Tag: marketing strategies

Will Web Marketing Help Your Business?

Nuanced equation

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This is an extremely difficult question to answer because there are so many complex factors involved. Specifically the techniques you employ in your Web marketing campaign(s), as well as the execution of these techniques can determine whether or not Web marketing will work for your business. Additionally, the likelihood of your target audience using the Web and responding to your marketing efforts should also be considered part of the equation. This article will outline the potential for success in a Web marketing campaign.

Before making the decision to initiate a Web marketing campaign you should carefully consider your target audience. The Web is used widely around the world but whether or not members of your target audience are likely to utilize the Web to research or purchase the products or services you sell is not guaranteed. This is significant because investing a great deal of time, effort and money into Web marketing when your target audience is not likely to respond to these efforts is not worthwhile.

Conducting market research can be a great deal of help to you in determining whether or not you should invest in an Web marketing campaign for your business. This step is very important because it will give you a good indication of whether or not you should even begin marketing your business on the Web.

The guru factor

Hiring a firm specializing in market research is recommended because they can conduct this research quickly and efficiently and will likely gain a great deal of valuable information as a result of their research efforts. If they determine your business can benefit from an Web marketing campaign, it is time to start thinking about how you want to advertise your business online.

Again, seeking the help of professionals can be an extremely worthwhile investment. If you are not well versed in the industry of Web marketing, hiring a firm with a great deal of expertise in this industry can be very helpful. They can assist you by consulting with you to determine which marketing strategies will be most effective, designing advertisements for your campaign, helping you to orchestrate your Web marketing campaign and evaluating the results of marketing efforts to determine which strategies are working and which are not.

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The potential for success with a Web marketing campaign is virtually limitless. The success you enjoy is only limited by your ability to promote your products and services and execute effective marketing strategies. Some of the marketing strategies you may wish to employ may include optimizing your website for relevant search terms, placing links to your website judiciously on the Web, writing and publishing e-newsletters and utilizing affiliates to promote your website.

Affiliates and SERPs

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of any Web marketing campaign. SEO is so important because it dictates the ranking of your website on popular search engines. Web users value these results and are not likely to seek out websites which do not rank well on the Search Engine Result Page (SERPs). Conversely, high ranking websites can enjoy a great deal of increased website traffic as a result of these rankings.

Inbound links to your website are also important in Web marketing. Inbound links are links on other websites which direct users to your website. These links are important in an Web marketing campaign. First of all many search engines factor inbound links into their ranking algorithms which means inbound links can result in higher search engines rankings. Also, these links can be used directly by website users to access your website. This means you can gain traffic directly from these links.

Another way to enjoy a successful Web marketing campaign is to orchestrate an affiliate marketing campaign. Affiliates are essentially website owners who place a banner ad on their website to direct traffic to your website.

Typically, affiliates are only compensated when the advertisement on their website produces a desired effect such as enticing the users to click through the advertisement, resulting in a sale or resulting in another action such as filling out a survey or registering with your website. Affiliate marketing can not only be highly effective but it is also cost effective because you only pay the affiliates when they produce results.

Does Web Marketing Work for You?

Know if…

Determining whether or not your Web marketing campaign is working for you is a very important part of the advertising process. The reason it’s considered so important is because while there is a great deal of Web marketing which can be done without the customary excessive costs that accompany traditional methods of advertising or other types of Web marketing that have similar high costs associated with them. Also, in both cases there is a time and energy cost factor that goes along with orchestrating your Web marketing campaigns.

For these reasons it is important for you and fellow business owners to continuously evaluate your marketing techniques and strategies for the purpose of determining what is working and what is not. Doing so will also help you focus your efforts on marketing strategies that are providing positive results as opposed to those which are either not providing results at all or providing only lackluster results.

This article will examine proven methods and other steps business owners can take to evaluate the effectiveness of their Web marketing campaigns.

Method 1

Affiliate marketing is certainly one of the most cost-effective Web marketing strategies available, because it is a marketing strategy that involves having other website owners (publishers) known as affiliates post one or more product-specific or merchant-specific advertisement(s) on their websites to direct Web traffic to particular merchants’ websites. This marketing strategy is cost-effective because in most cases the affiliate is only paid when he produces a desired result such as enticing a Web user to click through the advertisement or to purchase a product or service once they click through the ad.

However, pursuant to the merchant-affiliate agreement(s), while the business owner is only paying for advertisement when it produces a desired effect, it is still worthwhile to evaluate the effectiveness of these ads to determine whether or not they are working well, or working better than alternative advertising methods or strategies. Fortunately affiliate marketing ads have a natural feedback mechanism which makes it easy to evaluate how well the ad is working. This feedback is provided in the form of unique code embedded in the advertisement that specifies which affiliate generated the website visitors.

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Method 1 findings

Information recieved via embedded code is provided for the purposes of issuing payment to affiliates but it can also provide the business owner (merchant) with useful information on which affiliate ads are the most effective. This information is especially useful when the affiliates are posting various different ads. The business owner may conclude that ads posted by the more successful affiliates are more appealing to potential customers and may opt to use this style of ad for all of their affiliates.

Method 2

Business owners who use Web marketing strategies such as posting on message boards to promote their business might want to consider asking customers to complete a short survey when making a purchase. This survey can include useful demographic information which is always helpful for marketing as well as information regarding where the customer learned of specific products or services offered by such merchants.

Customers including a message board web address as one of the responses will provide you a useful indication of whether or not the message boards are helping to drive customers to the merchant’s website. You, as a business owner may also have some unofficial feedback in terms of the response to your postings on a given message board. If the general consensus is in support of your posts, you may infer that some interest in your business or website have been generated through the use of this strategy.

Evaluation

Finally, a Web marketing strategy can be evaluated by studying website traffic results as well as sales receipts; and anytime you implement a new Web marketing strategy or technique it is a worthwhile task to the time and study your website traffic reports and sales receipts carefully to determine whether or not there is a spike in traffic or sales immediately after the marketing effort.

For example, if you send out an e-newsletter to those who have requested additional information about your products or services, you may notice there is an increase in traffic or sales soon afterwards. This is a good indication that the e-newsletter was well received and is an effective strategy. However, if there is not a marked increase in traffic or sales subsequent to the e-newsletter it indicates the marketing effort was not effective.