The definition of interactive marketing comes from John Deighton at Harvard, who says interactive marketing is the ability to address the customer, remember what the customer says and address the customer again in a way that illustrates that we remember what the customer has told us.

1. The definition of interactive marketing comes from John Deighton at Harvard, who says interactive marketing is the ability to<br />address the customer, remember what the customer says and address the customer again in a way that illustrates that we remember what the customer has told us.<br />Internet marketing, also referred to as online marketing or Emarketing, is marketing that uses the Internet. The interactive nature of Internet media, both in terms of instant response, and in eliciting response at all, are both unique qualities of Internet marketing.<br />Landing Page - Sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.<br />In pay per click (PPC) campaigns, the landing page will also be customized to measure the effectiveness of different advertisements.<br />By adding a parameter to the linking URL, marketers can measure advertisement effectiveness based on relative click-through rates.<br />establishing objectives and goals for an interactive marketing plan is the first step to determine the marketing vehicles and placements, the creative execution and the measurement of success for the campaign.<br />Start by asking a few basic, but important, questions:<br />- What is the goal of the campaign?<br />- What is the objective of the website?<br />- Who is the website for?<br />- Why do we want people to visit it?<br />- What do we want people to do on the website?<br />- What are the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT Analysis) associated with the current website?<br />- How are we going to measure success on our website?<br />- What are the Key Performance Indicators?<br />- What statistics or research supports our goals / objectives?<br />Conversion measurements commonly include:<br />- Downloads<br />- Products Orders<br />- Products Sold<br />- Email Sign-ups<br />Interactive measurements commonly include:<br />- Unique Visitors<br />- Page Views<br />- Click Thru Rate<br />- Unique Clicks<br />- States / Countries of Visitors<br />- Day/Week Traffic<br />- Search Engine Keywords<br />- Time Spent (on site)<br />- Interaction Rate<br />- Email Response Rates<br />Tips<br />Now that an interactive marketing plan has been developed, take a moment to review these tips and best practices for websites,<br />search engine marketing, email marketing<br />Websites<br />- Place the organization’s or website’s logo at the top (usually top-left) of every page and link the logo back to the homepage of the site.<br />- Use clear and descriptive text when links to other pages or websites, rather than ‘click here.’ Not only will this provide a clear path<br />for navigating a website, it will also enhance SEO or search engine optimization efforts.<br />- Do not use ‘under construction’ or ‘coming soon’ pages. They send a message that a site is incomplete. Only post content once it<br />has been fully developed.<br />- Avoid using ‘mystery meat navigation’ or icon-based navigation. Navigation that is composed of a series of symbols or images is<br />usually difficult for users to understand.<br />- The majority of web browsers in use are already sufficient to view the latest web designs therefore links to download the latest<br />browser versions are not always necessary. Avoid making users download a new browser version before visiting a site by ensuring<br />the site is accessible to the largest audience possible.<br />- Distinguish links that require a file download, such as a PDF or Word document file, by including identifying text such as ‘This is<br />a .PDF file.’<br />- Avoid mixing too many font typefaces, sizes and colors. The right amount of variety can create a good visual distinction, but too<br />much can create confusion.<br />- Avoid using blinking text, scrolling text or sounds on the homepage; these can be more of a distraction than an enhancement.<br />- Create copy in short, easy-to-read segments. Avoid creating blocks of copy that are too long or too wide. Users typically scan pages,<br />therefore pages with too much, unreadable content are usually skipped.<br />- Place descriptive alt tags on all images, which will provide additional information to website visitors as well as visitors who are using<br />text only browsers.<br />Search Engine Optimization<br />- Create a comprehensive site map for the website and link to it from every page.<br />- Use the same site map structure to create a XML site map specifically for search engines.<br />- Create your content for your customers, rather than for search engines.<br />- Use the title tag to explain exactly what content is contained on the page. Be careful not to use the same exact title tag on each page,<br />search engines may assume that all of the pages contain the same content.<br />- Avoid using link-farms and link pages to boost search engine rankings.<br />Email Marketing<br />- Use your organization or brand name in the “from” line, which tells recipients who sent the email.<br />- Keep subject lines short…8 words or less is considered ideal.<br />- Avoid using superfluous images, graphics, sound or video within emails. Many ISP and email client spam filters will block messages<br />containing these elements.<br />- Test each email message before you send it. Use different browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera as well as different<br />clients such as Outlook, AOL, Gmail and Yahoo!.<br />- Help readers manage and connect with your messages. Include forward-to-a-friend links and printer-friendly options that are clearly<br />labeled.<br />Behind every successful Internet business is a well-researched Internet marketing plan. An Internet marketing plan guides a company step-by-step how to market its product or service to a specific target market and it helps a company remain focused on its marketing objectives. Your Internet Marketing Plan will define all of the components of your marketing strategy. You will address the details of your market analysis, sales, advertising, and public relations campaigns. The most successful Internet marketing plans integrate both Internet marketing strategies as well as traditional (offline) marketing strategies.<br />The Topics You Need to Discuss in Your Internet Marketing Plan include:<br />1. Market ResearchCollect, organize, and write down data about the market that is currently buying the product(s) or service(s) you will sell. (From now on we'll refer to your products or services as quot;
