Internet Marketing Considerations Marketing Strategy

There are as many marketing strategies as there are cities printed on a map of the United States. The important attribute is what strategy works best for your constraints: budget, target audience, competition, visibility, brand, consumer response and components needed to complete a transaction. Examples: Expert, Repository, Public Relations, Marketing, E-store, Social Network, etc.

The marketing strategies drive how information is organized and what components are essential to be effective in reaching the strategic objectives for having a website. Setting Strategy 'Fail to plan, plan to fail'. It's a well-used phrase, because it's true.

Here are some of the key considerations that you need to review before starting your Web site development.

• Revenue & marketing objectives e.g. what customer service or return-on-investment issues can your Web site address?
• Brand objectives e.g. how will your Web site positively reinforce your brand?
• Target markets (demographics, geographic origin) - who is the decision maker in purchases?
• Competition e.g. how do you clearly differentiate your Web site and brand from the competition in a way that gets the right results for your business & marketing objectives?
• Getting repeat traffic e.g. what do you offer that will bring visitors back to your Web site again and again?

Initial Planning & Development

During this stage, domain name(s) are chosen to reflect what your Web site will offer. Your domain name should be easy for your customers to remember and should contain the 'keywords' present in your business name or in the products or services you offer to optimize search engine ranking (See search engine submission below). Also, an evaluation of you current email structure takes place to ensure you continue to receive your business emails during the development of your Web site.

Website objectives

This component is a subset of the Marketing Strategy but puts some meat on what are reasonable, tangible signs of the effectiveness of the design of your website. The objectives should address: distribution, number of anticipated visitors, number of anticipated transactions generated, frequency of updates, and data collection.

1. SAVE MONEY (Save Money by Providing Good Customer Service / Resources Online)

Provide general information for clients who are interested in you, particularly earlier on in the buying process.

Provide information or resources to save you money, for example:

• A Web site is often far less expensive than printing / printed material distribution costs and you can update your Web site in 'real time' very affordable.
• A Web site provides easy access to information and resources for your customers freeing up customer service and sales staff's time and resources.

   

  Web marketing considerations - INFORM:

• What is your Web site's focus?
• How does the focus of your Web site align with branding or overall business objectives?
• Can you provide up-to-date, timely, and regular access to information with these tactics? This strongly determines keywords and phases you will use in your Web site content.

 

2. CREATE LEADS (Build & Maintain Relationships with Those Who Aren't Ready to Buy Immediately)

Did you know that it often takes MANY visits to a website before a visitor will decide to buy or contact you? Provide products and services that set up consistent 2-way communications between customers and your business, for example:

• E-mail newsletters;
• White papers available for download;
• Regularly updated feature articles;
• Blogs & RSS;
• On-line chat and forums;
• Instant messaging programming;
• Flash, video or other animation to entertain your visitors.

 

Web marketing considerations - BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS:

• How can you layout your Web pages so that visitors can easily access Web site features like e-mail subscription fields or links to forums?
• Can you provide up-to-date, timely, and regular access to information with these tactics?

3. SELL DIRECTLY ON-LINE(E-commerce / E-marketing)

• Present products or services, a "call to action" and ask for and "close" the online sale!
• Provide capabilities for on-line transactions.
• These require a secure Web host / service. In general there are 2 options here:
• Real-time processing is when a credit card or other form of payment is processed and the order is closed immediately using automated e-commerce software; this is typically necessary when large and steady volumes of orders occur.
• Delayed purchasing, whereby a customer provides payment information and the order is manually processed by a business upon retrieving this information from a secure Web server; this can be more affordable for smaller business when orders aren't that heavy nor steady and the business has the opportunity to pick up and process orders in a timely manner.

 

SELLING ON-LINE:

What search engines and directories can you target that specifically address e-commerce delivery and capabilities?

How do you direct and channel visitors to the e-commerce section of your Web site? ... using graphics? ... using text? ... using navigation? Web information: what kind of information do you have available for your website? This can be information developed by your organization, affiliates, research materials, associates and/or associations that you think may be informative to visitors to your website. What internal documents are you interested in making available to visitors of your site: brochures, newsletters, memos, frequently asked questions, awards, etc. The information that you use should be a function of the marketing strategy and synchronized with any interactive pages contained in the site.

 

Search Engine Optimization

Overview What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the science of search as it relates to marketing on the web. It is mostly technical in nature, combining programming with business, persuasion, sales, and a love for competitive puzzle solving into a written form capable of maintaining desired revenue goals while achieving high rankings in the organic sections of search engine results pages. It is not just technical, nor copywriting, nor links, nor just search engine submission, but an intricate blend of over a hundred variables into the fabric of a website. It is difficult to accomplish without a formal proven methodology and strong proprietary tools.