Primer on Web Marketing

Web Marketing Overview

Web Marketing Case Study: smbZen

Web Marketing: Demand Generation

Questions!?

Consequences

Shift from offline to online media increases competitive pressures for paid search

Increased competition for paid search threatens companies that rely upon keyword arbitrage -or- primarily upon paid search to drive top line revenue

To minimize risks associated with keyword arbitrage & to minimize marketing expenditure growth, firms are investing more in search engine optimization and in developing niche media properties

Specific Risk Minimization Methods

Increased focus on blogging to drive organic search traffic

Optimization of blog & other content to capture “long tail” search queries

Incorporation of social media (networks, communities, resources) into the marketing mix

Content distribution deals with companies that possess established web properties

REFERENCES 1. http://patriciahandschiegel.tumblr.com/post/75896607/startup-climate

Basic Concept: The “In-House” Media Firm

Use blogging or another content management platform to create a library of content for consumption by the target audience. Content should:

Map to the customers decision making process and sales cycle

Map to all stakeholders / participants in the decision making process

Repurpose content and distribute via social media tools

Build communities around content. Communities are the new competitive advantage (competition is driving SEM  SEO  Communities)

The Web Marketing Model

copyright © smbZen LLC [email_address] Web Marketing Rules RULE #1: Be a resource for the target audience. RULE #2: Be a resource for the target audience. RULE #3: Be a resource for the target audience. Yes – that is the ONLY rule! Resources get linked to and shared. Good resources are, like good people, hard to find! Ok, there are other rules, but this one trumps them all.

Problem Definition & Approach

smbZen LLC has created a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering for small to medium sized businesses.

Management has determined that the maximum cost per acquired customer is $XX.XX USD. Above this cost, the company can not be run profitably.

Using a portfolio approach to marketing, management decides to implement four programs

Affiliate Program

Pay Per Click / SEM

Blogging: serving as a resource to the target community is promising

Social Media: again, serving as a resource to the target community is promising

Blogging for Marketing Purposes

Two individuals part-time, posting 5 articles per week, 1 per day, Monday – Friday

Capital investment for web hosting account < $100/year

Data is taken from the first two months of blogging. The site’s Google PageRank goes from 0 to 4.

Twitter for Marketing Purposes

Spent 30 minutes a day posting links and asking/answering questions related to the small business community

Followers grow from 0 – 322 in two months.

Benefits include brand building, traffic generation, and link backs.

Make it personal. Knowing the person behind the site creates (a) an emotive response which (b) engenders trust

Building a Trusted Brand

smbZen follows smallBizTrends – the leading blogging network for the small to medium sized business community. More than 200,000 individuals subscribe to the smallBizTrends blog

smbZen responds to and helps smallBizTrends over the course of a month

smallBizTrends adds smbZen to the list of top individuals & firms active in the Twitter community = instant trust. “Just add… …Twitter!”

Building Back Links & Web Traffic

Tim Berry (@timberry), President of Palo Alto Software, follows smbzen on Twitter

smbZen authors an blog post titled “An Overview of Business Forecasting” and posts the link to Twitter.

Tim Berry notices the post and writes two posts on the topic that link back to the smbZen blog.

Business Forecasting related topics start driving web traffic & gain a higher SEO rank.

The “long tail” search phrase “business forecasting overview” puts the smbZen post on the front page of Google. It’s 9/10. It could be higher, but for 2 months of blogging part-time, not too shabby!

Action Items

Start building communities around focused topics. These sites will serve as the anchors for long-term search engine and social media marketing programs

Use the topic focused pages / microsites / landing pages to drive demand through (a) PPC Programs, (b) Affiliate Programs, (c) Email Marketing, and (d) Display Advertisements

Optimize microsites / landing pages to increase conversion rates, i.e. decrease cost per lead across programs

Focus on Social Media, SEO, Community Building

Create niche specific communities.

Begin as soon as possible. Network effects, community size, and SEO rankings increase over time. Content production is laborious. Lay the foundation now!

Focus on Generating Immediate Demand

Hire a Public Relations Firm to build awareness of the company and drive traffic to the company homepage if you can afford it.

Drive traffic and sales leads to microsites / landing pages through (a) PPC Programs, (b) Affiliate Programs, (c) Email Marketing, and (d) Display Advertisements