Online Marketing Process

Tackling the Web

Marketing your business online can be challenging, but it doesn’t need to be. If you follow these ten steps you’ll be ahead of the competition.

1. Research

Research is an important part of any process and is a great place to get your feet wet. I recommend breaking the research phase into three parts.

A. Competitive Analysis:

Set aside some time to analyze and document where your competition has a presence. Check out where they are located on the Web by searching out comparable products and services and conducting other common keyword searches to see who’s out there. Then do the same for your business and document your business’ footprint.

B. Market Pulse:

Once you know where the competition has built a presence go ahead dissect who is doing what and study how the market is engaging consumers. Read about online marketing and see what the experts are suggesting. Then tap into your market leaders as well as a few local players and listen to how they are promoting themselves. It’s important to recognize themes as well as outliers & innovators.

C. Tool Evaluation:

The final step in the research phase is to assess what tools are available and evaluate what will work best for you. Read up on service providers and products. It’s important to take the time to investigate costs, compare features, and experiment. Educate yourself about the differences and benefits of the tools you’ll be using.

2. Frame

Planning is a crucial stage in successfully marketing your business on the Web. This phase can be sliced up into four parts.

A. Set Goals:

It’s important to set realistic expectations.  You’ll want to create traffic goals but more importantly outline what you hope to achieve as a result of your efforts. Set goals for customer interaction, client education, sales, brand awareness, market stature, employee relations, etc.

B. Invest:

Recognize that your goals are important. Ask yourself how much time and effort you can afford, as well as how much you are willing to spend financially. Then I’d encourage you put a value on your goals and weigh your options.

C.  Take Responsibility:

Once you’ve determined what your goals are worth, take control and commit to achieving these goals. If you don’t have the time, assign roles to your supporting cast.

D. Create a Schedule:

Outlining a timetable with milestones helps clarify what actionable items need to happen along the way. It also helps manage expectations and gives your team a better handle on the tasks at hand.

3. Join

A huge misconception is that building a website is the only way to establish your business on the Web. This causes mass frustration and is a common mistake. The “join” stage is a low barrier to building your online presence. This important step takes advantage of highly trafficked professional and personal communities, local directories, search engines, publications and sales sites.

A. Join Professional Communities:

Select a handful of reputable and relevant professional community sites. Sign up and fill out your profile and make note of the various ways you can attract new customers, activate your peers, contribute to the group and promote your business when utilizing these communities.

B. Join Personal Communities:

Select a few social sites that have a strong following. Sign up and fill out your profile information and make note of the various ways you can establish an audience, meet new people and reconnect with others.

C. Create Directory Profiles:

Create a list of Yellow Page Directories, Local Directories, Industry Directories and start contacting them. Add your business or claim your existing listing on as many directories as you can. Then go back and search for other directories and do it all over again. Most directories will offer you a basic listing for free with the hope of selling you advertising down the road.

D. Register with Major Search Engines:

Getting listed on the major search engines can be a long process, but it’s a critical step in helping customers find you. Register your business contact information with the major search engines.

E. Create Profiles on Publication Sites:

Select a handful of publications sites that have a strong following. Sign up and fill out your profile information and make note of the various ways you can contribute articles and promote your business.

F. Create Profiles on Sales Sites:

Select a few reputable sales sites that have a loyal base. Sign up and fill out your profile information and make note of the various ways you can promote your business and sell your products and services.

4. Create

Establish a core set of destinations.  Build out multiple sites that you want various targeted groups to visit. As you construct each of these sites keep in mind what you want the users to do and determine a clear course of action. These destinations will act as the cornerstones of your online presence and contain a substantial portion of your online content.

A. Blog:

Setting up a blog is fast and inexpensive in comparison to building a traditional site. This is a great place to get started. The blog can even be used as an initial corporate site in certain circumstances. Select an established blog utility, set up an account, organize your content and start writing. If you want to write about unrelated subjects or see what consumers are interested in, try setting up multiple blogs.

B. Social Sites:

Select a couple of social sites that have momentum and you can envision your customers using. Then set up shop and begin to harness the site tools to build out a destination representative of your business. Down the road we’ll worry about activating, contributing and promoting your business.

C. Landing Pages:

An easy way to expand your footprint on this giant Web is to create a series of targeted landing pages.  Using your blog utility or your knowledge of HTML create a set of interconnected sites, each with original content relevant to it’s domain and focused on a particular subject. These mini-sites can be as small as 1-3 pages. Then connect the sites to each other and your other destinations.

D. Traditional Site:

Most local businesses unfortunately start and end their online marketing with this single step. Don’t be discouraged by the amount of effort it takes to create a quality site. My suggestion is to do it right and take the time to architect, design and develop a well-branded and well-written professional site.  While I recognize this initiative can be costly and take months to produce it’s important to realize this is something worth doing well.

5. Influence

The influence phase directs traffic to your online destinations using a series traditional tactics and niche drivers. This phase is about setting up a wide net, in an effort to convert audiences into consumers.

A. Forums:

Create accounts with a handful of discussion boards and forums. Help solve problems, activate your peers, contribute to the caucus and when appropriate, promote your business.

B. Public Relations:

PR is rooted in our culture as a traditional avenue for promoting local businesses. Work with an online newswire service to build a strategy that allows you to distribute company press releases.

C. Broadcast:

Setup accounts with multiple distribution channels. Then prepare to broadcast news, editorial commentary and instructional content by creating, editing and distributing audio and/or video using a host of online tools and offline applications.

D. Direct Marketing:

Setup an online utility, schedule your communications and import your opt-in database. Then prepare to harness those contacts, build relationships, encourage customer loyalty, and drive customers to additional online resources.

6. Contribute

While phases 3, 4 and 5 have been laying the foundation, the contributing phase is where your online presence springs to life. Producing content on multiple levels (core, extended network, and influence) is in a sense activating the established systems.

Once things are rooted in place, then you have to participate in professional communities, update business details and descriptions, write articles for various publications, post new sale items, write on your blog, share insights on your social sites, write informative content for your landing pages, update your traditional site, participate in forums, create press releases, create audio and video content for broadcast, create direct marketing campaigns, etc.

Take a deep breath, you don’t have to do everything… this week.

7. Advertise

A robust strategy will entail numerous online marketing avenues. However, advertising tends to be one of the most direct forms of business promotion. In the online word advertising is denoted and segregated. However, online textual ads are incredible powerful in driving traffic to established networks.

A. Paid:

Setup an account with one or more search engines, multiple directory sites and a handful of Publishers as part of wide-reaching campaign. Or start off with the giant and test the waters with a small budget. Most networks have a utility that allows you to select your keywords and manage your spend rate.

B. Unpaid:

If you are budget conscience and are open to the idea of advertising other businesses on your network of sites you may consider swapping ads through a managed partnership or a referral network. Contact a reputable referral business and work with them to set up a campaign that puts your business on other local business sites.

8. Manage

Managing the ins and outs of a well-integrated Web presence can be time consuming and complex.  You will need to track your progress, arrange schedules and make adjustments.

9. Assess

As you progress and your presence grows you will want to continually assess your strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. It’s OK to re-evaluate your goals and shift your priorities as you begin to see what is working and what isn’t.

10. Improve

It’s important evolve and expand your online activities and presence. There will always be ways to improve. You should experiment and realize that things are going to change. In this market, it’s critical that you are open to promoting your business in new ways.

Then it’s a matter of cycling through this process and continuing to contribute.