Internet Marketing
2010 Online Marketing Predictions
As the year comes to an end many business owners will be taking the time over the holidays to review their goals and to adjust their marketing strategy for 2010.
With that in mind, here are our top 10 online marketing predictions for 2010:
1. Mobile Marketing
Over the past few years mobile marketing has had a lot of mention in the press, but the ability of the average business owner to take advantage of mobile marketing has been limited. With the debut and massive uptake of the iPhone by consumers, mobile marketing has quickly become a viable marketing channel for many businesses of all sizes. In fact, we are already seeing some very promising results from some of the mobile marketing initiatives which we have implemented.
How To Use Search Engine Marketing to Increase Brand Awareness
Recent research in consumer behaviour has shown that 76% of consumers use search engines when making decisions about the sites or stores from which to purchase products. Search engine marketing takes advantage of this trend by having your website appear in front of these consumers when they are searching for something online.
Search engine marketing has been used for over a decade to increase sales and build businesses online. What many people don’t realise is that brand awareness can also be built using search engine marketing (ie pay-per-click advertising & search engine optimisation) and can provide additional benefits that may not be achieved through other online marketing mediums. With this in mind, there are specific techniques for implementing search engine marketing campaigns that can also help build brand awareness online.
How To Grow Your Business Online
In the current economic climate, the Internet represents one of the strongest and most cost effective marketing channels available. An online marketing campaign has the ability to transform a business even in times of recession, if it is implemented correctly. Whether you have a limited budget of $1,000 per month or a substantial budget in excess of $20,000 a month, the Internet has opportunities for you to gain maximum return on investment to take your company to the next level.
Here is a proven process of growing your business online that we have used time and time again to grow businesses online in a variety of different industries.
6 Lessons We Can Learn From Barack Obama’s Online Marketing Strategy
Watching the US presidential coverage on the news always provides entertainment, especially considering how intense the democratic nomination was. While watching one of these segments they mentioned that Barack Obama had raised 100% of his campaign funding through online contributions.
He has not accepted any campaign contributions from large companies or lobbyists. Instead, Barack Obama’s campaign has been one of the most profitable in history, with the majority of campaign contributions made online through over a million small contributions.
In fact, Barack Obama has raised nearly $200 million online, with a record $55 million raised in February alone, or nearly $2 million per day.
That hit my button.
Online Marketing Mindmap
Over the past few years we have tested and tracked dozens, if not hundreds, of different strategies online… everything from banner advertising to social bookmarking, and at the end of the day, implementing the core online marketing strategies effectively has proven to generate the maximum impact from online marketing efforts.
Of course you’ll hear about the rare online business that doesn’t have to use SEO or PPC to drive traffic, as they have a 100k+ database of people and JVs with other sites which command the same number of subscribers. But for a business starting out online, you want a strategy that is simple, actionable and not reliant on the goodwill of others (at least initially).
We’ve prepared a mindmap of the core strategies essential for succeeding online, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been online for years.
A Day in the Life of a Successful Website Owner
So what’s it really like to own a website which both generates profits for your business and helps (forces) it to grow?
Here’s a breakdown of a typical day of a successful website owner…
1. You Check Your Emails
You wake up in the morning and switch on your laptop (or PC), open your email account and check how your website has produced overnight.
If you sell direct online, how many sales were made?
If the aim is to generate sales leads, how many new leads have you received?
Quick Survey
There are so many topics to write about it is sometimes difficult to know what you want to read about. So, to help us out, please take this quick poll:
How To Establish Yourself Online
If you are only just starting to think about creating an online business for yourself, it’s understandable if you feel intimidated by the sheer number of people already out there doing exactly the same thing.
How can you compete with people who have already set up shop and have a good base of customers?
Everyone has something to offer, and the key to success online is to build a business around something you enjoy – something you have a natural affinity for. It’s easier to become an expert in this kind of subject, and becoming an expert is what will get you noticed and established.
How to Target a Niche Audience
If you’re trying to sell something online it would make sense to target as many people as possible in the hope of making lots of sales, right?
Actually no – nothing could be further from the truth. Your best bet is to target a much smaller group of people with an offer which is specifically tailored to meet their needs.
Consider this. If you had a new golf club you wanted to sell, you would go and find someone who plays golf to see if they wanted to buy it. You wouldn’t try and sell it to just anyone, and exactly the same principle applies online.
How to Build an Emailing List
A good solid email list can be worth a lot of money to you as an internet marketer. With this in mind it’s obviously in your best interests to get as many people signed up for your list as possible – legally and legitimately.
But people won’t add their names and email addresses to your list unless you have something to offer them in return. This is where free offers, free newsletters and free downloads come into play.
It should be noted however that simply offering something for free won’t persuade everyone to sign up. You need to provide something that has value, and preferably something that they cannot get anywhere else.
Creating A Successful Brand
A successful brand is the marriage of your own strengths with what your customer base wants. That’s why it’s essential that you don’t rush into any kind of business before you decide what your brand is all about.
So what exactly is a brand?
Put simply, a brand is essentially something that you can offer to your customers that no one else can. They say there’s nothing new under the sun, but you need to find a fresh spin on something that is already being offered by other people. Think about the difference between the brands of Pepsi and Coca Cola, for example. They are both unique, very different brands for a very similar kind of drink, but most people would agree they look for one or the other when they go shopping to buy that drink.
Creating A Successful Viral Marketing Campaign
Have you ever tried a product and recommended it to other people? That, in a nutshell, is what a viral marketing campaign is all about.
In order to create a successful campaign, you need to create buzz around your product. You need to give it the wow factor, so much so that when people read about it they will automatically want to tell their work colleagues, their friends and their family about it.
If you have an email list already, think about how you can spread the message beyond that list by getting the recipients to do your work for you. You should ensure that you find a good strong angle to promote as your wow factor, as it’s usually something unusual, different or quirky that gets the message to other people beyond your immediate circle of influence.
Google Universal Search
Big changes are happening at Google. If you regularly use the Google search engine you will soon be affected by these changes – although there’s a chance you may not even notice them to begin with, as they will be in the form of links in the blue bar which appears along the top of the search results page.
Put simply, the Google Universal Search is Google’s answer to making their search engine more comprehensive and more useful when it delivers results to your search query. Depending on what you search for, you may have links to the web, to book results, to images, and even video images that are relevant to your search term(s).
8 Ways To Reach Key Markets When Advertising Online
When it comes to promoting your business, there are countless ways to make sure people know you are there. Using as many of these as possible ensures you reach the biggest audience and enjoy the best results – all of which means bigger profits for you.
Set your budget, bid on keywords related to your business, and pay only when someone actually clicks on your advert. Be careful not to get drawn into a bidding war over specific keywords – it’s the quickest way to blow your advertising budget.
Are Internet Sales Letters Dead?
We’ve all come across the long sales letters online that take a good ten minutes to read before we get to the price of the item being promoted. But do they still work?
Perhaps it’s not so much the length of the sales letter that matters; it’s what you put in it. We can’t talk to a salesperson and ask them questions online, so the sales letter has to answer all the questions we may have about the product or service and remove all the barriers to buying it. Short sales letters simply don’t have the room to convey all the necessary information that would persuade someone to buy the product being promoted. This is especially true with information products, which need to prove they are different from the wealth of competition they are up against.
