So you’ve go your website up an running and now you can sit back, wait for the phone to ring of the hook or the orders to come flooding in. That’s the perfect scenario but unfortunately this is rarely the case. You need to make sure that you get noticed in a competitive marketplace where people have already built loyalty and trust with existing brands.
Now you enter the fascintaing world of marketing (Qunicy ME reference for anyone who remembers that show). For this article, I will mainly concentrate on online marketing but please feel free to contribute via the comments. Digital marketing can easily become a very expensive without a coherent and well-thought strategy. People can often get over-awed by the thought of this but I have put together the basic elements of what your strategy should contain.
Target
One of the first areas to consider is your audience. Who are you marketing your website and ultimately your product to? If you cannot identify this – then stop now and take time to make sure you can.
Are you selling B2B or B2C? Is your product gender specific? Does your product have a minumum or maximum age limit? Some products will be aimed at a wide range of people whereas others may be very specific. It is important to identify and understand your target market so you can tailor your campaign accordingly.
You will probably find that you have identified a number of sub-groups within your target market and this will help with further tailoring of the campaign.
Analysis
Look at what other companies and competitors are doing on the following key mediums:
Google – how well do they rank for essential keyword searches. Do they have an advert in the Sponsor Links section and is it appearing at 1 or 10
Facebook – this is a great medium to reach a targeted audience. Change your profile data and look at how the adverts change accordingly. This is because an advertiser can designate the target audience in very granular detail and create a generic or extremely specific campaign.
Twitter – look at what your competitors are doing on twitter and make sure you keep up to speed on the trending topics.
There are other mediums such as YouTube , but these will allow you to build a picture of the marketplace and the trends and styles which are being employed by your competitors. I do not advocate copying them – how will you stand out from the crowd by copying someone else. use this information to create your own campaign.
Mediums & Language
As part of the analysis, you should have built up an idea of what mediums you will use to deliver your method. Your target market will have a certain influence on this – there is no point using Facebook for advertising Saga holidays. However Google search results would be more pertinent for this example.
Once you have decided on your mediums you need to make sure your message is communicated in a clear and coherent manner. You may wish to employ a designer or copywriter to get the best out of the available space and make sure your message is communicated effectively to your audience. You would not describe Saga holidays as “exciting, buzzing and off the hook” but you would use words such as “peaceful, friendly and relaxing”.
If you cannot communicate with your target audience, they will not even see your product – let alone begin to think about purchasing it.
Measure your results
This can be done in a variety of ways but whatever marketing methods and mediums you use, you should be able to measure the impact on your business. You need to demonstrate a return on your investment. It is not cost effective to continue to spend £500 per month on a magazine advert which only generates you £200 worth of orders. By using mediums such as promotional codes in adverts, specific telephone numbers or referral sites, you can refine your campaign to be as profitable as possible.
Don’t forget Word of mouth
Remember people are always quicker to grumble rather than praise so it is important that when someone does talk about your site it is in a positive manner. If you look at your website and comments such as “well it’s ok” or “I really should do something with this” come to mind – then the chance are that most of your visitors are also thinking this. Don’t leave it, do something about it to improve your visitor experieince.
