Online Marketing Institute (OMI) SMB Marketing Essentials
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A guide to (SMB) marketing on less, for less. Includes online marketing essentials, tips and tricks for building brand and generating revenue.
![Executive Author
Michelle Fitzgerald
Content Contributors
Hubspot, Exact Target, Cordova Consulting, and
Communicate Value.
The Essentials of
[Small Business]
Online Marketing](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/omismbmarketingessentialsspring2011-120202005908-phpapp01/85/online-marketing-institute-omi-smb-marketing-essentials-1-320.jpg?cb=1422597828)
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Online Marketing Institute (OMI) SMB Marketing Essentials
- 1. Executive Author Michelle Fitzgerald Content Contributors Hubspot, Exact Target, Cordova Consulting, and Communicate Value. The Essentials of [Small Business] Online Marketing
- 2. What You Will Learn How to plan in a way that mirrors your business plan and aligns with consumer needs and interests. Why content is critical to building and choosing online marketing channels. How others will find you, organically and via purposeful content strategies. How you can find others with data-driven techniques. How measuring for success is focused inside and outside.
- 3. Step 1. Plan Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. - Charles Mingus
- 4. Define Your Target Audience Who is my ICP*? Re-purpose your business plan to build a marketing strategy. Where do I find my ICP? Leverage industry insights, and free survey/polling tools to better understand your target audience. *ICP = Ideal Customer Profile
- 5. Setting Goals & Boundaries Time is Money. Costs Should be Short-Term. ROI Is About Immediacy.
- 6. Step 2. Basics Marketing is dependent on 2 Cs. Communication. Content.
- 7. Why Content? Because your value prop must be communicated to the informed and uninformed consumer to drive bottom line results. E-mail Social Media Website Ad Campaig ns VideoWebinars Example Content Channels
- 8. What Content? Does it align with your communication goals and business priorities? Does it educate and inspire action with consumers? E-mail Social Media Website Ad Campaig ns VideoWebinars News & Product Updates Fan Pages Landing Pages Ad Creative VideoCase Studies Example Content Deliverables
- 9. Which Content Distribution Channels? Focus on media that has the highest use frequency for your target audience. *Data Sources: Illustrative purposes only 27% 18% 55% Email Online Forums Social Networking Online Channel Analysis Example Where do “Moms” A25-54 spend their time online?
- 10. Step 3. Getting Found Increasing Brand Awareness & Purchase Intent.
- 11. Your Online DNA SEO: The Sole of Your Digital Footprint. Priority #1. Develop a Keyword Strategy Priority #4. As appropriate, create Blog Content Priority #2. Create effective Landing Pages Priority #3. Build out Site Links from yours and others’ sites.
- 12. Your Online DNA Social Media: To Like or Not Like. Select channels based on your business objectives. Is generic SM presence your goal, or specific acquisition or retention KPIs? *Contributing Authors: Mike Volpe, Hubspot; Christine Gallagher, Communicate Value
- 13. Your Online DNA UGC (User Generated Content): Building and Preserving Your Reputation Product ReviewsStore-Front User Reviews
- 14. Your Communication Toolkit Email. Any Customer Prospects Your Best Customer Your Local Customer *Contributing Author: Morgan Stewart, Exact Target
- 16. Your Communication Toolkit Social Media & PR. *Contributing Authors: Mike Volpe, Hubspot; Christine Gallagher, Communicate Value
- 17. Step 4. Finding Others Drive Revenue That Your Business Can’t Live Without.
- 18. Demand Gen Search (SEM) As A User-Intent Funnel. To Drive Leads To Your Site/Custom Landing Pages.
- 19. Demand Gen Display As A Personalized Audience Targeting Tool. Data • Your Data • 3rd Party Data Technolog y • Ad Servers • Optimization Tools Inventory • Direct Sales • Ad Exchange • Ad Networks Creative • Rich Media • Dynamic Media
- 20. Demand Gen Your Site As A Conversion Tool.