productquot;
.) <br />Some areas to consider: <br />Market dynamics, patterns including seasonality<br />Customers-demographics, market segment, target markets, needs, buying decisions<br />Product—what’s out there now and what's the competition offering? Conduct market research by going to google.com and conduct searches on the types of products or services you want to sell<br />Current sales in the industry<br />Suppliers-vendors that you will need to rely on<br />Target Market(s)—To be successful, focus on one or two small niche markets instead of a large general market. Niche markets have far less competition and they tend to be more profitable. If there is one thing you can do to help your odds of being successful in business it is to focus on one or two small niche markets<br />2. Product Describe your product (or service). How does your product relate to the market? What does your market need, what do they currently use, what do they need above and beyond current use? 3. Competition Describe your competition. Develop your quot;
unique selling proposition.quot;
What makes you stand apart from your competition? Why are you special? Why should a customer choose to do business with you instead of one of your competitors? The better job you can do to differentiate yourself from your competitors, the more success you will have.4. Mission Statement Write a few sentences that state:<br />quot;
Key marketquot;
- who you're selling to – be very specific!<br />quot;
Contributionquot;
- what you're selling<br />quot;
Distinctionquot;
- your unique selling proposition – why are you different from your competition?<br />5. Internet Marketing StrategiesWrite down the Internet marketing and promotion strategies that you want to use or at least consider using. Strategies to consider include:<br />Search Engine Optimization (SEO). What this means is using optimization techniques so search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN) will rank your website within the top 10 search results. By doing this you can get literally thousands of people to your website every day for free. To do this I recommend you use a fantastic software tool called SEO Elite. <br />Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing. When you use this service you are bidding on keywords so that your website text ad is displayed when a person conducts a search on a particular keyword or key phrase. Google, Yahoo and MSN all have pay per click internet marketing services. <br />Affiliate Marketing. This is where other websites market your products for you and you pay them a commission on each sale. This is an outstanding way to create a successful Internet business. <br />Link Exchanges. This is where you and other websites exchanges links to drive traffic to each other’s website. Exchanging links with other websites is also a great way to get better rankings in the search engines. The reason for this is that search engines want to give top rankings to the the websites that are most popular in their category/industry. The best way for the search engines to determine which websites are the most popular is to see who has the most links pointing at their website. That is why getting a lot of links pointing at your website is so important. <br />Write Articles and distribute them online. This is a great way to get tons of one-way links pointed at your website (which search engines love!). I try to write one new article each week and it has gotten me thousands of links pointed at my websites. And remember, the more links that point at your website, the higher search engines will rank your website. And, if getting tons of links pointing at your website wasn't enough, writing articles will also send targeted traffic to your website and it will make you an expert in your field. The way it works is very simple. You write a 1-page article and use online article distribution services to distribute your article to hundreds other websites, blogs, and ezines (electronic magazines). People them read your articles to learn about your products or services. The best two services to use for distributing your article are EzineArticles and Isnare. <br />Write press releases and distribute them online. Just like writing and submitting articles, this is a very simple and extremely effective way to get tons of links pointed at your website. It is also a great way drive targeted traffic to your website. For more information, please visit PRWeb. <br />Advertise in ezines (also know as an internet newsletter or an internet magazine). This is another simple yet highly effective way to market your products or services online. <br />Network using social networking services like myspace, facebook, twitter, and linked in.<br />6. Offline/Traditional Advertising Strategies<br />Networking-Go where your market is, Chamber of Commerce, BNI, etc. <br />Direct marketing using sales letters, brochures, postcards, flyers, etc. <br />Advertising-Print media, directories, billboards, yellow pages, radio, TV <br />Training programs-Seminars that you give to increase awareness <br />Write articles for magazines, your local newspaper, and other publications read by your industry. Doing this will help you to become known as an expert <br />Direct/personal selling <br />Publicity/press releases <br />Trade shows<br />Referral programs<br />Co-marketing with businesses that share your target market<br />Barter<br />7. Pricing, Positioning and Branding From the information collected, establish strategies for determining the price of your product, where your product will be positioned in the market and how you will achieve brand awareness.<br />8. Budget Budget your dollars. What strategies can you afford? How much can you afford to spend per month?<br />9. Marketing Goals Establish quantifiable marketing goals. This means goals that you can turn into numbers. For instance, your goal might be to gain at least 10 new clients each month or to generate 100 leads per month.<br />10. Monitor Your ResultsTest and analyze. Identify the strategies that are working.<br />Survey customers <br />Track sales, leads, visitors to your web site, percent of sales to impressions<br />Determine which marketing strategies are producing the most customers and which are producing the least customers<br />Measure Return on Investment per each marketing activity<br />