Make the Most of your Marketing Budget with Internet Marketing

Given today’s media consumption habits, it is essential to allocate a portion of your marketing budget to online. But are you getting the most from your investment?
Working with an online marketing expert ensures you use the right mix of tactics for each campaign. These could include:

• Banner advertising
• Pay-per-click advertising
• Blog marketing
• Article marketing
• Email marketing
• Viral marketing
• promotional websites and
• Search engine marketing/optimisation (SEM/SEO)

Banner advertising

The original online marketing tool and still used widely, these days banner ads can include page takeovers, large format sizes and with new technologies, be updated with real-time content on-the-fly, to maximise an effective message or tie-in with a current event.

Pay per Click advertising

This strategic and highly targeted approach offers best value for money, as you only pay for ads or links that are clicked on. However, using this niche approach you may miss a potentially wider market. There is also the risk of losing your targets if the message doesn’t resonate. Some fine-tuning may be required to get the results you expect.

Article Marketing

As well as paid online advertorials, many businesses create libraries of resource articles which both explain, as well as subtly sell, their wares. These can be published on their own site/s, and also provide content to others. On top of using the information to engage and convert potential buyers, highly ranked articles can also boost a site’s search engine ranking, if many others sites link to it.

Email Marketing

A well established form of communicating with existing or prospective customer, an eNewsletter can inform, sell and entertain, with the most effective doing all three in a succinct format. With today’s spamming laws it is mandatory to maintain an up-to-date database which respects a recipients’ contact preferences.

Viral Marketing

Spawned and supported by email, viral marketing success depends on creating an entertaining or interactive piece that people wish to forward to friends and colleagues. This type of activity is created everyday in the form of puns and jokes, and can be used a guerrilla tactic by brands to engage or inform.

Blog marketing

Evolving the community aspect of online a step further, blog marketing uses a tribal environment to create a culture of inclusion. In this way blogs also become a useful tool for mining opinions and behaviours of key targets. It is imperative than any corporate voices driving the blog are pitched to suit the participants.

Promotional sites

In one form or another all websites provide an aspect of marketing support. Promotional sites however have been built specifically as a campaign element to support a promotion, as an entry mechanic and/or a loyalty builder. They are the perfect avenue to run sampling and can provide additional tie-ins that cost very little to deliver such as screensavers, cursors etc.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) & Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

The ultimate requirement in web marketing success, SEM and SEO drive traffic to your site. Smart copy and build will ensure your site is easy for search spiders to mark. To rate on the most popular engines you will need to submit and sometimes pay for the privilege. Other sites linking to yours will improve rankings. You can also buy search engine listings to ensure a higher placement.

Use an online marketing expert

More than any channel, the web enables marketers to track consumer actions and closely monitor ROI. If you are not getting high value for money from your web marketing dollars, you may need to revisit your strategy. Talk to me about how we can help you.