- 21. Demand Engagement Email As A Retention Strategy. Frequent Online Shopper High-End Goods Buyer2-Year Customer
- 22. Demand Engagement Social Media As A Cross-Sell/Upsell Opportunity.
- 23. Demand Engagement Webinars As An Interactive Close-Loop Solution.
- 24. Step 5. Measuring for Success Analytics and Resources.
- 25. Going Outside Competitive Intelligence Analysis Syndicated Research Online User Insights 3rd Party Consumer Data
- 26. Going Outside User Feedback Tools. FREE. PAID. In Your Control. In The Control Of Others.
- 28. Executive Summary Plan big, market small. Create sustainable, audience-focused online marketing programs. Support the bottom line. Focus efforts on what will generate revenue, short-term and long-term, based on KPI insights. Data. From planning to execution, track insights (consumer, channel performance) to develop content and to decide which market channels you will invest in.
- 29. About the Author Michelle Fitzgerald Micro-marketing strategist with over a decade of B2B, B2C, Product Marketing and ad product strategy@ Yahoo!, CareerBuilder. and the LA Times Author/chief editor of: Get Scrappy: A (Small) Business Owner’s Guide to Marketing on Less Follow Michelle @mfitz0705 or on Facebook and LinkedIn
- 30. About the Contributing Authors Hubspot, Mike Volpe Exact Target, Morgan Stewart Cordova Consulting, Christa Cordova Communicate Value, Christine Gallagher
- 31. About Get Scrappy Get Scrappy is a pared down, practical guide about how to incorporate marketing into the heart of any business plan. Packed with expertise from Fortune 500 marketers and SMB consultants, Get Scrappy provides real-life examples on how organizations can make seemingly tactical objectives become strategic initiatives that generate results. Do more on less. GET SCRAPPY.
- 32. Looking for SMB Case Studies? AMEX Open Forum [Ongoing Blogs/Articles] 10.27.10 DMA Social Media Day [Slideshare Presentation]
Notes de l'éditeur
- Welcome and thank you for your time. Today you will be guided through the Essentials of Online [Small Business] Marketing. Our goal, first and foremost, is to provide practical insight about:A.)What is Online Marketing is and,B.)How best to apply it to a small business/start-up with limited time and resources…to cut through the digital “clutter” and get you effectively marketing your business in under 30 days.Your instructor and executive author is Michelle Fitzgerald, a marketer with over ten years of experience building and executing B2B, B2C and micro-marketing programs. Michelle is passionate about translating F500 marketing best practices to the SMB community and regularly applies her learnings /experience from Yahoo!, the Los Angeles Times and CareerBuilder.com to help educate SMB marketers. Her over-arching goal is simple – to identify ways to maximize time and resources to build effective marketing initiatives that no one can deny builds bottom line results. What will you learn today to “Think Big, Act Small”?
- Today we will focus on FIVE key areas. And do keep in mind… what you don’t learn or what to know more about, you can always reference additional OMI’s educational resources. (For example - want to learn more about E-Mail Marketing? See the OMI E-Mail marketing on-demand course.)Today we will focus specifically on:1. How to plan for SMART marketing. It sounds basic, but the planning stage is what trips most marketers and business owners. To such, we will spend time reviewing how to re-purpose your business plan to create a marketing plan…and how to leverage consumer data/insights to construct a plan that focuses most on THEM vs. YOU. 2. Content. If there’s one aspect of marketing that I, myself, continue to learn about …it’s how to plan for content creation and communication of it to your target audience through various marketing channels. 3. How others find you. In an ever changing, fast-pace digital world (i.e. smartphone, PC and work vs. personal use of either), it’s increasingly difficult to manage your organic sources of leads and end-users of your product or service. To such, we’ll review how others DO find you online and what areas you should focus on developing to ensure organic users/customers have a positive and educational experience with your brand that ultimately leads to incremental revenue and higher brand advocacy. 4. Finding others. This portion about taking your early-stage, feet-on-the-street sales tactics to leveraging customer data, consumer research, site analytics and so-on to create data-driven demand gen techniques.5. And finally – we’ll discuss measuring for success, inside and outside of your organization ,to retain and find more of your best customers.
