Promoting Your Website : Promoting Your Website MissionKY. org
Develop an Internet Marketing Plan : Develop an Internet Marketing Plan Update Your Current Marketing Plan
Evaluate your current marketing plan and update it to include e-commerce tools and tactics.
Current situation: What is your company doing online now? What is the off-line marketing strategy? How are they related?
Objectives: What do you want to accomplish on the Internet? More sales? International sales? More customers? Better brand recognition? Cheaper customer support?
Strategies & tactics: What do you need to do to achieve your goals? Who do you need to help you?
Budget: What percentage of your marketing budget should go to Internet activities? Do you need to increase the budget? What will your website cost? Will you need more staff to handle increased email and online sales?
Audience: Who are your primary customers? What impact will the Net have on your customer-base?
E-commerce: Will you sell your products and services online? What type of payment methods will you accept? How will you handle them? What will they cost you?
Pricing: How will the Internet's very competitive pricing situation affect your marketing plans? Can you reduce your prices? If not, how do you plan to remain competitive?
Risks: Are you prepared for potential problems related to doing business on the Net? Do you have the proper insurance coverage? Do you have a backup system? How do you plan to handle potential Internet credit risks?
Evaluation: How do you plan to measure the effectiveness of your online marketing?What criteria and methods will you use?
Slide 3 : Design your updated marketing plan to target your primary target audience.
Market to them first.
Online Marketing Tactics
Hundreds of articles and websites outline a variety of ways to market on the
Internet. The most important methods include:
Create a dynamite website: Build an audience-driven website that is content-rich and easy to navigate.According to 1-2-3 Promote, "A Website design is a marketing plan in visual form."
Track your competitions' websites: What marketing strategies are they using? How are they handling sales? How do they encourage repeat visits?
Listen in online: Monitor online discussion groups, Usenet newsgroups, and web forums.
Use email effectively:
Respond promptly to visitor feedback.
Experiment with various email strategies, such as, autoresponders, email coupons, website update announcement lists.
Sponsor a mailing list.
Publish a newsletter.
Distribute press releases about Internet activities.
Slide 4 : Make website promotion a high priority:
Promote your website continuously. Create a plan for improving search
Engine visibility, obtaining reciprocal links, and drawing media
attention to your website.
Experiment with different types of websites:
If you have a new product or service, consider test marketing via a
Special domain, hosting service, and website. Consider trying a mall
location or online auction as well as a more traditional web presence.
Analyze your visitor/customer responses carefully. You may find that
using multiple online venues can increase the demand for your products
and services without increasing your costs significantly.
Test various mixes of traditional and Internet marketing until you find
one that works well for you. Some digital products (soft goods) can be
sold with only Internet advertising, but most products require more than
this.
Tell Everyone About It : Tell Everyone About It Prepare your site for search engines and directories
Don't announce your site while it's still under construction.
Carefully check spelling and grammar before posting new or updated pages.
Use a short but descriptive title for each page. Consider using the company name in the title of every page.
Post a copyright notice or company logo on every page.
Include a link to your company homepage on every page.
Make company contact information easy to find.
Use meta tags to provide descriptions and keywords for search engines. Meta tags belong in the section of your webpage.
meta name="description" content="My company makes this and that.“
meta name="keywords" content="company_name, location, industry, this, that"
Link Marketing 101 : Link Marketing 101 Prepare a short (25 words or less) description of the site.
If you can't describe your site or webpage in a sentence or two, you need
to go back to the drawing board. Use this description in your meta tags
and when you submit your site to various search engines.
Prepare a press release and send it to business associations, libraries,
government agencies, as well as local, regional and national media.
Link Marketing 101 : Link Marketing 101 Select appropriate search services for site submissions. Submit main
page and key pages to appropriate directories and search engines. Don't
ignore niche services serving regional or special interests. Some experts
suggest that manual submissions work best, but a free online service like
Submit Express can save you a lot of time.
Major subject directories (Yahoo)
Search engines (Google, MSN, AltaVista, Excite, Hotbot, Lycos)
Usenet newsgroups
Print guides and magazines, if appropriate
Local media
Regional indexes
Link Marketing 101 : Link Marketing 101 Be persistent: marketing is an ongoing task.
Submit site
Check results
Resubmit if your site doesn't get indexed within a month or so. Resubmit every time the site is redesigned or a significant new page is added.
Exchange links with other businesses, local media, government agencies, etc.
Use your URL: include the URL in email signatures, and on business cards, publications, and handouts.
Track the resultsCheck the search engines: Which search engines index your pages? Which of your pages are indexed? How many pages are indexed?
Link Marketing 101 : Link Marketing 101 Learn from others
A poll of small businesses who are or plan to be online found that
80% expect online promotions to help them compete more
effectively.
Most of the promotion methods listed in this table are inexpensive
but may be time-consuming to set-up and maintain. Which methods
fit your business best?
