Marketing and Promotion Strategy

Introduction“A Company that develops an easy to use web site with relevant content and functionality is still only half way towards achieving a successful outcome. They also have to promote the site to customers and potential customers…”

Enterprise Ireland

IntroductionAs with any marketing campaign, you should first

determine what your objectives are and who your target audience is.

This will be a key factor in determining the mix of promotional techniques used.

The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing including low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience.

The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of instant response and in eliciting response, are unique qualities of the medium.

IntroductionInternet Marketing includes lead generation

activities such as SEO and SEM, affiliate marketing, banner ads and emails. More importantly internet marketing also includes market analyses, benchmarking, performance measurement and customer relationship management.

Internet MarketingAlthough advertising spending declined

overall in the first half of the year, Internet display advertising registered a 17.7 percent increase to $5.52 billion in expenditures when compared with the year-ago period, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

Broadcast TV, on the other hand, is less fortunate: Ad spending on spot TV dropped 5.4 percent to $7.29 billion for the first half of the year.

Marketing StrategyThe selection of the product mix and

customer profile for maximum profit potential. The 4 "Ps" of product, price, promotion, and place (distribution) are often incorporated into a marketing strategy.

Key to measuring the effectiveness of a Marketing CampaignsWhile generating Web-site traffic is important

to the success of an e-businessKeeping user profilesRecording visits Analysing promotional and advertising results

are key to measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

The key is to attract new customers and bringing them back repeatedly.

AmazonAmazon makes predictive recommendations

to users based on an analysis of a user’s ratings and purchases compared with other users including “customers who bought this book also bought” feature. Amazon also provides users with lists of items in the same category as the item they requested.

Amazon allows users to provide explicit ratings for books and other products, which it uses to recommend other items to a user.

BrandingA brand is typically defined as a name, logo

or symbol that helps one identify a company’s product or service.

Businesses that already have solid brand may find it easier to transfer their brand to the Web, while Internet only business must strive to develop a brand that customers trust and value.

Uniformity of the brand increases brand recognition

The speed of Information flowThe Internet provides an opportunity for

further branding a company and its products but the Internet makes it difficult to protect a company’s brand from misuse.

Rumors and customer dissatisfaction can spread quickly over the Internet and can show up on message boards and in chat rooms.

The average customer with an unresolved complaint will tell nine to ten people; 13% tell more than 20 people.

Up to 70% of complainers will return to your business if their complaint is resolved. Up to 95% return if the problem is resolved quickly.

For every one complaint received, the average company has 26 unhappy customers it never hears from; six of these customers have problems that are considered “serious” problems.

Companies that are hired to protect the brands of a company.

What do these companies offer?

Get to know your customersDemographics - the study of, or information

about, people's lifestyles, habits, population movements, spending, age, social grade, employment, etc. ...

Psychographics - (also known as lifestyle segmentation) defining consumers in terms of their attitudes, interests and opinions

http://www.internetworldstats.com

E-Mail as a promotional toolAn inexpensive and effective way to target

potential customers http://www.constantcontact.com

Excessive emailing can decrease the effectiveness of your email campaign. (Opt out clause)

If you do not wish to receive such information by any of the methods listed below please indicate by ticking the corresponding box: [mail / telephone / email / SMS]

Banner AdvertisingThis form of online advertising entails embedding

an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking them to the web site of the advertiser.

The advertisement is constructed from an image (GIF, JPEG, PNG), JavaScript program or multimedia object employing technologies such as Silverlight, Java, Shockwave or Flash, often employing animation or sound to maximize presence.

http://www.ukbanners.com

Search Engine OptimisationDetermine the keywords to use in describing your siteWhat keywords are people whom you would like to

attract to your site likely to use??Lateral thinking might be needed

Example: Imagine a company trying to sell a new coating designed to protect the paintwork on new cars, to people who might not have thought of buying such a coating. They might get more business by using key words of complementary goods, such as “cars”.

Talk to staff and clients for suggestionsCheck for industry comparison-shopping sites and add

your site to the directory.

Search Engine Optimisation

You can use software to analyse your search engines positioning and to indicate possible ways of modifying your site to gain more targeted traffic.

Accurate and complete records of your site submission activities are critical to successful search engine optimisation.

Verify the status of your original listing at least every three months.

Search Engine Optimisation

Hint a META tag is an html tag that contains information about a Web page. The tag does not change how a page is displayed, but can contain a description of the page, keywords and the page’s title. Search engines often use this information when ranking a site.

ExerciseUse http://www.submitexpress.com/ to

analyse META tags of popular websites.Compare search results between search

engines – google / yahoo / lycos / altavista / ask

Search Engine Market Share

Buying and Selling Banner AdvertisingBuying advertising space on sites that receive a

large number of hits and that target a market similar to yours can increase the number of hits on your site and lead to higher revenues.

Selling advertising space on your site can provide you with additional income.

It is important to distinguish a site’s unique visitors from the total number of hits it receives.

Companies have adopted different payment systems for advertising on their sites.

The method of payment used is Cost-per-thousand (CPT) visitors.

Advertising Payment SchemesWith some advertising payment schemes you

will be charged only if the customer performs an action predetermined by the Website.

pay-per-click based on the number of clicks through the site

pay-per-lead based on each lead generated from advertising

pay-per-sale based on each sale resulting through a click-through

Advertising Payment SchemesCompare the following:

www.valueclick.comwww.double-click.comwww.adsmart.net

What are the services offered?…and at what rates??

Affiliate ProgramsAn affiliate program is a web-based

marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.

Examples http://www.zyra.biz/index.htmhttp://dir.yahoo.com/http://botw.org/

Price Comparison Bots/SitesOnce you know what you want to buy, you have to figure

out who's got the best deal. That's where shopping bots earn their keep. These software agents scour the Web or their own massive databases for products you designate. Then, like the Greek messenger Hermes, they zip back with a list of prices and places to buy. If they do the job right, bots spare you from visiting dozens of stores to collect prices and allow you to sniff out the steals from the so-so deals.

Examples www.moneysupermarket.comhttp://www.pricerunner.co.uk/http://www.priceinspector.co.uk/