- As we look closer the planning process, it’s important to remember that Smart Marketing requires simple plans and simple execution al needs to scale more long-term initiatives. The quote enclosed best summarizes the planning process …..Today, we will focus on how to make online marketing SIMPLE to maximize time and resources.
- Simplifying your planning process for online marketing – what you need to get started, how best to maximize digital marketing channels, etc. - starts with identifying your TARGET AUDIENCE. In the sales environment, this is often referred to as your ICP (ideal customer profile) and is often accounted for and explicitly detailed in a company business plan. (i.e. who’s most likely to use your product/service, top prospects)For marketing purposes, it’s essential to translate the ICP exercise to create tangible communication channels that allow others to find you, and for you to find others. In recap, here are some Related Tips:Re-purpose your business plan to build a marketing strategy. Online marketing does not begin initially with campaign strategy (i.e. specific promotions/messaging), instead it focuses on WHO your core customer/prospect(s) is and how best to reach them when they in an online environment.Realize not EVERYONE is your optimal customer. If it were, you’d focus on mass media marketing, and smart marketing doesn’t do that. Instead, factor in macro/micro economic conditions to develop an online marketing plan that will act big, but invest resources in much smaller ways. (i.e. where does your target audience spend their time each day?)Not sure where to start? Aggregate audience insights via industry reports and social platforms (i.e. LinkedIn, About, Ask, Yahoo! Answers, Y! Groups) to better understand your audience’s needs. If you opt to use forums/polls, it’s also a great way to test future promotions/offersp.s. For more information about competitive intelligence sourcing, see section 5 of this module.
- Setting Goals & Boundaries.This is the second, most critical thing you could do in the planning process. Think of it as identifying what you CAN’T DO versus what you can or might want to do. If only the latter, you’re bound to over-commit/over-task yourself with online marketing objectives. To such, remember:Time is Money. Every moment you invest in Marketing is time you could spend elsewhere. Be smart, be strategic about it.Costs (Initially) Should be Short-Term. True, some marketing efforts don’t reap dividends for months…similar to sales channels or product life cycles. But, at min, seek to balance costs with programs that, by industry standard, DO reap short-term rewards before investing in longer term needs and related marketing activities. (We’ll review long vs. short-term tactics to apply to your business. In a later section.)And yes, ROI is About Immediacy. Marketing, in it’s best form is an extension (i.e. online partner) of Field Sales. To such, avoid fluff and focus on online marketing channels that will maximize your investment and empower your Sales team. Be specific about revenue goals and how you want to achieve them – in Field and Online.Related Tips:TIME. What can I do in 30-days? If it takes longer than 30-days to build/execute, it’s too complex and likely too costly.Cost. What can I feasible afford to do now vs. later? Start with the NOW. ROI. What marketing strategies will GROW my business in short order vs. those that will require 90+ days to see ROI?
- Now that you’ve simplified your planning to time, costs and revenue goals…the next step to forming an online marketing strategy is FOCUS & PRIORITIES. For example:How will you communicate with existing and/or new customers?To what degree will your efforts be about retention versus acquisition?Based on your audience, will it be via PC (personal computer) vs. Mobile.?Focusing your priorities can often be done by factoring in a critical marketing element – COMMUNICATION – what is means to your organization, and how best to do so to grow revenue.Online marketing is a powerful means to expressing yourself over the web (a.k.a. your digital boom box )and a means by which to grow your business. Why? Because over 70% of the U.S. population is online* – checking email, connecting with their social network and so on. The second piece of this step in your strategy is identifying that effective Communication = real simple, effective CONTENT. Let’s spend some time digging into this one – why content (is important), what content (matters) and which distribution channels (you should focus on).*Source: Nielsen, 2010
- So first, let’s discuss “Why Content”?Content (Marketing) can be structured into two ways – Channels (the means by which a message is sent out or discovered) and Deliverables.(the specific mediums/messaging tool by which someone will communication). The former involves more initial strategy, the latteris a tactic by which you will ultimately reach your end-user/audience. Content - be it via webinars, video or social media is your business plan. It’ just being articulated in a way a more digestible format to inform for your target audience. (i.e. What’s your product/service? What are your key competitors? How does your product/service work? What differentiates you from competitors?)Related Tips:Content is a way by which you choose to communicate to your end user. Content is a conversation you are starting, picking up, and/or closing with every person who interacts with your brand.
