Smart Online Marketing

Smart
Online
Marketing
Smart Marketing Book Series

Smart Online Marketing (Smart Marketing Book
Series)
Title
Master Steve
Author
Somayeh Amiri, Tara Kamangar
Colleagues
Keyvan
Layout
Designer
Silk Road Publishing (Toronto, Canada)
Publisher
Printed Book: 978-1-990236-03-7
EBook: 978-1-990236-04-4
ISBN
www.MasterSteve.com
Website
Attributions:
Images Credits: vectorjuice / Freepik
Note: The author of this book gives the right to use
the present content, provided that the source is cited,
to professors, educators, teachers, lecturers, and aca-
demic and non-academic educational centers, for an
indefinite period.
The copyright of this bookis internationallyregistered
for the author.

Contents
Introduction.........................................................................................................................5
Chapter 1:
Chapter 1: Appeals of Online Marketing ...................................6
Chapter 2:
Chapter 2: The Process of Online Marketing ...................... 17
The Structure of Online Marketing Plan ................................19
1. Primary Research ........................................................................................ 21
2. Determining How to be Present Online .......................................25
3. Determining the Objectives of Online Presence......................26
4. Knowing the Target Market ..................................................................29
Target Market Funnel and Appeals of Using It ...........................33
5. Selecting the Method of Online Marketing..................................38
6. Budget Allocation ........................................................................................41
Online Marketing Action Plan ........................................................43
Online Marketing Action Plan .......................................................................44
1. Website ..............................................................................................................45
2. Application......................................................................................................49
3. Online Shopping ....................................................................................... 50
4. Content Providing.......................................................................................52

Smart Online Marketing 4
5. Online Advertisement ..............................................................................58
6. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)..................................................62
7. Email marketing ..........................................................................................65
8. Social Media....................................................................................................67
9. Local online marketing .......................................................................... 69
The Importance of Teamwork in Online Marketing ........................71
Analyzing the Action Plan................................................................... 73
Modification and Optimization .....................................................78
List to tables
Table 1: preparation of online marketing plan – stage 1 ..................22
Table 2: preparation of online marketing plan – stage 2 ................28
Table 3: preparation of online marketing plan – stage 3 ................37
Table 4: preparation of online marketing plan – stage 4 ................ 40
Table 5: preparation of online marketing plan – stage 5 .................42

5

Introduction
Smart online marketing is another topic from "Smart Busi-
ness" presented to you in a simple language. In this series,
‘smart’ means viewing the current standards and methods
through various points of view.
Customer is the goal of all marketing activities in any
business. We constantly want to know how and with which
marketing tools we can communicate with the target mar-
ket, engage them, and finally, sell our products to them.
Online marketing is a method of sales and commu-
nicating with the customer started by the advent of the
Internet. Nowadays, this method is placed among other
marketing methods. As one of the important subjects in
the present world of business, this method has engaged all
businesses which tend to use it as a marketing tool.
In this topic, we first discuss the appeals of online pres-
ence. Then, we indicate the process of online marketing
plan, including the plan's structure, the action plan, and
the evaluation of the plan.

Chapter 1
Appeals of Online
Marketing

7
Appeals of Online Marketing
Inthepast,onlinepresencewasacomplicatedmatter,buttoday,
everybody has access to the Internet 24/7, and being online has
become convenient and available. Online sales are conducted
easily. Owning a website has become simple and cost-efficient,
and online presence on social media is totally free.
Today, no business can afford to overlook online market-
ing because online methods target the customer and aim the
target market by modern tools based on various criteria.
In your marketing plan, think about what specific plan
and strategy you need to have for the online marketing
section and how you can proceed them online.
Before we discuss the first topic, the appeals of online
marketing, first you need to know that two business groups
perform online marketing:
ƒ
The first group has to do with those online businesses
which most activities are online.
ƒ
The second group has to do with companies which
business is not online, but online setting is the tool
for them to implement their marketing strategy.
For example, Coca Cola's business is not online, but
online marketing is an important part of this compa-
ny's marketing strategy.


1 First, Online Marketing Expenses are Less
Than the Expenses in Other Marketing Tools.
¾
In the past, when the owner of a small
business compared his/her business to
medium-sized and large companies, it
was impossible for such owner to adver-
tise his/her business. However, in recent
times, online marketing has motivated
small business to grow and do marketing
due to low costs.
¾
Any business definitely intends to intro-
duce its products and services to the market
by expending less money. While a business
can print a catalog, this method requires
spending money. With this method, the
circle of usage is limited. However, online
advertising such as advertising on social
media and website is permanent and more
economical.
¾
For medium-sized and large companies,
online marketing is a low-cost method.
Online marketing has developed rapidly
and become modernized as recourses
have increased.

9

2 The Second Appeal of Online Marketing is
It’s Flexibility.
There are significant resources available
online with which you can research, find cus-
tomers, and use to put a product in someone’s
shopping cart.
Conventional and offline methods lack the
flexibility of online marketing methods. In
online marketing, you can easily modify your
advertisement according to your customers
and the target market's diversity. For exam-
ple, in email marketing, you can personalize
the emails based on gender, age, interests, or
location and then send the content of your
mail or ad to the appropriate group of audi-
ence.
However, if you use advertising billboards
in the city to do marketing for your business,
personalization won't be possible and the ad
will be displayed identically to all the audi-
ences.


