Friday, November 30, 2007
On-line Marketing
On-line Marketing
The Do’s And Don’ts Of Online Marketing
Just when we’ve got the marketing game figured out, along comes an entirely new type of marketing called online marketing or e-marketing. Now it’s time to learn to market our products all over again. Well let’s start with the do’s and don’ts of online marketing.
Everywhere you look online you’ll find tips and helpful hints about how you should conduct your e-marketing campaign. You’ll even find information in technical magazines and hear about it on television. But how does one go about deciding what works and what doesn’t.
Some of the information seems rational and sound while the other half of the advice appears contradictory or illogical at best. All that information has left you confused and overwhelmed, so now what? Well let’s simplify it and keep it to the basics. Once you understand the basics you can expand your online marketing plan to meet your needs.
Do Personalize - The oldest marketing rule known. It applies to old school marketing and the new online marketing equally. Personalizing helps to brand you and it helps your customer feel like a valued individual. Personalizing helps your potential customer feel and important and it allows them it identify and remember something about your business.
Do Fresh Marketing - Make sure your online marketing is fresh and that you’re marketing is relevant. Change your content regularly, update your pages often. If you are doing e-mail marketing make sure the message you are sending your potential customers is relevant to what you have to offer. Try to keep the customer interested and entertained.
Do Hire Web Pros - You might be able to handle the basic html yourself but if you are looking for more creative web marketing ideas make sure to hire the pros to implement it for you. There is nothing more detrimental to your online marketing than bells and whistles that freeze your customers computer or don’t load properly. If you are going to add the pizzazz make sure you have the skills to do it.
Do Keep It Short - Your online marketing messages should be short and to the point. They can hook the potential consumer but they should not bore them or fill their heads with irrelevant information just to fill the page.
Do Keep Graphics Small - Graphics take a long time to load and almost 80% of internet users are still using dial up so if you want to keep them on your page and interested in what you have to offer make sure your graphics are small and web optimized so they load quickly.
Do Test - Test you e-marketing, then test it again, and test it some more. You can never test enough! Testing will help you to improve and optimize your online marketing campaign.
Do Track Your Campaigns - Keep good records of your online marketing campaigns. This is a very powerful tool that will allow you to improve a campaign or spot a good campaign and continue to use it.
Do Start Now - There is no time like the present to start your online marketing campaign. Always remember that if you don’t change anything nothing will change. So if you are not happy with the outcome of one campaign then change it and try again.
Don’t Go Techno Crazy - If you are going to implement cool techno schemes like streaming video, or online chat make sure you don’t go crazy and overwhelm your customers with too many cool gizmos. If they become more interested in the cool things they will loose focus on what you are trying to sell them.
Don’t Email Spam - If you want to loose a potential customer just email them too often. This is considered junk and is not only unappreciated by the recipient it is also illegal and could get you into serious trouble. So be courteous with your email marketing.
Don’t Go Personalized Crazy - Now that we’ve told you to personalize, we are also going to warn you not to go crazy with the personalization. If part of your personalization service is to update customers about new products or sales, great but don’t become a pain by bombarding them with email. If you are giving away an item such as free CD there is no use in giving rock-n-roll lovers a blues CD. You need to make sure that your personalization matches the outcome you are trying to achieve. Knowing your customers name may be all the personalization your business needs.
Don’t Believe It - Don’t take my advice or any other advice you read as gospel. What works for one, may not work for the other. So use ideas that make sense to you and your business, try new ideas, and then decide for yourself what is the best online marketing strategy for your business.
Marketing is one of the most powerful tools we have to turn a potential customer into a long term customer. Online marketing has opened up new opportunities for all business. By following this guideline of do’s and don’ts you’ll be on your way to building a successful online marketing campaign.
Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.
The Do’s And Don’ts Of Online Marketing
Just when we’ve got the marketing game figured out, along comes an entirely new type of marketing called online marketing or e-marketing. Now it’s time to learn to market our products all over again. Well let’s start with the do’s and don’ts of online marketing.
Everywhere you look online you’ll find tips and helpful hints about how you should conduct your e-marketing campaign. You’ll even find information in technical magazines and hear about it on television. But how does one go about deciding what works and what doesn’t.
Some of the information seems rational and sound while the other half of the advice appears contradictory or illogical at best. All that information has left you confused and overwhelmed, so now what? Well let’s simplify it and keep it to the basics. Once you understand the basics you can expand your online marketing plan to meet your needs.
Do Personalize - The oldest marketing rule known. It applies to old school marketing and the new online marketing equally. Personalizing helps to brand you and it helps your customer feel like a valued individual. Personalizing helps your potential customer feel and important and it allows them it identify and remember something about your business.
Do Fresh Marketing - Make sure your online marketing is fresh and that you’re marketing is relevant. Change your content regularly, update your pages often. If you are doing e-mail marketing make sure the message you are sending your potential customers is relevant to what you have to offer. Try to keep the customer interested and entertained.
Do Hire Web Pros - You might be able to handle the basic html yourself but if you are looking for more creative web marketing ideas make sure to hire the pros to implement it for you. There is nothing more detrimental to your online marketing than bells and whistles that freeze your customers computer or don’t load properly. If you are going to add the pizzazz make sure you have the skills to do it.
Do Keep It Short - Your online marketing messages should be short and to the point. They can hook the potential consumer but they should not bore them or fill their heads with irrelevant information just to fill the page.
Do Keep Graphics Small - Graphics take a long time to load and almost 80% of internet users are still using dial up so if you want to keep them on your page and interested in what you have to offer make sure your graphics are small and web optimized so they load quickly.
Do Test - Test you e-marketing, then test it again, and test it some more. You can never test enough! Testing will help you to improve and optimize your online marketing campaign.
Do Track Your Campaigns - Keep good records of your online marketing campaigns. This is a very powerful tool that will allow you to improve a campaign or spot a good campaign and continue to use it.
Do Start Now - There is no time like the present to start your online marketing campaign. Always remember that if you don’t change anything nothing will change. So if you are not happy with the outcome of one campaign then change it and try again.
Don’t Go Techno Crazy - If you are going to implement cool techno schemes like streaming video, or online chat make sure you don’t go crazy and overwhelm your customers with too many cool gizmos. If they become more interested in the cool things they will loose focus on what you are trying to sell them.
Don’t Email Spam - If you want to loose a potential customer just email them too often. This is considered junk and is not only unappreciated by the recipient it is also illegal and could get you into serious trouble. So be courteous with your email marketing.
Don’t Go Personalized Crazy - Now that we’ve told you to personalize, we are also going to warn you not to go crazy with the personalization. If part of your personalization service is to update customers about new products or sales, great but don’t become a pain by bombarding them with email. If you are giving away an item such as free CD there is no use in giving rock-n-roll lovers a blues CD. You need to make sure that your personalization matches the outcome you are trying to achieve. Knowing your customers name may be all the personalization your business needs.
Don’t Believe It - Don’t take my advice or any other advice you read as gospel. What works for one, may not work for the other. So use ideas that make sense to you and your business, try new ideas, and then decide for yourself what is the best online marketing strategy for your business.
Marketing is one of the most powerful tools we have to turn a potential customer into a long term customer. Online marketing has opened up new opportunities for all business. By following this guideline of do’s and don’ts you’ll be on your way to building a successful online marketing campaign.
Deon Melchior is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit ArticleClick.com. Article Click is a free content article directory. This means that as a publisher you may reprint the articles that are included in our site, as long as the article is unedited and the author box is included with it's live hyperlinks.