- Let’s drill in a bit further re: content deliverables, as this is often where it get muddied before anything leaves the door. And if working bottoms-up, then solving for this aspect of your marketing plan will uncover which communication channel s you should/can invest in.Let’s break it down into two areas:A.) The selection process.B.) How much to invest in.With regards to the selection process, here are some starter questions to flush things out:Which channels align with my end-user/audience? (More on that in the next slide.)Which deliverables are most likely to resonate and engage my core customer/prospect?Which deliverables will give me the most flexibility to educate and inspire my audience? (long and short-term)Related Tips: Have communication goals. Ensure every project is viewed as a “conversation” and has the intent to educate and drive brand/purchase loyalty.Prioritize projects. Content-oriented projects can be time consuming. Hire a content curator/director. Hire someone capable of writing, or leading teams to do so, and to prioritize projects.
- The final step to finalizing your communication/content strategy is identifying your marketing channels. Hopefully the previous exercise will have started to unearth next steps. Here are some additional questions to ask yourself to refine which channels you will put resources towards:Which online media channels is/are your target audience most likely to spend their time and see your messaging? (See example)Once you’ve identified “where” your audience is online, then limit (focus) yourself to no more than three core content/media channels. Related Tips:Start lean and focused. Unless you have a 1-2 person team dedicated to marketing, >3 channels will be challenging to build and optimize.Focus on programs that can re-purpose content (i.e. develop a white paper for e-mail, Splityour focus areas on retention vs. acquisition. Later sections of this module will discuss which marketing tools are probably best for your organization based on technology/implementation best practices.
- The tools for your online marketing toolkit are starting to get assembled …starting with a focus on audience, communication needs/goals and insights. Now let’s start to get a bit more tactical.Step 3. HOW YOU GET FOUND to improve brand recognition and user purchase intent.This section will review how to create/manage your Online DNA (Pull)… a.k.a.yourorganic online presence with little to no Direct Sales involvement.We’ll also talk about which Online channels are most likely to become your “go-to” communication toolkit (Push). This is also a valuable time to begin evaluating how Sales activities can/will be aligned with your online marketing activities. Let’s get started with your Online DNA. Your online DNA can be broken into three key buckets: SEO (your website)Social Media (your social/community imprint) and,UGC (what others are saying about you)
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a fairly tried/true topic within online marketing, but ironically, resources are often limited beyond an initial website launch/re-launch. To such, if providing an optimal site experience is important to your business….Be prepared to identify your website’s primary brand KW (yes, content) strategy. Be prepared to think like a copywriter and a KW architect for every page title, header, linking URL and new blog/article you post. Need some tips on this? See HubSpot’s ongoing SEO blog, Aaron Wall’s SEObook or Rand Fiskin’s SEOmoz. Assuming you’ve already assessed your content channels/deliverables, make your website part of the executional process. (i.e. if you are focused on pushing content via email, what sections/pages of your site will recipients go to? Once users land on your site is it a dead-end, or does it incent action items like filling out a lead gen form?) Remember all (marketing) paths lead back to your website. Invest in it.Link to others, and ask others to link to you. Search engines not only rank sites based on KW relevancy, but also how often they are referenced on other sites and vice versus. Assess if dynamic content (i.e. blogs) vs. static (i.e. “About Us”, “Our Offering”) will improve find-ability on the web. If you DO invest time in blogging, only be prepared to address frequency and purpose. We’ll discuss blog uses/strategies further along in this module.Related Tips:-Focus on find-ability and usability. First you must be found. Second, you need to provide an amazing user experience.