3 The Third Appeal is the Option of Reporting
and Analyzing Marketing Methods.
¾
Reporting online marketing result is much
easier than reporting in other market-
ing and advertising methods such as bill-
boards, advertisement in radio, TV, maga-
zine, and ad brochures.
¾
Using various tools and several apps devel-
oped in online marketing, you can calcu-
late the degree of effectiveness in your
online marketing plans and advertisement
and the percentage of audiences you have
attracted.
¾
Analyzing marketing methods results in
knowing the potential and actual custom-
ers of your business more thoroughly and
it can play an important role in developing
your business and provide you guidance
for your future plans.
For instance, you have access to distri-
bution charts in terms of gender, age, loca-
tion and even interests of your audiences
on social media, and these statistics and
reports can be of great help to you in for-
mulating marketing plans. In contrast, con-
ventional methods provide you with none

11
of these statistics and reports. For example,
you cannot check or verify whether the
elderly or teenagers have looked more at
your billboards. Therefore, it is not possi-
ble to analyze and receive feedbacks from
these billboards, but such statistics are eas-
ily available in online marketing.
Understand that, in your business plan and
marketing plan, you should always look for
means to measure the effectiveness of imple-
menting tools in accomplishing your busi-
ness goals. Statistics and analytics tools and
software have facilitated the job for you.
Notice


4 The Fourth Appeal of Online Marketing is to
Select and Aim the Target Market Easily.
¾
Using various platforms and tools, you can
filter the target market based on location,
gender, etc. and aim it.
¾
In online marketing, you can differenti-
ate your customers and audiences using
reporting tools, and by doing so, you can
provide the plan and the content perti-
nent to each segment of the target market.
¾
In online marketing, you can easily have
access to the audience, and define tens of
marketing campaigns instead of a single
one and each campaign would aim a cer-
tain target market.

13

5 TheFifthAppealofOnlineMarketingWhich
Has Led to the Development of Online Busi-
ness is Diversity of It’s Methods.
Online marketing provides you with a series
of advertising tools and gives you a free hand so
you can choose the marketing option suitable
for you. Advertising tools in a search engine,
online advertisement, and email marketing are
some of these options.
While online marketing hasn’t been in the
world of business for so long, it has evolved
rapidly and developed into various branches
that each one contains tens of different meth-
ods. These methods of online marketing are
increasing and expanding, creating wider reach
on a daily basis. At the same time, conventional
methods have been limited to a few well-worn
and invariable methods for years.


6 The Sixth Appeal of Online Presence is It’s
Deep Impact on Making a Tide.
Sometimes, a great number of audiences
become attracted to you after you post a photo
on social media. It is important to post content
such as photo, video or article online and grab the
audience's attention. Each user shares your con-
tent with several individuals. This action makes
a motion and tide that suddenly grab many peo-
ple's attention towards you and your business.

15

7 The Seventh Appeal of Online Marketing is
Divergence of Audiences.
The Internet provides you borderless com-
munication and allows you to impress the high-
est number of audiences using the least cost
and to introduce your business at any spot to
anybody you want.
In the present world, you have
an extensive market at your
disposal where you can aim
the target customers and offer
them your products.

Besides these appeals, online marketing has also pro-
vided some options for flaws of online sale. For example,
in online marketing method, customer is not instantly
able to test the products such as a dress that needs to be
tried on. Many attempts have been made to resolve this
drawback and certain standards have been trending that
would allow customers to choose their required product
and service more precisely.
One of the common methods is that a product pur-
chased online by a customer is shipped to the cus-
tomer and can be returned to the vendor if not liked.
Also, some simulation software tools have been designed
that can simulate the actual product, usually clothes to a
high level for the customer. These software tools are like
mirrors and you can see various models and colors of
clothes on yourself and make a more accurate choice.

Chapter 2
The Process of Online
Marketing

The four main steps toward proceeding the online mar-
keting plan are as follows:
1 .
1 . Preparing the structure of online marketing plan
2 .
2 . Online marketing action plan
3 .
3 . Analyzing the action plan
4 .
4 . Modifications, changes and optimization

The Structure of
Online Marketing
Plan

To make the best of online marketing, you first need to
prepare the structure of its plan and know exactly what
you need to do and how to proceed. Furthermore, to
determine the structure of your online marketing plan,
you need to clarify certain matters:
1.
1. Primary research
2.
2. Determining how to be present online
3.
3. Determining the objectives of online presence
4.
4. Knowing the target market
5.
5. Selecting the method of online marketing
6.
6. Budget allocation

21
The Structure of Online Marketing Plan
1
1 Primary Research
¾
Conducting research about the market and
competitors is the basis and foundation of mar-
keting plan. The importance of doing research
is equal to the importance of constructing the
foundation of a building. If you don’t build the
foundation right, there will be no justification
for continuing the construction because greater
losses will be imposed by building it.
Research on:
ƒ
What is currently happening in the market?
ƒ
What path are other companies taking?
ƒ
What is the latest status of technology?
ƒ
What are the state-of-the-art tools of online
marketing?
ƒ
What tools do your competitors apply and
what is the result in the market?
¾
Write down the results ofyourprimaryresearch
in a scratchpad and take notes. Your primary
research and initial notes help you follow the
right path.

By conducting thorough research and gath-
ering knowledge, you can recognize how to
use online tools in your own business.
¾
Research what tools are most widely used,
high-profile, and more popular to use online
in your niche and business. Popularity has two
meanings:
ƒ
The popular tool is the most appealing one
in the market.
ƒ
The popular tool is pertinent to your busi-
ness.
¾
Make a list of most prominent items. To do so,
create a table and write down the popular and
practical tools used in your niche and business
in the first column. You will add further col-
umns in next stages.
Available Tools
Pinterest
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
-
Table 1: preparation of online marketing plan – stage 1
Note

23
¾
Research and find out what online marketing
tools such as Facebook, Instagram or Google
Ads your competitors use. Write down your
understanding of how your competitors use
each one of these tools.
For example, after researching and analyzing
the competitors, you may realize that they have
been mostly active on Instagram and yielded
the best results from the advertising campaign
method, but they have failed in the method of
influencer marketing because they have chosen
the wrong influencer.
¾
Take a note of your analysis on the methods
used by the competitors and their results. As a
third party and someone working in the cor-
responding market, you can easily find out the
reasons for your competitors' failure and lack
of success.
¾
There is always a dilemma about conducting
research; you don’t know how accurate your
understandings are. Therefore, bring in a mar-
ket research expert. This expert will help you
understanding the concepts.