Measure Progress with Log Analysis : Measure Progress with Log Analysis Basic Vocabulary
Log analysis sounds like something an engineer might do, but on the Internet it's
a tool for measuring how well a website is doing. Here are the basic concepts
you need to understand:
Log files: Record all activity on a given website. Types of logs include:
Access logs record website visits. Most web server logs are kept in common log file format or can be converted to this format. This format makes it possible for statistics programs to analyze web site activity. Typically, common log entries include:
Remote host name or IP number
User_logname - often not implemented and replaced by "-"
Authenticated_user - replaced by "-" if not an authenticated request
Date and time
Request from client
HTTP status code returned to client
Number of bytes sent
Measure Progress with Log Analysis : Measure Progress with Log Analysis Visit: Each time a specific user accesses a webpage is considered a visit. Multiple visits by a single user reflect a high degree of interest in the site content. Frequently updated and content-rich sites generate multiple visits.
Session: A session includes all the activities of a user during a single website visit. Website management can benefit from knowing time, length of a session and the path that a user follows within a web site.
Hit: The access log records each attempt to retrieve a page or file from a website. These "hits" can add up to impressive numbers but are misleading. Hit statistics include not just webpages but also graphics. Watch the visitor count and ignore the hits!
Cookie: Cookies are small data fragments left on a user's computer by a website. These "crumbs" can be used to track a complete visitor web session. For some mysterious reason, many folks are absolutely paranoid about "cookies" and see them as an alarming threat to their privacy. With the increased reliance on all forms of electronic commerce, cookies should be the least of their worries.
Sources of log analysis software and services : Sources of log analysis software and services Web hosting should include either: 1) access to log files for your site
and/or 2) a log analysis utility that generates daily, weekly, or monthly
reports based on the log files. If you plan to do your own analysis, you
will need to obtain log analysis software. Important considerations
include:
What platform does the software run on?
How easy is it to install, maintain and use?
Is it intended for system administrators or webmasters?
Can it be customized easily?
What does it cost? Is there an annual fee?
Deal with Business Email : Deal with Business Email Business email is big business
Active users of the Internet, including most business people, get a lot of email. The
problem of dealing with it efficiently has led to the development of new software and
services. It has also led to hiring more employees just to deal with mail.
Some companies, like Xerox, value mail and set up a small workgroup to deal with it
exclusively. Xerox has garnered a lot of favorable opinion by using personal rather than
"canned" responses to the 350+ inquiries it gets daily.
Other companies try to deal with the mail glut by using pleasant but highly automated
Response systems. Unfortunately for them, most readers can easily tell the difference
between a real human author and a machine. Automated responses to email questions are
often so far off target that the results are laughable. If you want to see this in action, write
a top government official about something mundane like asking for a photograph. More
than likely the response will include: "Very Important Person shares your concerns and is
actively working to find a solution to the problem.“
Finally, some companies opt to leave email entirely alone. For them the Internet is a one-way
broadcasting system and they don't want to hear from the listeners. Although these companies irritate
visitors and sometimes get bad press, they may be making a very wise business decision. They know
that they don't have the resources to deal with email (or don't want to allocate them), so they make it as
difficult as possible to send. Suggestion: If you aren't going to answer email in a timely fashion, don't
encourage it.
Email tips & tricks : Email tips & tricks Common sense and good software can make dealing with email a bit easier.
Use filtering to manage incoming mail more effectively.
Delete junk mail immediately.
Ignore "spam" rather than wasting time following up on it.
Keep track of the email lists you subscribe to by maintaining a folder with the original welcome message. If you decide to drop your subscription this will be quite useful.
Use a few boiler plate paragraphs for parts of email responses but avoid a totally "canned" message.
Avoid opening email attachments from unknown sources; they may contain viruses.
Email tips & tricks : Email tips & tricks Common sense and good software can make dealing with email a bit easier.
Use filtering to manage incoming mail more effectively.
Delete junk mail immediately.
Ignore "spam" rather than wasting time following up on it.
Keep track of the email lists you subscribe to by maintaining a folder with the original welcome message. If you decide to drop your subscription this will be quite useful.
Use a few boiler plate paragraphs for parts of email responses but avoid a totally "canned" message.
Avoid opening email attachments from unknown sources; they may contain viruses.
Email tips & tricks : Email tips & tricks Make sure that email and website messages to customers, prospects, and suppliers
project the best image of your company.
Using autorespondersAutoresponders provide a cheap and easy way to promptly satisfy customer requests for information. They are simple scripts that tell a mailing program to follow a set of instructions when mail is received for a specific email address. For example, info@jane_doe.com might be programmed to email a catalog, while bookdeal@jane_doe.com sends a book coupon.
Autoresponders don't require a website. They can be used to test different marketing messages. For more information, visit one of the leading providers, sendfree.com.
By the way, typical responses from autoresponders are much less irritating than "canned" responses from a real person. Most people recognize the difference or your script can state that "This is an automated response, but if you write auntjane@plumpudding.com, she will personally answer your mail." Folks will like that and perhaps smile at the thought of darling Aunt Jane reading their email.
Creating an email signature for marketing : Creating an email signature for marketing A basic signature file should include your name, email address, and company.
Since you can have more than one signature file, you can use them to test
various sales or marketing messages.
