle.

But do this with the principles of branding at the same time, and your company is ready to win like never before.

Next time... the SEO myth explained!