¾
When you research and find out that your
competitor has put an ad in, say, Facebook, it
is only the appearances you have discovered.
However, if you want to know what strat-
egy is good to be used for a certain group
of audience and in what form it must be
implemented on Facebook, Twitter, Google,
and Instagram, it will be better to ask help
from an expert who can give his/her opinion
and analyze the situation accordingly. The
expert's analysis will be incorporated into
your expertise in your business. In this case,
two lines of expertise – one is online mar-
keting and the other is expertise in business–
analyze the data together and yield reliable
results.
Prepare a series of reports on the market
position and the market research, and pull
out the most popular advertising tools being
presently used in the market and working
for your business.
Notice

25
2
2 Determining How to be Present Online
Define precisely how your online presence
is going to be; i.e. what you mean by online
presence. In addition, determine the field of
your online business:
¾
Do you simply want to have a website,
or do you want to have a page on social
media, as well?
¾
Do you want to have online marketing?
¾
Do you want to have online sales?
¾
Is online marketing a part of your mar-
keting plan, and do you want to apply it
besides other tools?

3
3 Determining the Objectives of Online
Presence
After you have gathered primary informa-
tion and the data by researching market and
competitors, you need to define your goals of
online marketing.
¾
Introducing products and services is
one of the important goals of online
marketing. Using online marketing,
you can achieve this goal more cost-ef-
ficiently, effectively, sustainably and
extensively.
¾
What do you want from online marketing?
Branding or sales? The strategy of achiev-
ing these two goals differs.
ƒ
Branding is essential forsmall and newly
formed businesses because branding
will also lead to sales, but sale cannot
turn you into a brand on its own.
ƒ
Even large businesses and well-known
brands always dedicate a part of their
marketing activities to branding whether
in real world or online.

27
Determining the goal of online presence
determines your next strategies and course
of action. Depending on the type of services
and products you provide, online marketing
is either your only sales technique or a part
of your sales system.
Don’t initiate a task simply
based on a single goal. If you
have big goals, break them into
a series of smaller goals.
¾
Define a series of goals and determine
the methods you intend to use to achieve
them.
Add the information you gather in this
stage to the table you have already created
in the previous stage, and write down your
online marketing goals in its second col-
umn.
Note

Available Tools Goals of Online Marketing
Pinterest Branding
Instagram Expanding the Target Market
Facebook Introducing the Products
YouTube Sales

29
4
4 Knowing the Target Market
Based on your goals of online presence,
determine what you mean by customers.
Knowing the audience and customer (the
target market) is one of the most import-
ant stages of preparing an online marketing
plan.
¾
Know, analyze, and differentiate your tar-
get market. For example, categorize them
based on certain criteria such as gender,
income, job, location, education, lan-
guage, etc. to determine the audience for
your products and services.
¾
Gain the utmost knowledge about your
audiences:
ƒ
Where are your audiences located?
ƒ
What is your audiences' gender?
ƒ
How much time do they spend indoors
and outdoors?
ƒ
What is your audiences' status regard-
ing job, income, and education?
ƒ
How often do your audiences shop?

ƒ
Do they purchase the product for them-
selves or buy it as gift?
ƒ
To what extent do your audiences make
their purchases online?
ƒ
…
Define these items as detailed as you can. For
example, it is not accurate to say that your cus-
tomers are all the entire people in the northern
part of the city. Perhaps if you pay attention,
you will realize that women residing in that
area are your customers. Your target population
will be in half as simple as that. Then, you will
see that among these women, individuals at age
40 and older are your customers; so, the circle
becomes even more limited.
You may still think that you want to consider
the entire northern part of the city as your
customers. In that case, you can target your
customer according to the options offered
by online marketing tools out of three cam-
paigns. Define three marketing campaigns,
and select a single market in each campaign.
The entire northern part of the city can be one
of the campaigns you define. A campaign can
be only about the women residing in this area.
You can plan and run another campaign for a
certain age group of these women.

31
Let's assume your target market is com-
prised of physicians. Write down whatever
you know about your customers. For example,
how old are they? What is their income status?
Where are their location, workplace and resi-
dence? What percentage of them are men or
women?
¾
Knowing the target market has a direct
impact on introducing and advertising
style of your products and services to cus-
tomers. By identifying the customers' fea-
tures and information, you know how to
practically use different items in online
marketing.
Success is a product of know-
ing the target market and the
audience.
The more extensive your buyers' range, the
more complicated your plan, and the more
limited your customers' variety, the easier
your job.
Note 1

As the number of your online audiences
become more limited, you will have to spend
less money on your online marketing plan,
and your work will be more efficient.
Note 2

33
Target Market Funnel and Appeals of
Using It
When it comes to knowing the target market, there is a
concept named sales funnel or marketing funnel used in
the world of marketing and you can use it to reach the tar-
get market.
Using target market funnel, you get a fewer number out
of a large number of people. These handpicked individu-
als are your customers. The funnel targets a massive set of
customers and the set gradually shrinks. The least amount
is achieved at the bottom of the funnel.
The quality you define for the
funnel gives meaning to it.
Using the concept of target market funnel, you absorb
a large number of potential customers or hot leads using
a special offer or so-called a hot offer, and then, the cus-
tomer goes to the landing page and provides you with his/
her information by, say, filling a form.
When a customer provides you with such information,
the first step is taken towards making contact. This group
is called the opportunity group: people who have filled
the form, or downloaded your coupon, or clicked on a link
and allowed you to turn them into your own customers.

