Marketing on Internet Road 

Employing Internet Marketing strategies does not necessarily mean a new way of doing business. It is true that the internet and online marketing opened up a window for new and advance way of doing business, but it is also an online reflection of the way you do business offline.

Ask yourself the following question: “How do I get business today?” This answer should lead you in to the best main strategy you need to be using in your Internet Marketing portfolio.
If you are doing business by more than only one method, use more than one method online. Furthermore, extend your online marketing efforts to be using more than one main strategy. This way you can significantly increase your business while still being very efficient, be able to make constant changes and keep the costs low (surely when compared to your traditional marketing tactics).

Word of Mouth and/or Networking

With Word of Mouth the most important factor is referrals and positive reviews on your products and services. The best fit is with Social Media Marketing.
Depending on your exact type of business, choose your Social Networks: LinkedIn (mainly if you are in B2B), Twitter, Facebook and so on. Social Media is all about connections, referrals and experiences people on those networks experienced. This is literally the new way of Word of Mouth.
The complimentary Internet Marketing strategy to use is permission based Email Marketing: use your website and other online touch-points (like you page on Facebook) to encourage customers and prospects to subscribe to your mailing list. Then, send them timely newsletters to keep them engaged and further encourage them to forward your messages to others.

Cold Calling

If your business depends on Cold Calls or incoming phone calls, your strategies should combine Search Engine Marketing together with bought-list-based Email Marketing.
The Search Engine Marketing strategies of Search Engine Optimization and Pay-per-Click will ensure your phone is ringing. They are designed to get you found by your target market and potential customers exactly when they are looking for what you have to offer, where they are searching for it and in the way they are searching for it.
If you can purchase bought lists of your potential customers (watch out for legal aspects depending on your location and the vendor), this is a very close match to your cold calling tactics, only via the internet – much cheaper, more flexible and more effective.

Advertising

If you focusing offline on advertising, online you should put your focus on
-   SEO
-   PPC
-   Display advertising

As mentioned above, Search Engine Marketing tactics are the best ways in the online realm to reach your target audience. Done correctly, it should be much cheaper and much more effective than your offline advertising efforts. Consider allocating part of the traditional advertising budget to the online realm.
If your advertising budget is more substantial, explore the possibility of using Display Advertising: literally advertise your business (that is – your web pages) on websites that your potential customers visit. Display Advertising constantly improves and allows more capabilities of socio-demographic targeting to make your campaign more accurate and more successful.  

Face to Face

If your business depends on Face-to-Face meetings, make sure your “face” is visible online.
As this type of prospecting suggests you are in the B2B market, invest in your LinkedIn profile along with a professional profile on a Facebook page.
Furthermore, use YouTube to host videos on your business, your offerings and your sales representatives. Similarly, upload photos to Flickr and presentations to Slideshare.
Make sure to have a professional profile on each of those networks as this is one of the first things people will look at and will help them have a positive perception of your business.

Last week we attended WSI Excellence & Innovation conference in Birmingham (March 5-6) and enjoyed 2 days of presentations on the latest trends in Internet and Digital Marketing, breakout sessions focused on niche aspects on online marketing and two keynote speeches from Google and ReachLocal.

One of the main advantages of the WSI Network is the size and strength of the network as well the constant learning. It was impressive to see the amount of the consultants attending this conference and the level of expertise being achieved on all aspects of Internet Marketing. Those types of conferences and events are what makes WSI unique and position us in a better place to serve our customers with the best practices of search engine marketing, analytics, social media and more.

Partial list of topics presented:

• Growing your business with the Google Content Network - Sophie Toms, Industry Manager, Google: A detailed presentation on the structure, benefits and directions of the Google Content Network, together with some announcements of where the content network is heading and its new features for online marketing agencies.

• Power of Local Search Marketing - Rob Thomas, WSI Internet Marketing Consultant, UK: Rob presented his approach for delivering great value to its local customers with Google Adwords. The platform used is WSI Local Adworks (WSI’s unique and most advanced Pay per Click platform). The tactics focused on measuring and optimizing the customers’ Return on Investment (ROI), utilizing the abilities of WSI Local Adworks as well as close communication and joint efforts of the consultant and the customer.

• Enhancing Email Marketing - Chris Schofield, WSI Internet Marketing Consultant, UK: Chris focused on using the features and benefits of WSI Digital Marketing Pro – WSI exclusive platform for managing and running email marketing campaigns. This platform is designed to make the email marketing campaign – from setup to delivery and measurement – as smooth and reliable as possible, ensuring best delivery and open rates of the recipients.

• Social Content is The Missing Key to Unlocking SEO & Leveraging Blogs - Francois Muscat, WSI Internet Consultant, South Africa: Francois presented how “SEO is going social”. In the current state of search engine optimization, to get the best results from this strategy a company needs to make use of the available means of Social Media and leverage content to make the most of both.

• Strategies To Increase Google Ad Spending  - Francisco Hernandez, WSI Internet Marketing Consultant, Panama: Following the presentation by Google on the Google Content Network, Francisco presented his campaigns and best practices in running advertising campaigns on this network, most of them as part of a more broader campaign that integrates and compliment Google Adwords and/or Social Media.

• The Internet Help Your Clients Turn Noise Into a Conversation - ReachLocal (WSI Local Adworks): An impressive keynote presentation on the “digitization” of the world nowadays and what it means to any business. ReachLocal presented a model of the “Three Conversations Online”, where consumers and businesses are engaged in Search, Surf and Social. The model was furthered developed to show the relationship between the 3 conversations, what it means to the any business and where its focus should be placed.

• PR Advertising On A Dime - Tracy Spence, WSI Internet Marketing Consultant, UK: What is the value of online Press Release distribution and how a very low-cost strategy can bring tremendous results to any business of any size.

• Linkedin: Lead Generation  - David Duncan, WSI Internet Marketing Consultant, UK: An interactive presentation, including online demonstrations, of how a LinkedIn profile should be set up and the secrets to gaining more results from this social network.

• Integrated Marketing: Display, Mobile And Content Ad Network - Francisco Hernandez, WSI Internet Marketing Consultant, Panama: A highly interactive demonstration of several case studies, where strategy, creativity and use of the social networks enabled several customers gain amazing results by using the power of Google Adwords, Google Content Network and Social Media Marketing.

• Measured Marketing With Web Analytics - Peter Rees, WSI Internet Marketing Consultant, UK: How much value can consulting based on Google Analytics can bring to businesses? Peter presented his approach of working closely with its customers on analysis of the data collected with Google Analytics. Properly setting the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), collecting and measuring the right metrics and deriving the correct analysis of “what does it mean” enabled Peter to help its customers find exactly those things that require improvement on their way to gain tremendous results from their Internet Marketing initiatives.

   
Follow up on the coming posts, where we will aim to elaborate more on some of the topics listed above, as presented at the conference.