- Everything in performance (vs. brand) marketing pivots from your website, but in today’s online environment it’s also about your social media presence. With nearly 2/3 of the population* engaged (frequently and at great length) in online social communities, it’s important to prioritize which SM channels you’ll allow users to find/engage with your organization.A few things to consider when identify how (not if) Social Media fits into your business/marketing plan:Pick your social mediabattles. Focus on channels that are most likely to improve your number one priority. Is it lead acquisition or brand awareness? If B2B-centric, focus on LinkedIn. Leverage Groups, Polls and Q/A. Position your business as an industry thought-leader. If B2C, focus on Facebook. FB users are not as engaged in advertising, but the organic buzz factor from “like” activity, re-posting links, etc. warrants a presence for your business.If both, well, focus on both, but replicate content from other acquisition/retention marketing channel (i.e. site/blog posts, e-mail content).For more info/metrics about social media platforms, please visit checkfacebook.com, Social Media Today or Nielsen Wired.*Source: Nielsen Wired, 2010
- This final point, specific to your (organic) online DNA might surprise some. Perhaps it’s my local advertising mindset for brick-mortar shops, but UGC (user-generated-content) can make/break a company. Consider what recently happened to GAP with the (attempted) re-launch of their corporate logo. Public backlash and where did most of the feedback take place? First – online. Second – in social media. The (bad) buzz was enough to force Gap to pull back the logo and hire a new CMO. Want to avoid the Gap scenario? Pay attention to what your customers/prospects say about you. UGC can be friend or foe. Related Tips:Your most valuable marketing resource are consumer/user reviews. Good reviewers are your brand advocates, while those who had a less favorable experience could crush your business and lead to a revenue decline.Manage it. Perhaps a tad risky, but take a proactive role to stream Tweets, Facebook status updates, etc. that will reflect on the positive tone your consumers have with your product/service.Monitor it. Like it? Share it! Don’t like it? Engage with the reviewer and publically take action, if necessary, to either refute or correct the bad experience a user had.
- Our next section within “Getting Found” takes us to the online marketer’s Communication Toolkit. I wrote on a similar topic in 2005-2006, even created a how-to guide for our affiliate marketing programs at CareerBuilder and STILL find this topic relevant – EMAIL MARKETING. Why E-mail? The nature/need for e-mail has changed. (i.e. less list acquisition) But the fundamental need to have an editorial/content-driven communication strategy via email (where most American’s spend their day), is important to creating a strong retention/cross-sell strategy.Related Tips:Email hasn’t died, but how it’s used has changed. It’s less frequent, more relevant and permission-based.Be prepared to integrate/build a CRM system to support your email marketing efforts.Manage your data to do audience segmentation. AS = personalization of messaging.Don’t overkill it. Be relevant, be useful and don’t forget to ask for permission.Be aware of platform integrations (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn). For e-mail vendors options or additional (tactical) advise on marketing an e-mail marketing program, please check-out Get Scrappy or OMI’s Email Marketing On-Demand course(s).
- Blogs. We’ve already referenced blogs on several occasions. Has it become clear that I/we believe blogs are important to your online marketing strategy? Should you scrap all traditional online functions to focus on blogging? Not quite, but….True – Many go unread in cyberspace.False – Blogging adds no value to your brand/acquisition strategy.Related Tips:Decide if you need a blog. And decide based on this info: blogs break news, share best-keptproductsecrets and feed your most enthusiastic fan with company information and upcoming user/product promotions. Will any/all of these help grow your business? If yes, read on and start taking notes. Decide which blog tool you will invest in and ensure it’s part of your content strategy. If you own/manage you own website, consider some of the most domain-friendly resource: Wordpress and Blogger, being the most popular.Consider monetizing your blog. Or, at best, be prepared for introducing ads further down the road to monetize your traffic (i.e. Google AdSense). Make a clear delineation between a corporate vs. personal/expert blog. The tone differs – one being more formal in nature, the other adding a more personal touch and usually manned by a product expert and/or business leader at your company.
