Next Modo » Online Marketing

The Wondering Analyst

admin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:08:47 +0000

If you are interested in online analytics you must read Alankar Tayal’s blog The Wondering Analyst. I’ve known Alankar for a few years and he’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met. He’s CMO material but with common sense.

Great Seth Godin Post

admin — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:48:50 +0000

I’m a big follower of Seth Godin. I consume his works (blogs, books, and Webcasts) and if you’ve read me long enough you may see where he’s influenced my ideas. I’m not a trained marketer in the traditional sense. I went to school for computer hardware and eventually found myself working in the SEM field and then Website management. Online marketing has become a huge part of corporate Websites so I’ve had to pick it up. Thanks to Godin for making in enjoyable and fun.

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2123/37360708″

Target Visitors with Landing Pages

admin — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:03:51 +0000

With the increasing sophistication of search engines visitors are getting sent deeper into your site than ever before. A few years ago most visitors landed on your home page and then wandered through your site looking for what they wanted. Now they end up one, two, three, or more tiers deep. There are obvious notes you can take from this about your site like easy to use and consistent site navigation, search features, and overall simplicity. But have you thought about who comes to your site?

With better search brings the opportunity for you to target your demographics better than ever. Instead of worrying that your home page is a one-size-fits-all you can now create landing pages to target your demographics. Your teen visitors will respond differently than your senior citizens. You working mothers will respond differently than our twenty-something males. If you know who your visitors are, or who you are trying to target, you can now reach out to them with pages designed just for them.

Once you have landing pages for your target demographics you can drive traffic to those pages through traditional SEO, social marketing, and paid campaigns via tools like PPC. By speaking directly to a person you are more likely to convert them.

Rising Above the Competition Online

admin — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:13:32 +0000

How will you make your Website stand out from the rest? Unless you are selling a very rare widget you can bet that there are a dozen more sites just like yours. Maybe even a thousand more. How will you drive traffic to your site and away from your competitions? You can spend a load on PPC. You can hire an excellent SEO person. You can stand on the highway with a sign that reads “visit my site.” But even with these techniques you may not be able to keep visitors long enough to convert. So what are you going to do to make your site different? Below are some ideas to make your site stand above the rest.
1. Become a trusted expert in your field. Easier said than done, but if you provide the information your visitor is looking for they will trust you over your competitors. If you are selling leopard geckos provide leopard gecko care sheets, leopard gecko breeding tips, pictures of leopard gecko morphs, etc.
2. Make your site a habit. Provide a daily blog, a message board, an RSS feed, and other tools that will bring visitors interested in your product or service back every day.
3. Write to your visitor. Make sure to provide what the visitor is looking for and not why you are the best. You can mention that you won this and that award, but the visitor is there to satisfy their own need – not to read about how great you are.
4. Use the tools of the Web. This one is a given but it’s easy to overlook things like press releases, email blasts, and social media sites that not only drive new visitors to your site but build your authority on the Internet. A good press release can sit at the top of Google News for days and drive valuable visitors to your site.
5. Market Offline. Print up business cards and give them to everyone you know; stick them in books at the bookstore, pass them out at conferences, and anywhere else you can think of.
Above are just a few ideas to get you started. The real point of this post is that it for a site to beat competition you must find unique promotional tools. SEO and SEM are great, but it takes “out of the box” thinking to stand out above the rest. Share your ideas below.

Why Online Advertising is the Best

admin — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 13:31:31 +0000

For years advertisers have struggled with trying to prove ROI on their advertising spend. You can spend a million bucks on a TV spot but does it really help? You might see an increase in purchases, but nailing down the exact cause and effect of the commercial and then conversion is difficult. Direct Mail is easier to target than TV or radio advertising, but it still has as high margin of error. Print advertising isn’t easy to track either.

When I explain to folks why the Internet is the perfect place to sell your products and services I give the example of putting a running shoe ad in a running magazine. That’s a targeted audience, but most of the readers probably already have running shoes and ignore your ad. With online advertising the buyer comes to you looking for running shoes. This is why the Internet is the most perfect advertising medium ever.

Of course it takes more than just getting the buyer to your site. Once they are there you have to keep them and convince them that you have the best running shoe, the best prices, or are the most trusted source to share personal information with. Or that the visitor should go out and buy your product or service in a traditional retail outlet. So, how do you make your site a winning site? Subscribe to my RSS feed and I’ll show you. I’ll share with you what I’ve learned from experience and ‘let you in’ on what works and what doesn’t. I also welcome your comments because your insight will make this a better site and help others, as well as me, learn more about this fast changing industry.