subject: How To Choose The Right Online Marketing Tool [print this page] By now you probably know the potentials of online marketing tools. As a business owner, you cannot help but go online to connect with more customers faster and more easily. There are so many online tools today that can help your business. The question is how do you choose? As a rule of thumb, pick an online marketing tool that will not only help you to reach the greatest number of customers but also a tool that you are comfortable working with.
The following will give you some criteria to assess marketing tools:
How easy is the tool to use?
First, find a tool that is easy for you to use. There is no point in getting a sophisticated tool that you cannot even run yourself. Look for an online marketing tool that is designed for smaller businesses because normally, these tools require little technology know-how to get up and running. If you can upload your chosen template and send yourself a test e-mail blast in less than an hour then you have the right tool.
It is essential that your online marketing tool has a user-friendly interface. The website should be simple but with a number of videos or tutorials to help you get started. Your chosen marketing tool should also offer online training and webinars. They should also be able to send you a recorded session if you cannot make it to the webinar on time.
How are the tool building relationships?
Is the tool capable of building a database and at the same time be able reach, strengthen and build relationship with customers more quickly? Let me give you an example. Suppose you meet someone in a conference and much to your delight you both enjoy scuba diving and that both of you both engage in a print online business. Your tool should allow you to note this in your database through its tagging feature and then allow you to pull up your contact by the way you have known each other. Just like the social networking tool called Facebook, the tags feature makes it fast and easy to find people. Tagging should be the first step in making sure that your contacts are organized. By tagging them, you can categorize your contacts according to your liking.
How is the tool tracking visitor traffic?
The need for your tool to have online campaign-tracking capabilities cannot be overemphasized. It should be able to analyze what you have sent to customers and at the same time quickly find out if your customers are clicking through your e-mail campaigns. For instance, your online marketing tool should be able to give the number of customers who accessed the link on custom printing for example if you are into the print online business.
It is essential that after you launch your campaign, you should be able to see a detailed report of how well your campaign did in terms of hits. Through this feature, you will immediately know if the success rate of your campaign is real. With this information, you can immediately decide if you need to do something drastic to your site to improve traffic.
Are there professional campaign templates?
Lets face it, you do not have time to design and develop your own campaign templates. Your online marketing tool should be able to give you the opportunity to choose from a number of campaign templates for email and direct mail.
The templates should be original, professional and easy to use. There should be options for you to use newsletter templates, postcard templates that include tips on how you can build them. This becomes more important if you are into the print online business because it will give your audience an idea of the capacity of your business to perform the job.
Once you've picked the right online marketing tool for you business you have to make the most of it. Make sure that you are current on what your tool can do for you as new feature upgrades, pricing structures and e-mail templates are introduced frequently.