The same group may churn, but at the end, a certain
number of people remain to whom you can present your
sales offers, and when they make purchases from you, they
will become your true customers.
In the funnel model, the following path is taken:
¾
Discover
¾
Contact
¾
Choose
¾
Customer notices you somewhere for the first
time. To this end, you need to be present online
in various ways and get noticed in customers'
searches. The more you expose yourself to the
customer, the more likely you get clicked on.
With that, your first contact with customers
will be established. After that, the customer will
decide whether to make purchases from you and
become your true customer or to abandon you.
The more frequent and inter-
esting you look online, the
better your first contact with
customer will be established.
¾
In the first level, the landing page is a determining
factor. The landing page must be organized and
clear. This page is where the audience decides to
choose you or someone else for his/her shopping.

35
Increase the possibility of being noticed by
potential customers by having a proper yet
friendly website and interesting coloring,
pages and content.
Try and have a professional and organized
appearance online and gain the customer's
trust because the audiences valuate you.
Trust is gained when the cus-
tomer perceives you as a char-
ismatic character.
If potential customers trust you, they will
become your true and recurring customers.
That is, they will become loyal customers
who talk about you with others out of trust-
ing you, and word-of-mouth advertising will
happen.
Note 1
Notice
Note 2

¾
Define the funnel model in accordance with
your goals and online marketing tools. This
should be designed for your target market so
you get to know the path toward reaching your
customers.
Using the target market funnel has certain appeals:
9
The funnel model shapes your mind so you can
turn the methods you have in mind into market-
ing plan and transform individuals with the least
potential for being your customers into your true
customers.
9
When you advertise for specified and more limited
individuals, you spend your budget more efficiently
and optimally. Consider which one is more efficient:
when you spend 100 dollars for 100 people, or when
you spend the same amount for 10 people?
9
By creating a funnel, you reach hot target markets
at the bottom, and these markets are the rest of the
main course in online marketing. First, determine
what products or services you intend to sell. Then,
define your marketing campaign by defining some
keywords. At this point, run, test, and modify the
campaign. When you are able to successfully do
that, you will finally be able to yield suitable target
markets.

37
Just like in previous stages, transfer the results of this
stage to the table of online marketing plan formulation,
and add to the table a third column titled features of the
target market.
Available Tools
Goals of Online
Marketing
Features of the
Target Market
Pinterest Branding Employed
Instagram
Expanding the
Target Market
Average to High
Income
Facebook
Introducing the
Products
Male and Female
YouTube Sales
Young and
Middle-Age

5
5 Selecting the Method of Online Marketing
To be able to select your method of online marketing,
you need to familiarize with different types of online mar-
keting available. Methods and tools of online presence are
introduced in the next chapter.
¾
Based on market research and determining
the type of your audience and target market,
determine with which tools and channels you
truly intend to enter the market.
¾
Look at your target market and see which meth-
ods would absorb highest number of audiences
and can target potential customers more than
other methods can. Choose these methods and
apply them to your business.
¾
Using market research, you found out which
tools others apply and which methods have
been effective. Select your methods out of them.
¾
You may want to apply all tools, or maybe two
or three tools are suitable for your business
and customers. To choose these tools and how
to proceed is a part of your channel strategy.
For example, define advertising campaigns for
certain groups and proceed with the process
of advertising based on specific campaign and
goal.

39
¾
It is smart to have your special character in
choosing channel strategy in online market-
ing and avoid imitating what others do. Learn
from others, but be yourself in practice.
¾
Select the most efficient advertising chan-
nel which engages the audience with you.
Communicating with an engaged customer is
much more convenient, efficient and profit-
able.
In online marketing, all your efforts must be
geared toward engaging customers.
Do something that makes people who are
your customers or have the potential to
become your customers give their informa-
tion to you, subscribe to your newsletter or
receive coupons and offers from you.
Human being is distinguished
with his brain! There is huge
potential underlying in this
brain.
Note
Notice

To gain success in business,
implement the market stan-
dards and learnings according
to your personal but unique
standards.
Add a fourth column to your table according to the
research you have done and the results you have yielded
in this stage, and among the tools you wrote in the first
column, select the items pertinent to the target market (i.e.
the third column of the table).
Available
Tools
Goals of Online
Marketing
Features of the
Target Market
Online
Marketing
Methods
Pinterest Branding Employed Pinterest
Instagram
Expanding the
Target Market
Average to
High Income
Instagram
Facebook
Introducing the
Products
Male and
Female
Facebook
YouTube Sales
Young and
Middle-Age

41
6
6 Budget Allocation
Budget allocation is the second key decision after deter-
mining advertising channels.
¾
Compare the budget you dedicate for online
advertisement with the list of methods you
have considered for online advertisement.
¾
You have concluded a list of advertising meth-
ods suitable for absorbing the target market
based on the market research and the tools
adopted by your competitors.
¾
Insert the budget in a table. For example, define
a certain amount of budget for email market-
ing or social media and Google. Write down
the balance at the end of the table.
¾
Choosing will be harder if you have a limited
budget. You may choose, say, advertising on
YouTube as the best tool based on the analy-
ses you have conducted, but your budget may
be less than what you need. After all, the final
decision is influenced by the budget.
¾
Look for affordable methods and tools that are
the most suitable ones for your business.

¾
Spend the budget on items that help you
accomplish your goals.
¾
You can start an advertising campaign with
almost any amount of budget. For example,
you can start advertising on social media with
just twenty dollars ($20). Don’t be scared to do
it.
So far, you have a table with four columns, and at the
latest stage, you reached selected tools of online market-
ing. In this stage, add the last column which is budget allo-
cation. Allocate the required budget to each tool according
to the budget you have considered for online marketing
and the cost required for each one of these tools.
Available
Tools
Goals of
Online
Marketing
Features of the
Target Market
Online
Marketing
Methods
Allocated
Budget
Pinterest Branding Employed Pinterest $ 500
Instagram
Expanding the
Target Market
Average to
High Income
Instagram $ 150
Facebook
Introducing
the Products
Male and
Female
Facebook $ 350
YouTube Sales
Young and
Middle-Age
- -
The table above is a simple example of an online mar-
keting plan which comprehensively shows you in a nut-
shell what tools you should adopt and how much budget
you should allocate to each one.