- Our third and final pillar for shaping your organic, online DNA strategy is Social Media/PR. Really? Back to Social Media + PR? Yes. 1.) Social Media/PR has blurred in a Web 2.0 world. An organization of any size can now take advantage of having a PR channel (i.e. Social Media) at a much lower cost than traditional PR channels.2. ) Because Social Media, as a PR tool, is just that important to your push vs. pull marketing needs. Push > Have a PR-specific communication strategy within SM that aligns against your content strategy. Pull > Ensure adhoc inquiries can be resolved in your most important SM channels.Related Tips:Traditional PR rules still apply, but reserve it for the biggest, most critical news. It’s often costly and not always necessary. For less critical items turns to social media channels with your biggest following (or all, if focused on only one or two). Don’t share everything. Be strategic about statements/responses and remember PR is an extension of your content strategy, if not a critical piece of it. Join the conversation via influencers, as appropriate. Friend influential individuals in/out of your norm network.
- Our fourth section of this Essentials module focuses on > Finding Others: Driving Revenue That Your Business Can’t Live Without.It’ll be broken down into two easy-to-follow sections:Demand Gen (a.k.a. Acquisition) and what I believe to be the most critical tools for such in Online Marketing: Search, Display, and yes, more SEO.Demand Engagement (a.k.a. Retention) and there too what I believe to be essential to growing your business: Email, Social Media and Webinars.
- First, let’s take a look at Acquisition via Search (SEM). While wildly popular and beneficial to many larger organizations, SEM should be considered carefully for small businesses to avoid time-intensive campaign management, additive skills that you or an existing on-staff marketers may not have, or small(er) marketing budgets that can’t support the competitive (bidding) nature of SEM. To such, let’s spend a few minutes on:- The WHY (philosophy) of SEM- The HOW (it gets done) of LOCAL/SMB SEM.Related Tips:WHY SEM.SEM will contribute a great deal of visibility to give your website by bidding on KWs specific to your product/service and a .For some organizations, SEM is critical to growing their (online/offline business). Decide if it’s critical to yours. Does your product/service have multiple competitors or require a comparative shopping experience?(i.e. shoes)HOW SEM. (Less tactics, more strategy).Because you have a lean business, leverage SEM for seasonal campaign needs vs. “always on”. (i.e. new product/service launches). Never use SEM in a silo from other marketing channels. i.e. SEM is an activator for Display and/or Email Marketing.For more tactical advise on how to set-up and manage your SEM efforts, visit OMI’s Paid Search modules or Get Scrappy.
- Next, let’s focus on Display Advertising. You might be seeing this portion and saying…A.) What is Display Advertising? Isn’t Display those annoying banners and pop-ups? Sort-of. More on that shortly.B.) What’s the hype about Display? Why should I care?Let’s talk about Display Advertising.Display IS an online banner, but it comes in a wide range of sizes, shapes and delivery methods (i.e. at the top, at the bottom or along the side of a web page). In many ways it’s become, though not in prior years, the equivalent of a digital magazine ad. And for marketers looking to do more than offline/traditional marketing, it provides a bigger canvas to message audiences than Search Advertising. (a.k.a. Add sound, images and greater text.) But it’s more than color ads, it’s also about being able to apply the data/targeting functionality to pin-point your audience based on other factors than search behavior – their lifestyle, their offline purchase behavior, their online site visits, etc. Related Tips: Display ad effectiveness is about the data. Do you have data, or have resources to buy data? Display enables online/offline behavioral targeting (i.e. GAP shoppers), brand or non-brand specific.Choose ad serving techniques carefully. Your choice is dependent on how much control you want over placement, creative and/or messaging.Creative can be as simple or complex as you choose…and as rules-based as your data inputs will allow. Want to get started? Check-out Google AdWords and Bing (now Yahoo!+ Microsoft).
