So you have decided that you need a better online marketing plan to enhance your brand and maximize the return you get from your marketing budget.  Great idea!  Now its time to create that plan and execute!  The following suggestions can help you create and implement a plan the is suited specifically to your business. 

Research:  Just because you have heard that Internet marketing and online media is much more cost effective and measurable than traditional media doen’t mean you can’t waste money using it.  You first need to understand your industry, understand how others are using online marketing within your industry, assess the competitive landscape, and discover what interactive online marketing channels are best suited to your industry.  Take a look at your industry trade journals and do extensive online research so you can position your company ahead of the curve rather than behind it.

More Research:  Now that you have a better understanding of your online competition and how companies like yours are using Internet marketing to gain market share and improve brand exposure you can start looking at the specific marketing channels (i.e. improved website design and function, conversion optimization, search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, landing page strategies, social media, email marketing, online reputation management, etc.). 

Look at how companies like yours are using these channels and gain a better understanding of which components are best suited to your company.  Doing a little of everything may not be the best idea nor cost effective.  The next step will help you assess what channels are the most feasible and then you can work from there.

Budget Discovery:  Review your budget and see what funds can be allocated (or reallocated) to your online marketing plan.  Chances are you have dollars that you can pull from traditional media.  Just because you have been doing the same print adds for 10 years doesn’t mean you should still be using that strategy.  One $30,000 print add budget could be used to put together a great 6 to 12 month online marketing plan!  And guess what…its measurable, targeted, and more cost effective! 

Choose Your Channels:  Based on your budget, you can then start putting together your plan by first deciding which aspects of Internet marketing will give you the best ROI.  You may have used some of these before and not received a good ROI…don’t be gun shy.  Make sure you understand if you were using that channel correctly and measuring your success.  For example, maybe you have used PPC advertising before but you don’t think you got a great return.  A little research might show that your budget wasn’t appropriate, your ads were not targeted, your titles not compelling, you did not use proper landing pages, etc (i.e. the campaign was not properly managed).  Well, without all this you most certainly won’t get a great ROI so don’t be afriad to try again…but do it right!

In-house or Outsourced?  I will try to answer this in a non-biased way.  Most of the time companies will not have the in-house resources or expertise to handle a full Internet marketing plan.  Hiring people in-house to do this for you can be exptremely expensive especially if you are using many different channels.  For example if you are using SEO, PPC, and social media you will most likely need a good web designer (for conversion optimization and landing pages), an SEO expert and someone skilled in managing paid search.  If any of these people are not skilled in social media marketing then that is another person you may need to hire.  Just bringing on interns to handle these strategies will most likely not cut it.  It is much more cost effective to have an Internet marketing company help you with ALL of these steps to help you understand your budget needs, what channels to use, and how to implement it.

How to Choose and Internet Marketing Company:  Get ready for more research!  Look online for some Internet marketing companies and develop a list.  Ask people you know that have used firms they liked and trust.  Once you have a list you can send out a Request for Proposal.  This can be a good place to start but not necessarily recommended.  This is a very impersonal way to “interview” companies.  I suggest contacting them and setting up face to face meetings.  Give them some information about what your goals are and what Internet marketing options you might be interested in.  Let them present to you in person so you can meet them, see how they present, and see how much research and time they put into their presentation.  If the presentation is “vanilla” and not specific to your company, you may want to think twice.  If they do not want to go the extra mile BEFORE signing you as a client they most likely will not once you are a client.

Choose the company that:

• Gives you a great presentation
• Makes you feel a connection and trust
• Has a good client list with testimonials
• Understands your industry and has done their homework

Now you are ready…get adter it!

These days it all comes down to budget planning.  The people making the “money” decisions will eventually hand over an overall budget for marketing that will no doubt be meant to use for any and all marketing expenditures.  The next step of course is trying to figure out how to allocate the appropriate amount of budget to each desired marketing channel.  Many companies are moving the majority of the budget only for a few reasons:

• Online marketing is more cost effective – companies have less money to spend and need to find the most appropriate channels while eliminating the excessively expensive media like print advertising.
• Internet marketing is more measurable – companies need to measure and track every penny to ensure their marketing budget is being spent in the best way and achieving the optimal ROI.
• Online marketing is more targeted – The best way to achieve that optimal ROI is to design a Internet marketing strategy that will focus on the exact target audience so no money is watsed on consumers that won’t convert.
• Online marketing appeals to the consumer more these days – The average consumer is more savvy and cost conscious than ever before.  They would rather go online and see what others consumers have to say (Web 2.0)

More and more companies are realizing that they need to improve their online brand if they want to survive and compete.  They understand that their competitors who are doing so, are gaining market share and reaching audiences that they themselves can’t currently target.

What are you doing about your online media strategy?

Whether you are a marketer or a company seeking an Internet marketing company, you no doubt realize the importance of an enhanced online plan.  Most of the top companies out there have shed the old ways and embraced interactive strategies that include search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, email marketing and of course….social media.

So the question remains, how do I allocate the funds available to each online channel?

These days budgets are tight so one needs to research each channel thoroughly to see if it is a good fit.  Just because you have heard of social media for example, it may not be appropriate for your immediate business goals.

Take the following steps:

• Finalize your marketing budget for the year broken down by quarter
• Outline your exact business goals
• Asses how you want to achieve those goals through your marketing strategy – a good Internet marketing company can help you put this plan together
• Choose the online channels that best suit your needs.  Traditionally, a good mix of different online components will give you the best comprehensive strategy.  Keep in mind though that if the budget is limited you should choose the best one or two components that compliment the overall plan.
• Execute your plan – don’t wait!  Business won’t grow by sitting around and discussing the marketing plan.

