In this third part of our series we cover an important topic. Based on recent pieces we’ve seen online, or in magazines, many private business leaders are frustrated with the complexity of digital marketing and it’s new applications, online tools and strategies. While many of today’s consumers blithely transition to the Next Thing,* a host of marketing managers and corporate VP’s find themselves camped on the threshold of important changes.
Our Online Marketing Awareness Map
How to make the right decisions with so many new choices? We’ll admit there’s no single easy answer to that question. But then, marketing has never been easy. Web 2.0 is often called the participatory Web, a place where blogs, social networking sites and media sharing sites have transformed the world of marketing.
Our own efforts in this regard are straightforward. We developed an Online Marketing Awareness Map as an early step in creating a visual tool for discussion. It has since led to a laptop presentation, and to this particular series of Infusion Blog posts (please see Part I and Part II if you haven’t already read them).
Your Website Is The Base Station For Your Online Marketing Program
Websites
Our map begins (see illustration) with the top circle, labeled Websites. Today we field fewer questions about websites (we’ve all seen our share). Yet many clients do not fully realize their website is just the beginning of their online marketing program. Yes, it must be supplied with good content, usability, optimization and branding. It is indeed the base station for an entire online marketing program. Yet, it’s also a latent form of energy. For most business websites there’s much to be done in bringing real excitement, traffic and new results. Often the goal is to transform a static asset into a compelling and effective online marketing program. Think of your business site as the first step. It’s important to have a sense of where that latent energy may be going: to substantiate your credentials, or tell a product story, or generate direct e-commerce sales. The purpose and overall depth of content on your domain may suggest a follow up strategy for online marketing.
Online Advertising
Moving clockwise to Online Advertising, our next circle. Again, few of us are strangers to this. By online advertising we refer to web based ads such as banners, tiles, widget ads or sponsored listings on Google (organic listings are discussed in Content Marketing). For banners, tiles and other units we’re looking at a Push Strategy similar to offline advertising, where you pay for exposure based on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM). Sponsored listings emulate the search characteristics of organic listings in everything but price, since you must pay for them, typically using a Pay Per Click (PPC) model. Online advertising in all its forms… requires a direct monetary investment. Dollars for traffic!
Dollars for Traffic!
For many marketers this is as far as they go: build a website and buy online ads linked to specified landing pages. An ecommerce site with branded items or specialty merchandise, coupled with good prices can do this pretty well, especially if they have read their niche properly.
Content Marketing - Builds traffic, credibility and reputation.
Our next category is Content Marketing. We see Content Marketing as long content designed to display thought leadership with high “favorables” on search engines. This means well developed websites, blogs, or sites in combination with blogs. With a blog you add fresh content and a new page to your domain with every post. Attract visitors with comments and your blog is building inbound links, another natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO) benefit. Blogs build traffic, credibility and reputation — nice things to have for one’s professional life or brand.
A good approach to blogging may require originality, or an Outside the Box approach to a niche topic. But it doesn’t have to be creative per se. Start by solving a problem your audience cares about. Find a voice. Build trust, confidence, desire. Be engaging. And, don’t oversell. In effect, you may want to begin by commenting on something that others in your industry have expressed or said. When you begin blogging, you’ll want to read other blogs and make appropriate comments. Join the discussion. Just don’t be too obvious about selling or becoming a shill for your product. Think of yourself as attending a business reception. Show a sincere interest in something someone else has said or written, that’s a good way to obtain natural reciprocity in a return visits to your blog.
Blogs humanize a brand, which is a very special thing. Who is blogging these days? A huge number of organizations and people involved in virtually every business and profession, from software development, training and freelancers, to product manufacturers, distributors, wineries, galleries and travel destinations, etc.
As with everything else, you’ll want to open yourself and your business to further innovation. Think of it as a creative fusion between the offline marketing you may be accustomed to and the new digital marketing you’re seeking to engage.
This discussion of the Online Marketing Awareness Map continues in Part IV.
Stay tuned.
Best wishes…
Greg Johnson
P.S. Next up, Part IV Outside The Box: The Online Marketing Awareness Map Continued, where we shall introduce Social Networking, Webinars, Videos, Email Newsletters and Landing Pages. * A favorite question often posed to the unsuspecting by Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