- And last but not least, we’re back to SEO. Your site, your conversion tool as a mechanism for driving revenue.1.) All online marketing channels point users back to your site. Other than an ad, it can/could be their first interaction with your brand/company. Make the experience count.2.) Your site is often phase 2 in the discovery process about a product or service. Make the conversation count.3.) Be strategic in what you want your site to accomplish. This chart, though era 2008, still does a great job outlining the basics of what you might want to do – to engage, to drive user interaction and ultimately to drive revenue. Related Tips:Remember, your website is a revenue tool. It’s as important as your field sales AE.Similar to SEO, site conversion is carefully instrumented via strategic content, navigation and online forms.Define the KPI for YOUR site conversion analysis (i.e. Is it filling out a lead form? Is it engaging with content? Is it buying something – online or offline?)
- Now let’s shift gears to talk about Retention. For many business, retention is just as important as Acquisition…if not more so as often your business customer leads to repeat sales, to referrals for new business, and so on.When we focus on ONLINE retention strategies, we start with E-mail. E-mail was mentioned earlier as a critical part of your Communication Toolkit. And it is. But we’re now taking it a step further to define how it fits into your larger marketing strategy as a Retention/Cross-Sell channel. As a small business owner you may ask – who do I get started? Start including opt-in options – online and offline - to develop your e-mail list. (Remember: Your could have negative legal ramifications if you e-mail market without user permission. Create in-store sign-ups, add an email subscriber options to your website. Identify an e-mail vendor. You are likely to spend more time in 30-days on email newsletter, etc. so be willing to be smart and invest in cost-efficient, but industry recognized e-mail platforms (i.e. Constant Contact, Vertical Response). Store and segment your list. Start with something as basic as an Excel file with every contact, their contact type (i.e. existing customer, prospect, start-date of customers, etc.). If resources allow, hire an intern or marketing assistant to exclusively manage your e-mail CRM database to closely monitor and measure when messages are sent, to whom and post-campaign response rates. Related Tips:Personalize your messaging strategy based on what you know about your customer(s) – online/offline activitiesTop messaging strategies: Educate, Inform and Promote (Relevant) Offers
- And now, we’re back to Social Media. Again? Yes. Social Media has evolved significantly over recent years to allow you to leverage it as an organic acquisition vehicle, as well as a channel to message and re-message your best customers/prospects.But how? More of the “how” can be obtained in OMI’s Social Media courses, but a few teasers/tid-bits:Identify which social networks your (best) customers go to. And focus on 1-2. Beyond your core SM channels, simply be prepared to re-purpose content amongst other channels semi-frequently to cover your “bases” but not spread yourself too thin with content and/or lead management.
- And lastly, Webinars. This is the first time for this channel to surface as a core communication vehicle for any type of customer. Webinars play a crucial role though for organizations that seeks to educate, inform and/or engage in a way that just can’t be done via banner ads, e-mail, etc. If you have a need to take it “step further” and allow more 1:1 time with your customers, then webinars are for you…and far more cost-efficient than live events.Related Tips:Don’t have one, just to have one. Webinars are most useful when hosting a live event could be more costly and/or a product/service requires more in-depth discussion than an online FAQ doc/YouTube video can support. Be strategic and plan as carefully as you would a live event. (i.e. content, technology, pre/post event marketing and integration with other digital marketing channels) Segment your audiencepre/post event based on surveys or live polls to personalize the content.Archive content post-event for ongoing sharing amongst attendees.Partner with other small businesses/enterprises. It can save time/energy to do so.
