Jump start your online marketing

Jump Start Your Online Marketing
Essential Elements of Online Marketing Success for Small Business

Why Is It Important To Focus On Online Marketing?

According to research firm Marketing
Sherpa, 80% of business decision-
makers who made a recent purchase
said they found the product vendor.
While just 20% said the product
vendor found them.

Source: Marketing Sherpa, 2009

66% of consumers responding to an offline
advertisement visited the web site of the
company advertised or a search engine to
learn more, while only 14% called a phone
number from the advertisement, the survey
says.

Source: Jupiter Research, 2009

WestchesterMarketingCafe.com

Goal Setting – Review Your Marketing Plan

Know your audience
– Who are your target customers?
Know your message
– Different audiences will require different information; but be consistent in your
brand

Know your plan
– Look past this week’s blog post; what is the integrated plan for the year?

"Begin with the end in mind.“
- Stephen Covey


Essential Elements of Online Marketing

Strong website
– Professional, well organized site
– Optimized for search engine placement
Staying in front of your audience
– Social networking opportunities
– eMail contact
– Offline marketing

Analytics to refine efforts


What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ?

Search Engine Optimization is the
methodology you use to increase your
site’s placement in the search engines.

Top things you should know:
– Keywords
– On-page Factors
– Content Development
– Inbound Links


Keywords

Keywords and keyword phrases are how the search engines know what your
site is all about.
– Develop a list of strong, relevant keywords
• Broad terms
• Narrow terms
• Keyword phrases
– Free tools
• www.adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer
• www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com
• www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html

Avoid choosing keywords that are too
competitive, too broad or too unique.


On-Page Factors

Factors effecting page rank
– Title tags
– Meta description and meta keywords
– Header tags & text modifiers
– Images alt tags
– Contextual links
– Validate HTML

Free tools
– Widexl.com
– Hubspot; http://websitegrader.com/
– W3C; http://validator.w3.org/

Search engines don’t rank sites, they rank
individual pages.


Content Development

Key points for effective content development
– Write for people
– No duplication
– Keyword density
– Keep content current
• Blogging

Free tools
– www.copyscape.com
– www.webuildpages.com/seo-tools/keyword-density


Inbound Links

Your relevancy is lifted by quality sites linking to your site; especially if the
links are from keyword-rich anchor text.
– Acquire quality, not quantity
– Link and article directory submissions
– Community participation
• Blogs and forums

Find who’s linking to your competitors by
searching “link:url.com” on Google ,
“domainlink URL.com” on Yahoo.


What Is Social Media?

Social media is a way of connecting to your customers in a way that THEY
are comfortable with. It’s permission-based vs. interruption-based.

Top things you should know:
– Complete your profile
– Participate
– Be Yourself
– Don’t sell!
– Logistics; who, what, where, when, why?


Be An Active Participant

Complete your profile
– Photos
– Links to your site
– Professional associations

Participate
– Share your knowledge
– Ask questions
– Join the conversation
Be yourself
– People want to connect with other people

Social media is a marathon, not a sprint.


Logistics

“Who” could be interns, staff
– Someone very familiar with your brand
“What” could be contests, YouTube videos,
articles of interest, latest news
– Engaging content of interest to your audience
“Where” should be the channel that makes
the most sense given your target audience
– Pick what works best for your business
“When” should be at least once a day
– Older content gives way to newer updates
“Why” is to build your network, establish
authority and improve SEO
– It’s Social Media Marketing


Facebook 101

Profile
– Profile is YOU
– Must confirm “friends”
– Various privacy controls

Page
– Page is YOUR BUSINESS
– Do not need to confirm “likes”
– Everyone can see


Twitter 101

Do not need to allow “followers”

Share your status in 140 characters or
less

Little privacy control


LinkedIn 101

Tends to be more formal
– Many groups around various topics
– Discussion thread in which you can
participate and ask questions
You add “connections”
– Can view your connections’ contacts
to build your network


SM Aggregators

Free tools
– Tweetdeck
– Ping.fm
– FriendFeed
– Minggl
– Twhirl


eMail Campaigns

Top Things You Should Know:
– Be professional 74% of Internet users age 64
and older send and receive
– Be regular
email, making it the most popular
– Be relevant online activity for this age group.
– Be brief - Pew Internet and American Life
Project (Feb 2009)
– Be specific

The number of marketing emails sent by
U.S. retailers and wholesalers this year
will hit 158 billion and grow 63% to 258
billion in 2013. - Forrester's US Email
Marketing Volume Forecast (2008)


Be Professional

Use a service
– MailChimp, Constant Contact, MyEmma, etc.
• Will help you manage your lists
• Will help you manage your campaigns &
provide stats to help you improve your return

Build a “clean” list
– Optin form on website
– Link to optin from your email signature
– Provide special incentives

Be clear how you’ll use the list
– Don’t share or sell
– Opt outs will be respected
– Your frequency; weekly, daily, monthly


Be Regular

Create an editorial calendar
– Know what you’ll be writing about for the next 6 months.
Set a schedule and stick too it
– Too frequent and you’ll annoy your readers
– Too infrequent and they’ll forget who you are

Optimal schedule will be determined by subject matter
– Twice a month is OK

Invite guest authors to cross-promote and
infuse fresh ideas.


Be Relevant

No one cares about YOU besides your mother
– What are you saying that helps your audience?
• Useful / educational information about your industry
• Offers or discounts
– Always write for the audience’s benefit
– It should be current
• Respond to recent news stories or developments in your industry
– Keep it brief
• For longer articles provide a synopsis or an introductory paragraph with a link to the
complete article

Blogs and forums will provide you will
timely topics to which you can respond.


Be Specific

Include a “call to action”
– What do you want your readers to do?
• Click through to website?
• Respond to a specific offer?
• Send to a friend?
– Don’t make readers work to find what you want them to do
– Links should go to relevant content on your website
• A link to your home page makes readers work to get to where you want them to go.


Avoiding the Spam Bots

Avoid spammy phrases
– Click here!
– Once in a lifetime opportunity
Avoid using one big image
– Also bad for mobile devices
– Often are turned off by default

Avoid sloppy HTML
– Use a professional
– Use a template
– DO NOT USE MICROSOFT WORD
Avoid all caps
– It’s considered yelling


Assessing Progress

To be successful you need to track your stats and see what’s working, build
on those successes and eliminate what’s not working.
– Google Analytics
– Social media reach
– Email campaign statistics

Statistics are tools, they are not goals.


Website Analytics

Focus on the big picture
– Traffic
• Volume
• Bounce rate
– Traffic sources
• Sites
• Keywords
– Pages/visit
– Time on site

Free tools:
– Google analytics
– Hubspot Website Grader
http://websitegrader.com/


Social Media Statistics

Focus on interactions
– Facebook Insights
– Twitter mentions and retweets
– LinkedIn searches and profile views

Free tools
– http://klout.com/


Email Campaign Statistics

Focus on clicks
– Clickthrough volume
– Clicks by link
Don’t ignore optouts or complaints
– If these are too high you’re doing
something wrong.


Jump start your online marketing

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