Dont Become Another .com Road Kill
Remember those Super Bowl and World Cup commercials where you saw talking hand puppets, scantily dressed women, cowboys herding cats and crude lettering on cardboard? Can you actually name one .com company that paid for these millions of dollar/eurodollars for brand awareness ads? Doesn't this type of marketing remind you of a IPO.com frenzied "drunken sailor school of budgeting" - meaning, spend like a drunken sailor hitting his/her first port of call in years, with no thought other than "brand awareness" coming to mind? Got the picture yet? Want the cliff notes to the rest of my article? Three words repeated from my header - "target customers online." Some do and don'ts, with the do's first: Think digital marketing - use keywords your customers may punch in to a search engine to find your site throughout your overall online and offline marketing processes. This forces you to stay focused on your customer niche and ensures context relevancy for your web site. The latter is becoming critical to garner high rankings on Alta Vista, Google and Inktomi.Advertise cost-effectively online where your customers go - this doesn't have to be top tier web sites (more expensive typically); but can be second or third tier community sites. Use online media buying to save money; look at One Media Place, formerly Ad Auction for some unsold inventory and bid with the best of them for a deal! http://www.onemediaplace.comFeature opt-in e-mail as a centerpiece of your marketing campaign - now is the time to negotiate a 90-120 day media plan with some of the market leaders. Yes Mail (one of our favorites) is offering a discount of 10-30%. And, use HTML rich media, your ad copy will look much better, in turn driving a better click-through results; but only if you are a B2C if B2B then don't use HTML, just plain text.Immerse your business with the online community - post to Newsgroups announcing a special online contest, promotion or giveaway that builds over a finite period of time. Get those geeks talking in the virtual world - remember the truism of good PR, any PR is better than no PR.Ask your existing customers where they would recommend your advertising to reach them online. Everybody likes to have their opinions valued - so reach out and ask for their input, you'll be pleasantly surprised.Think and act like a guerrilla marketing type - incorporate "guerrilla marketing" techniques to drive your business in unique ways. Go to the source, the guy who coined the term and many of the processes, Jay Conrad Levinson. http://www.gmarketing.comReady for some don'ts? Don't use TV, Radio or Billboards unless you have lots of money to spend (read millions typically). Yes, they work to develop brands, but be aware of the disconnect factor when you are trying to reach online customers. When was the last time you jumped up from the TV set to write down a URL you saw splashed across a screen or stopped your car driving down your local boulevard when you saw a billboard that caught your attention? Not very often!Don't pay top dollar for banner advertising - negotiate a good deal for yourself and don't believe the sales rep when they tell you all inventory is sold out! There is lots of unsold inventory out there, just look at the number of "house ads" (done for the company who owns the site and published on their site) being run on many web sites. Do some old-fashioned digital horse-trading and leverage your media buy!Don't base your business on the "high tide raises all boats model" - there is definitely a storm brewing and we don't mean just at your local movie theater with George Clooney starring (sorry ladies). We are telling our clients to batten down the hatches and leverage their marketing dollars as much as possible - the party is over, time to get down to building viable business models based on selling tangible goods and services.Don't use biz speak verbiage in your marketing processes - if I see another site that has "first mover advantage" quoted throughout the site I am going back to the radio for news/information. Be real, tell people what you do, how you do it and what the value is based on - enabling them to quickly (it's the web ...) understand what your business is all about.About The Author Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Is The Internet the Ideal Marketing Medium?
The internet has grown explosively in the ten or so years that it has been in widespread use,and internet marketing has grown along with it. Many factors contribute to making the internet the ideal business medium.
You are Being Lied About Reciprocal Links!
Exchanging links has been an important part of generating traffic since the concept of Internet marketing was first established, but at least 90% of people looking to trade links don't understand the real benefits and, therefore, fail to make the most of them.
So What If You Dont Have A Website?
Gasp! Choke! Gag! That's how people react when you tell them your business does not have a website. So do you really need one?
Why People Will Look Back In Years To Come And Wish They Were You
It's true. Just think about it for a minute - the World Wide Web as we know it has really only been around for around 10 years or so. So everyone who already has a website and is getting business through it, or improving their business in some way by having one, is truly at the forefront of the web.
Creating Your Internet Marketing Plan
For large corporations, a marketing plan is a huge document detailing strategies for the fiscal year. It may include competitor analysis or a sales forecast. While these elements are important to a large business, do you as a small business owner (without a well paid marketing staff) have the time or energy to devote to putting together a huge document? Unless you are trying to get a financial loan, probably not...
