The Perfect Small Business Online Marketing Combination

To establish a top-notch online presence you will need to implement an all encompassing marketing strategy. Internet marketing can provide you with instant responses by combining both the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, which include: design, development, advertising, and sales. You will reach a much larger audience for a fraction of the typical cost of an advertising campaign. You will only reach a small percentage of your target market if you only use one or two mediums, to optimize your reach you should attempt to use the following integrated marketing communications plan:

Step 1

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Improves the visibility of your web page or website in search engines via the natural (un-paid) search results. The higher on the page and more frequently your web page appears in a search engine list, the more visitors it will receive. Ways to use SEO:

• Blogging/Writing Articles: Increase your following, get higher search engine rankings and get feedback from customers by keeping an updated blog on a publishing platform like WordPress.
• Keyword Research: Use resources like Google AdWords Keyword Tool to detect which relevant keywords are being searched the most.
• Unpaid Directories/Links: Increase link popularity and traffic by getting listed on directories like Dmoz, unpaid directories may take longer for your site to get listed.
• On-site Optimization: Get even higher search engine rankings by perfecting your website text, keyword density, titles, etc.

Step 2

Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Improves the visibility of your web page or website in search engines via paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. Ways to accomplish this type of advertising:

• Pay Per Click (PPC): Pay a set fee to an advertiser for every click you get to your website.
• Paid Directories: Search engines will give your website top priority and you will potentially gain hundreds of thousands in your potential target market if you are listed on a paid directory like Yahoo Directory ($299).
• Paid Searches: By paying for placement on a search engine page you can guarantee potential customers will find your website.
• Off-site Optimization: Buying links from other websites to yours will put your page at a higher ranking if their is another page with the same keyword optimization.

Step 3

Social Media Marketing (SMM): an easily accessible platform that allows you to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share that information on their social networks. Implement a marketing campaign through sites like these:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• MySpace

Step 4

Viral Marketing: uses pre-existing social networks, like the ones listed above, to increase brand awareness and other marketing objectives through a self-replicating viral process. Turn your consumers into your marketing team by using the following methods:

• YouTube
• Vimeo
• Example: Office Max’s “Elf Yourself” campaign that launched in December 2007 was the fastest growing site of that month attracting more than 39 million unique visitors in the U.S. alone. That initial holiday campaign went on to attract a total of 100 million unique visitors worldwide. The typical user stayed on the site for approximately 7.5 minutes. The success of the 2007 campaign encouraged Office Max to roll out the dancing elves in 2008 where it was an even greater success.

Step 5

E-mail Marketing: a form of direct marketing by means of electronic mail to communicate commercial or fund-raising messages to your audience. Use this method to encourage consumer loyalty and acquire new consumers. Some helpful sites include:

• Mail Chimp
• Constant Contact
• Vertical Response
• Benchmark Email

Step 6

Brand Identity Execution: consistent branding of your identity across all platforms used. Every medium you use should be interconnected. An easy way to do this is to use the icon buttons designated to each tool.
Examples:

• Have a link to your Twitter page on your Facebook page and Tweet about your Facebook page.
• In E-mails you send have links to all of your social networking sites, latest viral marketing campaign, and blog.
• Have links to your social networking sites and latest viral marketing campaign on every blog you post.
• It is very beneficial to set up a automated system that will post to all of your social networks when you create a blog post on your web page.