The second stage of online marketing plan is to imple-
ment the selected methods effectively. To be able to select
and implement the best methods, you first need to know
different types of methods available.
The tools for online marketing and presence can be
classified into some general categories:
1 .
1 . Website
2 .
2 . Application
3 .
3 . Online shopping
4 .
4 . Content providing
5 .
5 . Online advertisement
6 .
6 . Search engine optimization
7 .
7 . Email marketing
8 .
8 . Social media
9 .
9 . Local online marketing

45
Online Marketing Action Plan
1
1 Website
In online marketing, website is the first place the audi-
ence notices or refers to.
¾
Website must be dynamic and interactive. For
example, the customer must be able to leave
you his/her question in details with images, or
he/she must be able to communicate with you
via online chat.
¾
Website must be up-to-date. In online sales
and marketing, a principal rule is that you need
to be up-to-date and change.
One of the customers said, "I'm glad we spent more
than the budget I had allocated for the website, but
we are satisfied." I asked how much budget they had
spent. He said, "The initial budget was 1 million dol-
lars, but we spent 3 million dollars because we real-
ized how much we had fallen behind our competitors."
They previously believed that they are a well-known
company and that they don’t need any active online
presence.
¾
Your website must be user-friendly. Your
website user will gradually accustom to new
tools.

One of the aspects of being user-friendly is
the option of finding your contact informa-
tion on the website quickly. Some businesses
mostly use online market to introduce their
physical shops. Therefore, when your online
presence is only intended to introduce you
and establish contact with customers, all
your contact information must be easily
accessible. To be successful at that, the audi-
ence must be able to find all the necessary
information on the first page of your website
conveniently.
¾
Your website must function properly. The
problem with many websites is that the pro-
cess of sales is improper and long. While going
through most of the steps, the customer would
get disconnected on point of sale because of a
simple mistake and change their mind about
making a purchase.
¾
Yourwebsite must be plain and easyto navigate.
Audience must be able to use it easily and do the
shopping as effortlessly as possible. You need to
provide the buyer with a user guide before he/
she wonders about how to use the website.
¾
The website design must be beautiful, how-
ever, not adventurously beautiful! It's a clear
and precise design that makes the website more
practical.

47
¾
Receive feedback on design and layout of pages
in the website. You should reorganize the con-
tent of your website according to their impor-
tance and what the website users are actually
looking for. You can also intentionally do that
when you realize that audience are looking for
certain content which is not at the prominent
place on your website.
¾
Research and get inspired by others' ideas. The
website designer may change your idea. You
know your own business and come up with the
idea, but you don’t know how to use the tools.
Therefore, ask the website designer to do it for
you. Consult with others and gather their opin-
ions. The collection of these comments can be a
breakthrough.
¾
Try and create an exclusive character for your-
self on your website, so when the audience
opens your pages, you get alerted and becomes
accustomed to it. This is also a part of branding.
When they come to you and see your online
presence, they are reminded of your name, and
someone who is your permanent customer or
intends to become your customer gets to see
your character.
¾
You need to design your website and social
media pages to be search-engine-friendly. This
is to ensure they get seen in Google searches.

¾
Don’t play music or video immediately as the
website page is loaded. Leave it to the user to
make that choice. If music is played when your
website is opened, user may not be interested
in listening to it or watching the video and he/
she will close the page. Leave it to the users to
choose between audios and videos.
In web design, don’t forget
about the principle of constant
contact with customers and
put your website's link to your
social media pages.

49
2
2 Application
In online presence, depending on the type of your busi-
ness, you decide whether you need mobile or computer
application or not. When the user refers to your website
once in a while, he/she doesn’t use an app. An app is used
when it can be used to solve daily needs. When you design
an application, don’t hold your breath that something
important is going to happen just because of that app.

3
3 Online Shopping
¾
Online shopping is suitable for some businesses
and not suitable for some others. However,
businesses that can somehow provide a setting
for online payment are in a better situation.
¾
In the past years, it was believed that only
limited products and services could be sold
online, but the perspective toward online trade
has presently changed. The new perspective is
that anything can be sold online. For example,
no one could imagine that print products can
be ordered online because during an in-per-
son order, calculating the costs was extremely
difficult and long. However, nowadays, you
order in less than a minute; or no one used to
sell cars online and smaller items were used
to be traded, but the circle of online trade is
currently more extensive and online shopping
tools have also become super cheap.
¾
Nowadays, it is a simple job to have an online
shop. Years ago, American companies used to
host seminars for online sales and charge for
membership in the platform, but these plat-
forms currently reached a point where you
have a website with all the resources you need
by paying 10-20 dollars monthly.

51
¾
Using the options of online shopping is one
of the online presence strategies, especially if
the model of your business is not online. For
example, McDonald's is not an online business,
but it is possible to order food from McDonald's
online using mobile; you order while you are on
the way and it's delivered to you when you get
there.
¾
One of the features of online shopping is
that location is not an important element
for you, and anyone from all over the world
can access and then order from your online
shop.
By observing others and doing
your own studies, you learn
newinformation graduallyand
define your peculiar develop-
ment strategy through online
presence. As time passes by,
your knowledge improves and
you become better at what you
do.

4
4 Content Providing
¾
Providing appropriate and valuable content is
one of the methods of attracting the audience,
and it starts with listening to the customer's
demands. You should listen to what the cus-
tomers want and what needs they have.
There are various ways to listen to the cus-
tomer's needs and demands:
ƒ
Use Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) Software tools.
ƒ
Conduct field research.
ƒ
Gather information from the website and
check what is going on in the market.
ƒ
Open a channel of communication (feed-
back) through which customers can share
their user experience.
¾
Based on your discoveries and findings, make
plans about what services you can offer.
So, first is listening, and second is provid-
ing a content that helps people, adds to their
knowledge, or answers their questions about
your services and products.

