The business landscape is changing and marketing strategies have to change too.
Back in 2001 I surveyed over 100 marketing execs in mid sized companies and asked them this question – Do you have an Internet Marketing Strategy?
Mostly I got a long silence. Very few had thought of how to make the leap onto the Internet. Many felt that the death of the dot coms was gong to be the end of e-commerce and using the Net as a sales channel.
In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
The dollar amount spent online has steadily increased each year and is still climbing. We are not at the peak yet. Every business has to face the reality that the Internet is becoming an important part of our lives and over 80% of us use it at work and at home every single day.
To make the most of the Internet you have to
1. Do some keyword research. Figure who is online searching on what words or phrases that describe what you do. Overture can help. Wordtracker is a great tool.
Once you know where your audience is and what they are looking for you can go after search results on that phrase.
2. Be found by these people who are searching for your product or service. 80% of all website traffic comes via a search engine today. Even the most perfect website is useless if no one ever sees it.
So a search engine optimization and marketing campaign is vital.
One of the most successful methods of getting good search visibility is to write a blog.
3. Once you make it onto the first page of search results, you have to get picked by the searcher. The description of your website has to intrigue and entice them into clicking on your entry.
4. Once you get them to your website make sure your home page gives them what they want. Make it usable and friendly. Most websites lose 60% of their traffic right off the home page. Get a free evaluation of your home page.
5. Use a good web metrics package like ClickTracks so you can get full data on who your visitors are and what pages they go to. You can tag visitors from different search engines and terms and see who gives you better ROI.
When you have a well thought out and planned Internet Marketing Strategy you’ll start to see returns coming from your efforts online.
