If you do not have or plan to have a website, you are way behind the eightball!
That said, just having a website is no longer enough.
Internet Marketing will become the number #1 marketing method with 10-20 years. For many, it has already become so. One of our clients, a cosmetic dentist, was facing very difficult financial problems five years ago. Within two years of a strong Internet Marketing campaign coupled with strong conversion processes and improved personnel, the company doubled its revenue. It went from facing bankruptcy to becoming one of the top cosmetic dental practices in the country!
If companies can only take a small portion of the lessens learned from this dental practice, the payoffs can be outstanding.
Here are the 7 Aspects of a Formidable Internet Marketing Campaign:
1. Develop Brand, Vision, & Goals
10% of time planning saves up to 90% in time executing that plan. Therefore, it is vital that companies clearly define who they are, what they want, and when they want to achieve it. There is never an unrealistic goal, just unrealistic deadlines.
With Internet Marketing, it is important to consider scalability and use. If the website and marketing implementation is poorly conceived, it will require huge upgrades in the future, which increases cost, time, & frustration. In addition, if the website keeps changing in appearance and functionality too often, the brand is inconsistent and the viewer is confused.
2. Develop the Website
Initially, websites were just online brochures. Now, websites are interactive, full of content, and sprinkled with multimedia.
We suggest that all our clients use Content Management Systems or CMS’s. A CMS is an online software that divides the content of the website from its design. This mean that the design and functionality can be upgraded without having to change every page.
The best CMS’s may be complex to setup and take some time to train people how to use them, but once they are in place, they can save lots of time and money. We recommend our clients use WordPress for simple websites and Drupal for more complex and scalable websites.
3. Add Blogging Capability
A blog or weblog is “a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.” [1]
Unlike pages on a website, blog posts are categorized and can be more unstructured. They do not need a well developed synergy with the entire website. This eases the ability to create good content fast, which leads us to our next step…
4. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of preparing web content in such a way that the search engines index the content. The goal of most SEO is to provide content that is positioned high on the search engine’s results, and more specifically, on the first page.
This is accomplished by (i) creating great content (i.e. blogging), (ii) increasing the number of high quality incoming links, and (iii) arranging the meta & html tags properly. The latter two concepts may be confusing, and therefore, we suggest that you locate a good SEO company to help you.
5. Social Media
In my prior article about social media, I provide the benefits and disadvantages of social media. [2] Social media is growing at an exponential rate. Therefore, it must be taken seriously. By using social media, the public’s perception is that you are a serious player. Some examples of social media are Facebook & Twitter.
YouTube is a great social media option. The reason is that it provides a vehicle for you to display videos on your site, it provides it own internal optimization to help with SEO, and it has many social media functions built in, such as commenting and linking to Facebook.
6. Email
Email has both an external and internal marketing advantage. This means that you can purchase email lists and send emails to thousands of people and you can also use your own customer base. In addition, you can place a sign up box on your website for visitors to receive email newsletters and/or specials from your company.
My company has found that the most powerful and least expensive email marketing method is utilizing your own customer base as email subscribers. Why is this? You do not have to pay for the list and the audience, for the most part, likes you.
By sending bi-weekly emails, you can inexpensively maintain a conversation with your customer base to increase spending and referrals.
Do NOT use gmail, hotmail, or outlook to send emails. Use a email management system like Constant Contact or MailChimp. These services avoid spam filters and allow you to track who opened the email and clicked on your offers.
7. Pay Per Click (PPC)
You ever wonder why there are links to websites on the right and left of search engines. The left side are organic results from your SEO work, but the links on the right side and some on the top of search engines are links that are paid for.
PPC can be very useful when you are just starting SEO activities or have not received the rankings you want on particular keywords, yet. In SEO, you pay a lot on the front end, but receive the benefit on an ongoing basis, providing you do some maintenance with your link building. However, PPC is only active while you are paying. There is no residual benefit. You stop paying, you stop getting search engine placement.
PPC can be expensive, but it is work testing. Some of our clients spend easily $2,000 a month on PPC. The ROI is not as high as SEO, but SEO takes a long time to develop.
The key with both SEO and PPC is to be patient. It can take several months or years to reach the result you want.
Implementation
All the aforementioned Internet Marketing activities should be explored and tested. They should be integrated seamlessly, so that the user does not confuse the message or brand.
Remember the 80/20 rule: 20% of your efforts produce, 80% of your results. Therefore, your focus should be on the activities that provide the highest ROI. Test, test, and test some more. Good tracking is crucial.
You can most certainly do all these activities yourself, but we recommend getting help or outsourcing the most of the process.
To learn more about how Nottingham Consulting Group can help you develop a Formidable Internet Marketing Campaign, please call [token global telephone].