- You’re now in the home stretch, but probably the most important aspect of Online Marketing. ANY Marketing for that matter. And it’s Measuring for Success: Analytics and Resources.To round out this module, we’ll focus on two areas:Going Outside: Competitive Intelligence and Feedback ToolsGoing Inside: KPI Reporting
- First, let’s discuss going OUTSIDE.Now first, we’ll review this topics as if there were unlimited fund/resources . To such, here are the resources an Enterprise Marketer would use to effectively “size up” the competition, industry or related technology platforms. There are three primary buckets of information: Syndicated Research, Online User Insights, and 3rd Party Consumer Data. The first bucket is the most accessible as a SMB marketer, often containing (accessible/free) executive summaries that allow you get enough info to “do damage” The other two buckets are less accessible, but only because of related costs. (i.e. Comscore/Media Metrix requires a license to access their data). But again, keep a close eye out for related consumer reports that allow some high-level insights on online/offline behavior that only impacts decisions around Related Tips:Get educated.For as much as you invest in reading other industry materials (i.e. Inc., WSJ, NYT, Fortune), marketing-related insights are critical to having an upper-hand in your strategy? Don’t have time, again, leverage an intern, assistant or a more formal marketing department to provide weekly/monthly analysis of their findings in a brief format. Prioritize your investment in research based on what’s most critical to your business model (i.e. marketing/ad product intelligence = syndicated research vs. online data for ad placement insights)
- Second (and lastly) let’s discuss the value of going INSIDE. Let’s start by breaking this topic out into FREE (i.e. homegrown, no-fee-service) versus PAID (i.e. outsource, platform/technology-specific), controlled vs. not-so-controlled.The advantage of free is more control. You personally decide when to do use what and how. But it can also require more time/resources, so be selective in how/when you use them to make the most of your time and purpose for doing os.If time to build/manage a survey is a challenge and control less important…A.) Decide if paid solutions are needed (i.e. you have more robust search/e-mail/display marketing campaigns running), then so-be-it. Explore paid survey/research options.B.) Base your decision on the end-goal. If all you need are campaign tracking analytics, many advertising tools include such (i.e. Google AdWords). But if you need a broader analysis of how customers perceive you brand or have a propensity to buy your product/service, then leveraging (paid) 3rd party tools may be necessary.
- Finally, be prepared to measure every channel you put in place – content, search, display, e-mail and so on…You can see how there are two primary ways in which to monitor success (brand, revenue), but there’s also a macro-level overview of marketing activities that you’d likely compile for a board meeting, quarterly review, etc. based on campaign-by-campaign or by channel performance.But for the everyday/weekly check-ins, build internal KPI dashboards to monitor Brand and Revenue results. An additional way to analyze/structure the data is by Customer and Prospect (back to your Acquisition vs. Retention strategy). Related Tips:Prioritize and document KPIs for every marketing channel. Tie it back to business KPIs (i.e. brand recall, sales/revenue goals). Craft a micro (campaign) performance dashboard. Store past/current/future marketing data in a reporting tool (Access or Excel will suffice; more advanced tools include Microstrategy). Task someone to provide executive summaries of your findings – post campaign and for quarterly and/or annual planning purposes.Need Business Intelligence tools? Start simple. Learn to import/export data from your various marketing channel tools to create dashboards via Excel or MS Access. Need something more sophisticated, then check out….
- So now that we’ve provided a detailed overview of Online Marketing and where to start, let’s recap our learnings of this module.If there are three themes/topics I hope you leverage in coming days, months and even years..Be smart. Plan big, market small. You don’t need to build the pyramids in a day, but you DO need online presence and you do need to be strategic about creating sustainable, audience-focused marketing programs. Always, support the bottom line. Especially if Marketing is fairly new to you, even more so (online) Marketing, then it’s easy to get caught up in what your competition is doing, what the “buzz/hype” is, etc. But don’t. Educate yourself and remain focused on creating programs that will generate revenue – short-term and long-term. And find distinct ways to measure/monitor success along the way.Never forget the importance of data. We didn’t spend nearly as much as time as we could on this one, but data is at the backbone of your marketing efforts. It defines what content channels you invest in, how you structure a marketing team, which advertising vehicles you invest in, how much you invest in each channel, etc. because DATA is the ongoing investigation/discovery process you’ll have as a new/existing marketer.Trust you learned more than few things today to apply to your business. Have questions? Ask your author/educator. Need additional resources to “make it happen”? Reference the sources throughout this module and/or OMI’s ever-growing On-Demand course portfolio.