Motivating Shoppers with Online Coupons (Part 1 of 2)
Online shopping continues to grow at leaps and bounds. Depending on who you ask, the numbers for increase in e-commerce have been consistently coming in at 20-30% year over year. These numbers present a great opportunity for online stores of both products and services. But despite these staggering figures, increasing competition continues to dilute the marketplace. One great opportunity for sellers to increase traffic and revenue in their virtual stores is to offer online coupon codes and discounts through an affiliate program and their advertising. Coupons and discounts have always been a great way to motivate buyers in brick and mortar stores, and now that opportunity has migrated to web shopping!
Make Your Internet Marketing Easier With Niche Marketing Keywords
If your home based business depends on niche marketing, keywords are your best friends. If your answer to the first sentence was no, you are missing out on a lot of potential business. This is because keywords are what people search for on search engines like Google, Yahoo, Excite, and if the keyword being searched on matches keywords provided on your Web site then your web page will be returned as a result.
Marketing Your Business - How Do I Adapt To The Internet?
The way we do business is changing rapidly. From VOIP, video conferencing, email support, telephone answering services, and the almighty internet. As a business owner we are faced with hundreds of decisions our parents and grandparents never had to contend with.
My Dumbest Marketing Blunder And How You Can Avoid It
When I started submitting Ezine articles, I never realized their true power. I was just happy to see the articles being published.
Book Yourself Solid, 7 Keys To Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing
If you haven't already heard the buzz, Michael Port is the guy to call when you're tired of thinking small! Michael Port & Associates LLC is the premier marketing and sales strategy-consulting firm for professional service providers. He is the author of the best-selling Book Yourself Solid program and is thrilled to share 7 Keys to getting more clients than you can handle even if you hate marketing and selling. Over the next seven articles, he'll share the secrets he used to turn his own self-employed business without a pulse into a healthy $112,200 income in less than 10 months.
Why Offline Advertising is So Important for Websites
It is important that anybody with a significant online presence understands why offline ads are so important and more so why they are usually much more effective than online advertisements. This is very useful knowledge that will no doubt impact dramatically on the success and profitability of any online enterprise. More so when numerous businesses have lost significant amounts trying to advertise online and have ended up with virtually nothing to show for their efforts. Even the much-talked about pay-per-click ads have been hit by increasing click fraud in recent times. This is where software is created to continuously click at ads with the motive of landing the advertiser with a huge ad bill and no business. Other times the software has been used to profit webmasters who post the pay-per-click ads as affiliates and earn a percentage of the cash paid by the client for every single click that happens on their site.
Its a Community Thing!
You have this great website, you have sent out e-mails regarding your services, printed out hundreds of brochures which you have given to friends and relatives, but what you really need is to get people talking about what you offer. You know that if you can do that, people will recommend you to others and your client base will begin to grow. Sounds great, doesn't it? But how on earth do you get people talking?
3 Simple Ways to Harness the Concept of the Free Offer for Internet Marketing
One of the reason why the concept of free stuff online works really well has a lot to do with the nature of the internet where people go online to find free information and share music online. Many good internet marketers have learnt that offering free things to their website visitors can help make them more money online and this article highlights three simple strategies that successful internet marketers have used.
Standing Out Head and Shoulders Above the Rest
Using Online Communities to Differentiate Your Website
How To Be An Internet Marketing Champion
How bad do you want to make money on the internet? You know thousands of people are doing it and maybe you've had a little success. But do you really want your own business operating 24 hours a day making money for you?
How To Increase Your Online Sales Anytime
Hold a discount sale on your web site. Use the sale to get rid of excess inventory, gain new or repeat customers, and increase your sales. Most businesses pick a theme for their sale, like a Halloween Sale. Below are six unique sales themes you could use:
Google Sitemaps ? A New Free Google Tool
Google has released another valuable. The tool, "Sitemaps", allows you to notify Google of site updates. As with all Google tools, the service is free.
Weblogs, Podcasting, and RSS Newsfeeds in the Marketing Mix
Weblogs and Podcasting in the Marketing Mix
Internet Marketing: 10 Ingenious Secret Strategies To Explode Your Sales
Marketing on the internet is getting harder and harder daily.
The 3 Keys To Business Victories
No matter what business you are in there is a high chance of failure. Why? Because most people don't do the research and keep the right focus needed to succeed.
|
