Internet Marketing
Whatever you are selling there ARE people looking to buy from you….!
Whether you sell widgets or business strategy solutions, recognised products or problem solving services then there are people searching for your business on the internet. Your website is your online shop front or your office on the web and the way that you can reach a whole new marketplace.
The online market is not a market that you cannot afford to miss!
Did you know that:
Google has 68% of the Market Share of UK search in August 2006 (Nielsen/NetRatings)
706 million searches were undertaken by UK internet users in August 2006 (an increase of 30 million from February). That equates to 15,800 searches per minute across UK search engines.
85% of business executives use search engines.
69% of business to business internet users look to find out more about a product or service online before they buy.
What is Internet Marketing?
Internet Marketing helps you access your target audience on the internet. Each business is different and so the search behaviour of one target audience may differ from the search behaviour of another. It is therefore crucial that you understand the online behaviour of your target audience just as much as you would expect to for any other marketing campaign. Would you spend money n advertising or promotion without first considering what return you should expect from your investment? Well, internet marketing is exactly the same - there are many different techniques and you should consider which internet marketing techniques are most likely to appeal to your target audience.
Internet Marketing Techniques:
- Organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - the process of making your site search engines friendly and getting ranked by the search engines for key phrases that your target audience is using to find your products/services
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) - Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN AdCenter are all examples of PPC Advertising. It involves researching your key phrases and setting up a campaign where you bid against your competitors for positions under the ‘sponsored listings’ area of a search engine (usually 3 positions above the organic results and the right hand column in the search results). As a general rule the highest bidder gets the highest positions.
- Banners and paid online adverts - sites that have lots of exposure to your target audience may sell advertising space. The success of this approach depends on the levels of traffic to the main site and how attractive and relevant your advert is. Banner advertising is often most effective for increasing brand awareness.
- Email Marketing - this has been proven to be successful if the quality of leads are good. You need to be wary of spamming and understand the groups that you will be targeting. It is a good idea spent time on getting the email design right.
- Newsletters - this can be a very effective way to market to people who have chosen to receive your newsletter. Free sign ups and regular useful information are a sure way to keep prospects interested and informed of your services.
- Online PR and article marketing - articles and press releases can be written and submitted to appropriate sites to get your message out there. If you have articles of interest then others will pick them up and pass the word on for you - the affect of this is commonly known as "viral marketing".
- Blogs, forums and networking - through contributing to the right kinds of online discussion you can increase your online profile and potentially generate leads for your business.
The Internet Marketing techniques mentioned above form the most common mix of options available. Some techniques will be more effective than others and while we can advise you on the strategy that is most appropriate for your business we would generally recommend conducting campaign trials to judge the level of expected success.
Our specialists can discuss these options with you so that you can make an informed decision about which techniques to employ.