53
For example, people who practice law answer
common questions online. It's a smart move
because when customers trust your knowledge,
they follow you and it's better if they refer to
you for answers to their questions.
¾
For content providing, determine what key
messages you intend to convey online to the
audiences. Make a list of whatever comes to
your mind as a key message to the market.
If you distribute your content properly, more
people from the target market will notice
and follow you.
¾
Offer the content in form of tables and images,
as much as possible.
¾
If your content is a text, make logical, compre-
hensible, and short. Also, ensure you follow the
standards of paragraphing.
¾
Update the texts constantly.
¾
While writing your text, notice that you are
writing for online view, and not for newspaper,
TV, or radio.
¾
Don’t abandon old contents.Terms of services may
have changed and the content needs to be updated.
Note

Old content is an anti-adver-
tisement.
¾
The content you provide daily on your web-
site/page must center on trending events and
should be related to everyday matters and
everyday life of people.
¾
Try and use the maximum level of state-of-
the-art technology in presenting your content.
¾
If your content is designed for a specific loca-
tion, declare it.
¾
Make podcasts. Despite radio channel which is
broadcasted during a certain time, podcast can
be listened to by the audience at any time; it
doesn’t require reading and can be heard while
other activities are ongoing.
¾
If you have a multilingual website, pay atten-
tion to the dictation and writing style of differ-
ent languages.
¾
You can plan campaigns when you provide
content. Categorize your audiences, respect
the importance of each one exclusively, and
define separate campaigns for them.

55
¾
Content providing via webinar
Web + seminar is called webinar or web-
based seminar. Announce the date and time of
the webinar before it takes place. This will pre-
pare the audience ahead and make them to be
online on the day of the webinar. When that is
done, you will be able to communicate with the
audiences through live streaming and provide
contents according to their needs. This is called
webinar or web-based seminar. For example,
if the customer doesn’t know how to attend a
contest, you can hold an online workshop and
explain the details. This is a less troubling way
of absorbing customers.
¾
Content providing through short videos
Short video has many applications in online
marketing.
ƒ
Produce short and practical videos.
ƒ
Consider the size of loading the video. If the
size is large, you must leave a caption under
the video.
ƒ
Make your own content and avoid copying.
ƒ
Respect copyright because the actual owners
will sue you and report you which may lead
to suspension of your page.

¾
Content providing via receiving customers'
comments
ƒ
Customers' opinion is of great importance in
any business. An example would be a review
of a hotel or a restaurant. The opinion of
actual customers is a reference for potential
customers. Provide a setting so even people
who aren’t your customers can express their
opinions about your services and products.
In this way, you will be more noticed. People
who leave a comment have friends who will
see these comments. Use this potential.
ƒ
Ensure each comment is posted on your page
within the shortest time. However, while you
inspect these comments and remove the
insulting ones, you need to allow your cus-
tomers to speak their as that will improve
your connection with the customer; cus-
tomers see their own comments, and if they
weren't members of your website before, it
will be a ground for establishing a connec-
tion with them.
Attracting customers' opinions is quite appli-
cable to the market research. By doing so,
you find out certain facts about your com-
petitors, identify customers' actual needs,
and decide how to use them in practice.
Note

57
¾
Post the contents you provide in various blogs.
Weblog is still quite instrumental in the
modern world. Either the blog belongs to you
and you have launched it and used it, or you
collaborate with pro bloggers and grant them
a certain profit so they talk more about you in
their blogs. Ask them to share your contents or
provide contents about certain subjects in your
way and share them.

5
5 Online Advertisement
¾
All online advertising methods, ranging from
Google to social media, from attending various
websites directly to ordering ads for which you
need to pay, are part of online advertisement.
¾
Displaying ad or banner is an old-fashioned
method in online advertisement which is still
interesting in online marketing.
¾
Another method of online advertisement is
Pay Per Click (PPC) method. You pay a certain
percentage according to the number of clicks
on an ad. For example, in Google, you specify
that you will pay 1000 dollars in exchange for
each 10 thousand clicks.
Click means a user is directed to the landing
page via your given link.
Nowadays in online setting, multiple clicks
by the same user are invalid. With that, waste of
money is prevented.
The design ofyour advertising tools in online
setting must represent you and remain in
harmony with your other advertising plans.
Note

59
¾
If your online advertising project is not a
part of a general campaign and is a cam-
paign on its own, it must be consistent with
your other campaigns. For instance, what
the customer views on your website must
be consistent with what he/she views in the
ad, or if the ad contains the color red and
everything on your website is in black, the
customer will assume the website address is
wrong. You will experience customer attri-
tion if there is no specific reason for such
obvious change of color.
¾
In online advertisement, the design and
graphic quality of your works are of great
importance. For example, black is not an
attractive color in advertisement and is not
viewable in small ads. Considering such
issues requires a professional designer and
strategist. Based on the experience they have
and by considering the goal, the plan, and the
tools you have chosen, the professionals in
this regard will do your work and ensure it is
perfect.
¾
Sometimes, the case is that a part of an ad is
posted on social media and a link is attached
to the website to view the rest of the ad. How-

ever, when the audiences land on the website,
they may not find any extra materials on the
website or they may observe a 100% different
design and coloring. With that, they will find
it difficult to relate between the early ad and
the website. Therefore, customers are unable
to make a connection with you.
¾
Run your advertising campaign as a trial
model once so you can fix the mistakes. At
the end of this path, you will reach the high
potential target market you want. The ongo-
ing path is the main course of online market-
ing.
¾
Your online advertising ads must be at the
highest level of clarity. Sometimes, people try
to grab the audience's attention by putting a
famous and enticing ad, and when you click
on this ad, their own ad will be shown. Don’t
trick customers because if customers sense
that they are being tricked, you will instantly
lose them. The customer must be redirected
to the landing page after clicking on a link. For
example, if you have created a page for a cou-
pon that can be viewed by clicking on it, cus-
tomer must be able to enter the correspond-
ing page, register his/her phone number and
email address, and receive the coupon all con-
veniently.

