Tips For Achieving Your Marketing Goals In 2010
2009 is drawing to a close and in terms of marketing
, businesses are reflecting on the year that has past and brainstorming new plans and strategies for 2010. Marketing is an essential ingredient for ensuring the success of any business.
When defined, marketing is described as the process of creating awareness for a product or service, influencing consumer purchasing behaviour and encouraging sales. Every marketing manager is constantly aiming to determine the best mix of marketing elements to further increase brand awareness, leads and sales.
Over the last few years the elements of the marketing mix have evolved to include not only traditional channels like print, radio and television, but also online channels like search engines, banner adverts and social media platforms.
In addition to being an effective marketing platform, it is important to note that the Internet also offers a new way of doing business and should not be considered as just another advertising channel. According to a Nielsen Online Ranking Report published earlier this year, local online readership figures grew by 25.2% from 4.8 million online readers in the first quarter of 2008 compared to over 6 million online readers in the first quarter of this year. The online landscape offers noteworthy opportunities, especially when tied in with traditional marketing channels to create a through-the-line strategy.
Online media offers a flexible structure and is far more cost-effective and measurable than traditional media. Depending on the goals and objectives of each business, different online marketing elements will be used. While online fundamentals like email marketing and banner placements are very effective when executed correctly, there are a few other elements to consider whilst planning your online strategy for next year.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO drives traffic to your website via search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. The purpose of SEO is to increase a websites ranking on search engine result pages for relevant search terms. This is achieved by optimising the website for key-phrases related to the business products and services in order to provide searchers with relevant and high quality content.
Why should you include SEO in your marketing plan?
Even though SEO is a long-term commitment results from such a campaign are sustainable and provide proven ROI. When implementing a SEO campaign your online marketing agency will tweak existing content, create new web pages and possibly recommend usability changes. Better usability makes it easier for visitors to access your website and increases conversions or desired actions.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
PPC is a complimentary marketing element to SEO. These are the adverts seen on the top and right-hand side of search engines results pages. These adverts are paid for (also called sponsored links or adverts) and work on a bidding system. PPC campaigns should be conversion driven. As you are paying for visits to your website, you should aim to maximise certain actions based on your website goals. Successful completion of these actions is known as a conversion. For instance, if one of the goals is to increase leads and sales through the website the conversion action could involve a visitor filling in a contact form, enquiring about a product or downloading a product brochure.
Why should you include PPC in your marketing plan?
PPC is an excellent short-term solution to drive visitors to your website. Your online marketing agency will create targeted landing pages with the necessary calls to action elements in order to increase conversions. Another advantage of PPC is that it provides opportunity for increased brand awareness through its content network. A network whereby either text or banner advertising is displayed contextually on other relevant websites, and you still only pay per click. PPC is budget-based, completely measurable and provides ROI quicker than SEO.
Social Media Marketing
By correctly leveraging platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Zoopy social media can create brand awareness and build relationships with new and existing customers. Social media marketing has been likened to word-of-mouth, its about conversations. These conversations occur amongst and between your customers and yourself. Social media marketing is not push-marketing - if you use social media platforms to broadcast overt commercial and marketing messages your social media campaign is guaranteed to fail.
An integrated strategy comprising a mix of the elements above plus traditional elements will ensure maximum return on your marketing investment. When creating an online strategy the AlterSage team considers the offline channels utilised by the client and aims to create a strategy that will amplify traditional elements. It is important that online not be included as an after-thought. If you want to achieve great results, involve your online agency from the conception phase as they will be able to advise which elements will work best to achieve the specific goals of the campaign.
Can you afford to ignore online marketing channels? Follow the consumers,
venture online and see the possibilities.
by: AlterSage
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