A basic signature with informative "brag" might look like:Jane Doe, Sales Managerjane_doe@fineproducts.comFine Products: http://www.fineproducts.com(507) 123-4567 or (507) 123-4568 (fax)Rated #1 widget distributor by Gadgets Today!
A more sales focused signature tries to hook the reader:Jane Doe, Sales Managerjane_doe@fineproducts.comFine Products: http://www.fineproducts.com(507) 123-4567 or (507) 123-4568 (fax)Be sure to ask about our Internet widget special!
To promote website traffic, offer something free:Jane Doejane_doe@fineproducts.comFine Products: http://www.fineproducts.com(507) 123-4567 or (507) 123-4568 (fax)FREE just for being a good customer:Download our award winning "Widgets in Motion" screensaver now.
Be sure to market your products or services with your email signature!
Starting your own email newsletter : Starting your own email newsletter Email is the easiest way to keep your employees, customers, and
suppliers informed about your company or website.
You can create an "opt-in" mailing list for folks who want to know when
you are going to release the next version of your widget-master
software.
Add other newsy items and snippets from your website and pretty soon
you have a real newsletter. Be sure to read:
The Dos and Don'ts of Opt-In List Building (PDF file).
Want to try an email campaign?
Visit GotMarketing Campaigner for free trial.
Viral marketing : Viral marketing Reach Online definition: "Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses
do." If you want to draw folks to your website, you need to create a buzz. There
are lots of ways to do this:
Put "send this to a friend' buttons on your content pages
Let visitors create online wish lists from your product catalogs and alert their friends and family
Make your own or co-brand free online greeting cards
Offer free screensavers, music clips, or printable checklists related to your website or products
Link to affiliate partners (not competitors) offering related freebies like subscriptions or coupons
Put coupons on your website or in your newsletter and encourage people to share them with others
Add promotional items in every package you send a customer including gift packs
Viral marketing has been effectively used by companies Hotmail, ClubMom,
and Scope to increase their online audience.
Consider Affiliate Programs : Consider Affiliate Programs The first affiliate or revenue-sharing program on the Net was started by
Amazon.com in July 1996. Amazon now has more than 25 millions customers
and 500,000+ associates earning fees from promoting Amazon's online
Marketplace for books, toys, hardware and software, and other consumer
goods.
Don't brush off affiliate marketing; it's an important component of ecommerce today.
If you're in the business of selling, affiliates are a cost-effective way to get your
products and brand out to the masses. If you're in the content business, affiliate
programs are a great way to give your visitors value-added features such as
books or software related to your site's topic.
Joining or running an affiliate program is a business decision and should be
looked at in terms of your business plan. Do you want to earn residual income
from your website? Is the traffic too low or specialized to attract other
advertisers? What do you really know about your website visitors? How can you
merchandise your site to match their interests?
Think products and services not brand names!
Join an affiliate program : Join an affiliate program Most of the advertising on the Net has moved from pay-for-impressions model
like traditional media to a pay-for-performance model. And pay-for-
performance can pay very well indeed.
Many affiliates report incomes over a $1000 a month but even more report
earning barely enough to pay their webhosting fees. A few tips worth
considering:
Select programs with decent fees for downloads or registrations
Stick to products and services that are related to yours but don't compete directly
Offer a free newsletter to website visitors and promote selected products in each one
Refer newsletter readers and website visitors to free offers and services
Draw repeat visitors by offering valuable information and entertainment
Stick to a small number of affiliates—don't run a banner-ad farm!
Many affiliates have no real products of their own. They offer directories,
articles, discussion boards and links to programs that pay them for registrations
and leads.
Mini-site or cash machine : Mini-site or cash machine One curious but highly successful type of affiliate site is the mini-site. This is a one- or
two-page website where folks are given a long-winded sales pitch and then offered only
one action: proceed to buy the product. Most of these mini-sites promote information
products such as e-books (many related to affiliate marketing itself) or popular consumer
items like cell phones or bust enlargement devices. Most of the sites are terrible looking
but they evidently work.
The owners often use pay-for-placement search engines and buy keyword placement from
Overture, FindWhat, and Kanoodle. Tip: Bid low but bid on lots of terms.
Creating a mini-site doesn't take much time and so practitioners run lots of them. With a
rock-bottom domain fee and free or low cost web-hosting mini-sites can be little cash
machines that take little or no time after they are set-up. Of course, everyone on the Net
who knows about them is trying to cash in on them now so competition it steep.
The following affiliate directories include descriptions of programs, ratings, and links to
more information, and directions on how to join each program:
Refer-it
AffiliateMatch.com
AssociatePrograms.com
Summary : Summary If you are a retail merchant, you already know how long it takes to create a
profitable store. Be sure to give your company website and other Net marketing
tools enough time to grow. That doesn't mean that you sit on your hands and do
nothing. No, you need to be constantly adding value to the site and impressing
your brand on it.
Pay particularly close attention to the feedback you get from site visitors. If
they take the time to contact you, you should take the time to listen carefully.
They may suggest some small change that would make a big difference to other
visitors. Or they may just be having a bad hair day, and you are the unlucky
target.
Take it all in stride:
"Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.“