61
¾
In platforms and pages with many users and
followers where numerous groups are created,
provide a simple setting for users to refer oth-
ers and use your link to absorb customers for
you easily. By designing an affiliate system,
offer an opportunity for others to benefit from
referring customers to you. Give them better,
cheaper, or free services or direct commission
fee. This is a tactic in online marketing.
So, be smart and view it from this perspective that you
have such a vast circle of audiences. Assume that a huge
potentiality is provided for you which allows your mar-
keting content to be conveyed through word-of-mouth
marketing and your services and products are advertised.
Anyone who wants to give your information to others can
share it in a split second. In this case, your distribution is
conducted easily.

6
6 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
¾
The content of your online advertisement
must be suitable for search engine optimiza-
tion. This must be done such that when a sub-
ject related to you is searched on Google, your
content appear, as well.
Appearing on Google search
requires providing proper
contents and following SEO
standards.
¾
Consider the new options on Google and use
experts to be visible on search engine results
pages (SERP).
¾
Define the keywords related to your business
that are searched on Google and define them
on your pages.
¾
With the advent of Twitter, microblogging has
become extremely popular. Texts with less than
140 characters appear on searches more often.
Use these short texts to be visible on search
engines.

63
¾
Try to share your links on a greater number
of other websites. The more your links are
shared, the more you appear on the first pages
of search engines and the more your chances
for success increase.
¾
Try and put your business on Google Map.
¾
Use Google+, as well because it greatly benefits
your online presence.
Search engines are quite interested in social
media because there is many contents on
those platforms. Use social media pages as
much as possible and apply them as a tool
for search engine optimization.
¾
There are websites that function as social
bookmarkers. Just like online business and
business directories, these websites are actu-
ally a model of social media. People can share
their favorite links on these websites. These
links indicate audiences' interests and trendy
topics. By social bookmarking your website,
you can increase your website's traffic which
is highly influential in search engine optimi-
zation.
Notice

¾
Find Wikipedia pages related to your business
and post your contents inside those pages.
Wikipedia is the first page appearing on search
engines.
¾
Personalize your content and make it unique to
attract more audience.
¾
Create your personal pages on Wikipedia and
link them to your website.
Your presence on various online settings
helps search engines find you.
Note

65
7
7 Email Marketing
Since the advent of the Internet, email marketing
has been one of the most important marketing meth-
ods, and today, it is still maintaining its importance.
Various tools made email even more interesting. For
example, you don’t need to send images and videos;
you can put the link through which the corresponding
pages can be viewed, or you may have saved emails
in your own email archive/cloud which makes things
easier.
¾
The more organized your emailing system
gets, the better results you yield from your
efforts.
¾
Defining various campaigns based on various
target market in your emailing system provides
you with great options.
¾
The subject and outline of an email are the
determining factors in your email being
opened by the recipient.
¾
Design your email according to the rules
using special software tools so your audi-
ences don’t put the received emails in their
blacklist.

¾
Use suitable tools while sending your email.
The new emailing systems allow you to define
name and information for your email audi-
ences in the database. You can even see how
many people actually opened the email and
how many clicked on which links. This process
helps you in analysis.
¾
Using Google, relate your email marketing
system to your analytics system and make
sure you have accomplished your goals. If it's
not the case and your methods aren’t right, fix
them.

67
8
8 Social Media
¾
Social media is presently an important part
of the path to success. Small business in the
world currently gains a great deal of success
and income just by having a proper presence
on social media.
Social media is a setting to
make contact to the customer.
¾
It is habitual for people to spend time on social
media and they use it professionally and seri-
ously. You just need to drive the social media
users in a way that they notice you.
¾
Through various methods including providing
suitable content, attend social media and show
your presence online. Facebook, LinkedIn, Ins-
tagram, and YouTube are quite important for
business activity as many people are on these
platforms and they use them every day for fun
and business activities.
¾
Many people look for music and video online.
Short videos are really popular right now.
Stream live videos on Facebook and Instagram.

¾
Use the tools on social media for receiving
reviews and feedback from customer. These
tools make people talk about you.
Use your customers to provide
content.
¾
Don’t hesitate to useYouTube because it's strong
social media platform. Your website must have
a link to YouTube. In this case, you don’t have to
use your servers as YouTube servers are incom-
parably more powerful than yours.
¾
Post 1 to 3 or even 4 times a day on Instagram
and other social media platforms.
¾
Google and YouTube contain excellent tools
for live streaming. Apply these tools to share
video content.
¾
Link your social media URL to your website in
a way that these links can be shared. When put-
ting your social media page URL on their pages,
some websites don’t show your page properly.
Your web designer must properly solve this
issue for you.

69
9
9 Local Online Marketing
Local marketing is another factor you need to consider
in smart online marketing.
¾
One of facilitators in local marketing is Google
which contains a business directory. Other than
Google, there are local or national online directo-
ries inwhichyou can fullyintroduceyourbusiness.
¾
Social media platforms such as Facebook operate
locally, and you can declare opening and closing
hours and closed days on these platforms.
¾
There are numerous forums and blogs which
operate in a certain location. Make a solid agree-
ment with those blogs and forums and ask them
to introduce you to their teeming audiences.
¾
Another strategy for localizing your online
marketing and advertisement is to automate
marketing. Create a setting where your soft-
ware actions can be conducted automatically.
Nowadays, software tools and apps have many
options in this regard. For example, you have
email address, name, sexual orientation, nation-
ality, gender, age and location of your audience.
Using this information, your entire system can
be automated and the content sent to your audi-
ences can be accordingly customized.

