Online Marketing - Packed full of Strategy tactics and tools
Online Marketing - Packed full of Strategy tactics and tools
By Online I mean a Website, Google Ad Words campaign, Search Engine Optimisation of your site, Creating Content and getting involved in the Social Media Sites.
Don't get scared off by the jargon and new fangled technology stuff, the old marketing rules are still relevant. Here they are applied to online and kept very simple; Ask, Listen, Plan, Do then Measure.
1. Ask
Who are your customers and what do they want? What did they want and how has that changed?
Online provides opportunities for research that are easy, cost effective and sometimes FREE. Now that I have your attention, here's a great tool www.surveymonkey.com. If you are thinking of launching a new product or service, where the new market opportunities are, or simply want to know what your customers think of you, ask them.
Another great online tool for research is social media. Google search a forum about your topic then jump on and ask some questions, its free research! "Our company is looking into developing a new system to solve this problemdoes anyone here think that's a good/bad idea?" Remember this tip though; online social networks are just like real social networks. Listen first (two eyes) then chat (one keypad).
2. Listen
Your customers, competitors, suppliers and prospects alike are all "out there" in the online world chatting and publishing information; some of them are even talking about you so you need to listen.
Some great analysis tools that help you track trends around people searching for things and people chatting about topics are HowSociable, BlogPulse, Google Alerts and Google Insights. It makes sense that Google delivers great analysis tools as most of the information passes by them somehow.
Here's a brief description about each but don't take my word for it try for yourself, they're FREE!
Google AdWords Keyword tool shows how many people are looking locally (set location to Australia) or globally for your chosen key words or phrases and the competition.
HowSociable is a free monitoring tool for measuring your brands or keywords using 32 social networking sites.
Blog pulse is a free service, which tracks over 100 million blogs. It can also produce the information as a trend chart.
Google alerts helps you easily target keywords that are important to your brand and receive regular streaming or batched reports.
3. Plan
Planning is usually done offline and so there aren't many online tools I would recommend, however a good CRM will help you manage your database to ensure that you build and maintain strong relationships with your prospects and customers to feed your marketing pipeline. I like Zoho CRM for its low cost ($12US per month) and easy use.
When it comes to setting your objectives and measuring your success don't be misguided by the chase for a dollar, it's not about sales! If you keep sales metrics separate you will have a better chance of accurately measuring the success of the campaigns isolated from the other variables such as activities of the sales team, product innovation, operations deliverables, etc.
Online marketing should include the following three key objectives and be measured by these criteria:
1. New quality leads generated,
2. Valuable clients retained
3. Clients grown.
4. Do
With clear objectives and a good plan you're ready to go. But where do you start?
There is no right answer to which is the best media and message to achieve your goals but now, more than ever, you have a great opportunity to learn as you go without going broke.
Start with your goals! Every question must come back to, "Will this help us meet our key marketing objectives?" Then test and measure everything you do. The following recommendations vary according to the industry so be mindful of how your prospects and customers behave (refer to research and analysis)
Online Tactics
Your website is your front door prospects visit to research and solve problems, is it open and inviting?
Here are some tips and tools that may help. Go to Google analytics it's a free tool that your web developer can help you install and it is more powerful than a locomotive. When you get there, go to the "Content" tab on the left and to "In-Page Analytics" It's an awesome new tool that shows you what people do on your site then you can scrap or alter the pages that no one clicks on.
Get your business listed on Google places with a logo and spiel about your company, images and video if possible. http://www.google.com/places/.
Driving traffic through Google Adwords. This is where you show your small ads on the right-hand side (& sometimes the top right) of Google (sponsored inks). It allows you to be found on the first page of Google results for any word or phrase that you specify which is especially good when you are struggling to compete on the left hand side in the (organic) natural search results.
Tools: If you want to do it yourself I thoroughly recommend doing these boot camp training videos http://www.adwordsbootcamp.com.au/
The Social Media landscape is daunting to a newcomer. Don't let it scare you. Most SME's don't need to have a Facebook page or Twitter account. These tools are good for listening to others talk but require a huge amount of time and resources to run properly so my advice is set up a personal page on linked in but don't bother with the others till you have time.
I do however recommend writing a blog and making videos.
The Blog will be a good way for you to gather feedback on what you say and how you say it (free R&D). Its also great for encouraging (forcing) you to gather the content for your business to use later in brochures, ads, sales presentations, books etc.
You can also do this using video. Firstly it's more entertaining and easier to watch a video and secondly it helps with credibility. But here's the clincher invite friends and associates to talk with you or better yet, about you. Video testimonials help build trust and you can improve your image.
5. Count
Finally use your CRM and Google analytics to measure everything. Always measure against your objectives, mentioned in the Plan section above to ensure consistency and unification across your organisation.
Sounds easy but think carefully about the wording of those goals, "quality" leads means leads that convert to sales or convert to referral. "Valuable clients" are those with a lifetime value that outweighs the expense of servicing them and investment in attracting them. "Growing clients" is usually a good measure of loyalty. You can measure this growth in various ways and all are important; growing the frequency they spend with you, the amount they spend, the number of products or services they purchase, the share of their spend with you over competitors, the times they refer you, etc..
The more you know the better decisions you make and we all know that that means better ROI!
Online is here to stay and can be a cheap and effective tool to solve your marketing problems - if done right. So if you have a marketing budget but are still unsure about resource allocation then consider either employing a marketing manager with digital skills and experience or outsource to an agency (like us).
Justin Bruce
www.bluefrogmarketing.com.au
Justin@bluefrogmarketing.com.au
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