No go get ‘em!

It certainly should be!  I will start by saying this…if you have a website design company or website development firm building you a site but they do not know anything about organic search engine optimization (SEO), your site will not be set up properly for achieving natural rankings.  It is often a tough pill to swallow when someone just spent $50,000 on a website but then find out that it is invisible to Google.  There are many important steps that should be taken during the website design phase of an Internet marketing campaign that will ensure long term visibility in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

So what does this have to do with keyword research?  Let’s first define keyword research and then apply that definition to help answer this question.  Keyword research is a process used by search engine optimization professionals to determine what key terms and phrases best apply to a given website or online marketing campaign.  For example, if a company that sells shoes on their website, they would first want to begin by defining their exact goals and brand niche.  Keywords associated with “shoes” are going to be very competitive so the company would want to narrow the focus and generate a list of terms directly associated with their products. 

Here are some steps to take when starting keyword research:

• Determine the business goals you want to achieve through your online platform
• Define your brand, products, and services
• Start an initial list of terms you would want your site to appear for
• Use both broad terms and very specific terms (and combinations of them)

A good Internet marketing company will use your initial list to begin research but will also do extensive research on your industry as it applies to online searches.  Many times the terms and keywords a company thinks they should appear for may not be the most appropriate terms for traffic and conversions.  For example, a company owner may want to appear for terms more associated with their brand.  During the research process though it might be discovered that those terms are never searched.  This of course means that the terms are not competitive but there may not be a need to use resources to focus on them if they won’t drive targeted traffic.

The difference between broad/generic terms and “long tail” terms:  Broad terms are generally defined as the more competitive and less specific keywords associated with a search.  For example, if you sell used cars in downtown Philidelphia, you may not want to try to focus on just the term “used cars”.  Broad terms like this are very competitive and some sites will not have the ability to reach page one of Google.  Many experts believe the broad terms are useless for conversions anyway.  If your site appears for broad terms like this it will drive large amounts of traffic and be great for brand exposure, but in the long run it will be the more specific terms that will convert. 

Using this example, someone who types in “used car dealer downtown Philidelphia” will be much more likely to convert than someone just searching the terms “used cars”.  This is why using a mix of long tail keywords is so important too.  Long tail terms are the more specific and often geographically targeted keyword phrases.  Another example would be to compare a broad term like “Manhattan apartments” and a long tail term like “Manhattan highrise apartments near Central Park”.  The long tail terms like this generally have a higher conversion rate for obvious reasons…they are more specific and will drive more targeted quality traffic.

We won’t go into the intricate details of developing a good keyword list right now because I want to get into the discussion of how important it is for website development.  Why spend time and money building a site if it will never have the ability to appear in the natural search engine placements.  Makes sense right?  Unfortunately, this is where many website design firms fall short.  It is imperative to understand at least the basics of SEO in order to build the proper framework for a website. 

A good Internet marketing company will build a website keeping the following things in mind:

• Proper keywords associated with each page
• On page content – ensuring those keywords are used
• Title tags – using most relevant keywords associtaed with each page
• Meta descriptions – the source code must contain a description that uses the keywords associated with the page
• Keywords – the source code will also show a list of the most relevant keywords for each page
• H1, H2 tags – these must be embedded in each page as well to support the title tags and content on the page – again, keywords must be used
• Site map – I don’t know how many times I have seen fancy websites that do not even include a site map; without this the search engines can not properly index your pages and you will not rank

All of the elements above can of course be handled during an orgainc search engine optimization campaign but they really should be handled during the development process…otherwise, you will just have to spend more time and money having an SEO company or online marketing company redo the work!  Save yourself time and energy and hire a website development company that knows SEO!

Every company out there today is trying to maximize the impact of their marketing budgets and strategy.  Most are embracing the cost effective and measurable aspects to online marketing.  A comprehensive Internet marketing strategy executed correctly can generate more business and reach a larger audience than traditional media…its that simple. 

Follow these six steps to maximize your Internet marketing impact in 2009:

• (Step One) Analyze your current online presence and understand your competitors:  The most effective way to set initial benchmarks is to analyze your current website and any current or past Internet marketing campaigns.  From this research you can determine if your current website will support your new goals or if you need to redevelop it.  Equally as important is to research your online competitors so you can see what kind of strategies they use and how effective they are.  Knowing your online competitors is imperative to understanding how to beat them!
• (Step Two) Set specific goals:  Goal setting is the most crucial aspect to developing any marketing strategy.  These are not just marketing goals but true business goals (i.e. what are you going to do to grow your business and stay competitive). Your online marketing campaign should be a direct reflection of your goals and be designed specifically for achieving those goals.
• (Step Three) Set budgets for the year:  Determine what you can realistically afford to invest in your marketing strategy.  Internet marketing is NOT like buying advertising…it is s true investment in the future of your business and can have lasting effects that will increase revenue and brand awareness.  Your budgets need to be placed intelligently and be realistic according to the competitiveness of the industry. 
• (Step Four)  Determine what Internet marketing channels are most appropriate:  Internet marketing can include some or all of the following:  consulting, website design, organic search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click advertising (PPC), social media marketing, email marketing, online video marketing,  conversion optimization, online reputation management, and online media buying.  All aspects of your strategy need to compliment one another…including offline and online components.
• (Step Five)  Prepare the foundation for your campaign:  Many times the best foundation starts with a new website that is designed for conversions depending on your goals.
• (Step Six)  Execute, analyze, and adjust:  Constant monitoring and adjusting will drastically improve the ongoing effectiveness of your campaign. 

So how do you accomplish all this and still stay focused on running your business?  Hire an Internet marketing company that can put all these things in motion!