There are various automation software plat-
forms such as Bronto, HubSpot, and Marketo as
service providers.
Use the collection of these tools. Apply all
these tools according to your need, business
model and target market so you can draw
customers into your direction.
Have a long-term view. You can't define any
of these marketing plans for a short period.
It's active patience and planning that get you
to the proper results. Don’t assume that you
can gain success overnight.
There are many businesses that
had thrived and succeeded by
applying only one of the tools
of online marketing and pres-
ence.
Notice 1
Notice 2

71
The Importance of Teamwork in Online
Marketing
While novel tools and advances in technology increas-
ingly facilitate the job for business owners, formulating an
online marketing plan remains a sensitive job and requires
a great deal of creativity. Therefore, it is better to do it as a
team with collaboration of several individuals such as your
immediate team members or online marketing experts
who consult you.
Life and job of people who work single-handedly in
management depend largely on one person. These people
have to manage everything by themselves; they need to be
responsible for marketing plan and prepare the To-Do list
all alone.
¾
They must formulate the marketing plan.
¾
They must prepare the main outlines of the job.
¾
They must manage the design without participation of
other people.
¾
They must define a daily plan for their social media
pages.
¾
They must search and confirm where their news feeds
can be published.
¾
They must find online directory to record their busi-
ness there.
¾
They must have a dynamic website.

¾
They must provide marketing content.
¾
They must keep the standards of basic structures
regarding search engine optimization.
¾
Online presence requires items such as content pro-
viding, keeping tabs on competitors, updating website
and social media pages, responding to audiences' com-
ments and questions.
¾
Based on employees' capabilities, divide these tasks
clearly and distinctly.

Always analyze the process whether in marketing plan or
in business plan.
¾
Here's the measuring point. Analyze what you have
done and ask yourself:
9
Have you met your target?
9
Have you achieved your goals?
¾
Return of capital (This is a non-taxable gain that you
get from your investment) is one of the principles of
marketing. In analysis, you realize how much direct
financial productivity the money spent so far has had
and how proper your method has been.
¾
Tracking customers' first contact with you (how cus-
tomers have come across you) is another principle in
evaluation. Check how people have found you on web-
sites, blogs, forums and social media. If they have come
through other sites, identify these sites and express
your gratitude to them.

75
Analyzing the Action Plan
Trackingcustomers'firstcontact
with you is of great importance
and application in evaluation of
your online presence and online
marketing.
¾
The next principle is the qualityofresults.You must mod-
ify the path if the results are inconsistent with the goals.
Analyze the quality of your obtained results and
check whether these results are consistent with your
online marketing goal(s).
¾
The next principle of evaluation is its persistence.
Compare the obtained results at various points of time.
If you follow a certain pattern of persistence, you can
analyze various reasons that caused your efforts not to
lead to any proper outcome.
¾
Based on the product, the service and the market you
have, calculate how much your marketing has resolved
the customer's/audience's needs.
¾
Receive feedback from your customer on your work.
Things you hear will influence your path and operating
method. The user/customer experience shared by peo-
ple who have used your products or services will affect
how you conduct your business. Feedback channels
should be enabled on your website or social media page.

Don’t look upon customers as
banknotes. Communicate this
feeling that you have defined
the services based on the cus-
tomer's needs.
¾
Test your marketing plan. Testing almost all marketing
tools is difficult except testing online marketing tools.
¾
Run trial campaigns. When you run trials and check
the analysis, you decide accordingly whether to change
your course or to follow the previous one.
¾
The tools on all social media and Google help you with
analyzing the course of applying online marketing
methods. The perk of primary tools is that they offer
you the analytics of your work such as: who has viewed
your ad? How many have viewed your ad? How long
did they stay on your landing page? And many more
germane questions ….
¾
You can make decisions based on the statistics and the
analytics you receive. If you have a problem in under-
standing the statistics and analytics, ask experts for
help so they can make it clear for you.
¾
Determine your course of online presence according
to the statistics and analytics you receive. For example,
if you concluded that you can extend the scope of your
work, do it.

77
Analyzing the Action Plan
¾
In addition to the current analytics and reporting tools
on social media which help you in analyzing the process
of your work, there are also software tools and compa-
nies which specialize in data analysis. Some of them even
run and analyze your ad and provide you with accurate
data analysis and feedback so you can make decisions as
you resume. Those companies lend you insights, and you
also learn some items that you can use in your business.
¾
In marketing plan, you need to analyze the audience
behavior, as well. The audience's behavior may change
over time. This change may happen in relation to your
marketing behavior or due to external factors.
After all, your audiences are humans and you also
need to consider external factors in analyzing their
behavior. Software tools allow you to define various
external factors in analyzing the audience's behavior.
¾
Analyzing your social media page must be a daily
task. Have a discussion and a meeting for analysis
every week. Check what can be done with new cus-
tomers. In monthly plans, see whether it is good to
attend the ceremonies or not. Regarding a season, you
need to examine the seasonal status and goals and see
whether you must make changes or not.
Take a smart look at the analytics and feed-
back you receive from implementing meth-
ods of your online presence. That is, consider
them from various points of view.
Notice

79
Modification and Optimization
Modification of methods is the last stage of online
marketing plan.
¾
Using the statistics that you get and the analyses
that you conduct, modify the business plan, the
tools, the method of using them, and reduce
the costs.
¾
Check all the assets of online activity and make
changes if needed.
¾
If you need to strengthen one of the tools, do
it. For instance, keywords may have issues and
require modification.
¾
Be fully aware of all business applications and
software tools. Do it not just because of statis-
tics and analytics, but because these tools will
lead to solid changes in your business struc-
ture.

Smart Online Marketing

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Smart Online Marketing

Similar to Smart Online Marketing (20)

More from BaharehNouri

More from BaharehNouri (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Smart Online Marketing