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No matter what your business, online marketing has become an essential part of the marketing mix. However, rather than replace other forms of traditional marketing, it should be complementary to them. Guidelines to developing online marketing include:
Develop an online marketing plan
Before beginning, you definitely have to work out an online marketing strategy that is best illustrated with a flow chart or action map.
Be clear on the purpose: Is it to sell online, to generate leads for offline sales, or to establish relationships for a service business? Each objective has a series of different steps.
Develop goals: If you don't know where you want to go, you'll have a problem getting there. Think about what your business will look like in 2 or 3 years once you've implemented online marketing.
Develop steps to achieve the goals: Once you have established a vision of where your online marketing will take you, work backwards to the beginning. The result should be a series of sequential steps with timelines that drive you towards your goal.
Take baby steps first: You can't do it all at once. Start with the easiest steps first and add more complex ones as you develop more expertise.
Set up a milestone system: Develop a measurement systems so you know whether or not your tactics are working.
Choose the right online marketing techniques
As with most marketing, there are several online marketing techniques that broadly include advertising and promotional marketing. Which of these areas you emphasize depends on the nature of your business. If you sell products online, then advertising is probably better; if you have a service business, then promotion may be the preferred method.
Advertising
Traditional web advertising tools are based on the broadcasting model and are generally charged in several ways:
- Impression or display: a single instance of an online ad being displayed
- CPM or cost-per-thousand impressions: $10 CPM means that each impression is costing you $0.01 ($10 divided by 1000)
- PPC, or pay-per-click: you're charged a pre-determined price for each time a visitor clicks on your ad
- CPA or cost-per-action: you're charged if the visitor takes some action on your website. In a PPL (pay-per-lead) arrangement, the charge is tied to a sign-up of some nature. This can be as simple as an email address and as complex as filling out a set of forms. No payment need change hands. In a PPS (pay-per-sale) arrangement, the charge is tied to an actual purchase or order to purchase.
Types of ads include:
- Banner Ads: These can be horizontal, vertical or rectangular, and can be placed at the bottom or top of a web page. Banners are best for businesses looking for heavy traffic on their websites; they should grab the users' attention.
- Button Ads: These are smaller ads that are usually placed in the middle, right or left side of a Web page. They're subtler than banners.
- Interstitial Ads: These ads load between two content pages. A "pop-up" ad is an interstitial. They have less impact and value as web users become more sophisticated.
- Search engine ads: Search engine ads now account for most web advertising because they are very targeted. The most common search engine ads stem from Google's AdWords and AdSense programs, in which targeted ads pop-up next to a search string containing specific keywords. But other companies such as Overture also offer them. Search Engine Watch provides a closer look at search advertising.
Promotional marketing
Increasingly, online marketers are using promotional marketing to attract potential customers. This is particularly true in business-to-business (B2B), where the goal is to generate sales leads instead of a transaction. Online promotional marketing usually includes:
Content: This is website copy that is written to persuade or inform potential customers of the benefits of your service or product. Often, it includes knowledge or educational resource material such as white papers and case studies, which are then distributed throughout the Internet. In general, you need to update and add content often.
Linking: Search engine "spiders" that crawl the Web cataloguing sites love links. In fact, some use them as the main category for ranking a site. In this light, it's a good exercise to include several links to useful information and other relevant sites. Avoid "link farming" – the superfluous inclusion of links just to please the search engines. Google in particular will ban your site if you're suspected of link farming.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the most common method of online promotional marketing used today and is closely linked with content. Generally, SEO means writing website copy to include keywords that search engines favour. It usually involves much research and careful architecting of a site. SEO tips can be found at the Microsoft Small Business Center.
Article writing: Many smaller businesses increase their online profiles by writing expert articles for online services and e-newsletters. There are dozens of sites where you can read and submit articles, such as E-zine Articles. To reach a more specific audience, find newsletters or magazines in a field related to your business, and submit your pieces directly to them. Articles should provide useful information if they're going to be read, and are usually presented in an easy-read format such as tips. At the end of each article, include a short blurb about your business with a link to your website.
Email marketing
Email is used today by marketers as one of the main channels to deliver a message. When done well, this is an effective method of marketing; when done badly, it becomes unwanted spam, or junk email, and is a nuisance that governments are now trying to eliminate.
Direct email techniques
Email circles: Email sent to a potential customer/contact that the advertiser knows or has contacted through some other means, such as a business card. In a sense, this qualifies and personalizes the contact; it often involves offering a service or a pointer to useful information, such as a news story. This technique works best for service businesses that don't have large customer bases.
Bulk email: This technique involves sending emails in bulk to targeted groups. For example, you might want to inform a specific audience about sales or special offers. Ensure that your targets receive a blind copy – where all email addresses are not listed. In that way, spammers don't harvest the addresses.
Design tips
Understand how people read email. People scan emails through a preview pane and spend about 3 seconds reading it; this gives you a window measuring about two inches by six inches to catch their attention.
Add a visual. People linger slightly longer on an email that contains a small picture.
Find the right form. The format of the newsletter must be appropriate for the recipients. More sophisticated readers tend toward URL-based newsletters.
Content tips
The subject line should say it all. If you want people to read the email, put it in the subject line. If you're selling office products, the subject line should feature your main selling point, such as "Low-cost computer gear."
Feature a single benefit in the headline. Because of that 3-second scan, a headline must communicate a benefit quickly and succinctly.
Solve problems - quickly. Ensure that your main headline indicates to the reader that the article will help solve a problem they have. For example: "How to save money when buying office products."
Keep it short. People have little time, especially when they can easily get 50 emails a day. So keep your message brief and to the point. This is not the place for verbose writing.
Make it about the reader, not the company. The WIFM (what's in it for me) factor is crucial in email marketing. The email should talk about the benefits to the customer and not just focus on the product or service.
E-newsletters
Help create all-important communities of customers, just like any publication. The more popular ones also draw advertising support. With e-newsletters, the primary measurement of success is the open rate – what proportion of receivers actually read them. An open rate of 25% is considered very good. E-newsletters can be sent as:
- Simple text, which limits design, but looks less like spam and therefore does not become ensnared in spam filters.
- HTML, which allows more eye-catching design, but can be trapped by spam filters. Also, not all receivers like html newsletters or email.
- Emailed URLs that link back to a website. This provides an opt-in method that creates more trust, and can bring readers to other areas of a website, if that is important. However, emailed URLs also add an extra step that can cut open rates.
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