Posts tagged Search Engines

In today’s hectic, bloated online world where information overload is stifling creativity and trashing old school ideology it is refreshing to step back into the old world to drenge up the methodology of past glory and use it to create new online glories. When it comes to marketing this revival is both useful and warranted and can help small business owners to understand what is really take place online by using terms they understand from offline marketing for comparison.Most importantly if used properly it can increase client conversion.

OK so let us look at some of these ideas, offline when you are going to do a Marketing Campaign you will either get a marketing specialist or do it yourself in either case both should start by

1, Identifying potential customers, offline you may use surveys, the post office services or things like Dunn & Bradshaw’s directory to help you do this. These methods are still extremly useful and work very well in terms of targetting prospects – if you understand what service or product you are selling. Online there is no real difference in that you still should be doing this only this research can be done using deep keyword research or by finding like minded communities and forums both using search engines, blog catalogs and social media sites – Facebook have great tools which are supposed to be used for targeting a Facebook ad campaign can actually be used to tell you how to find your market inside Facebook without spending any money.

2, Placement of your marketing – offline you would not put an ad or run a campaign for a bakery in a car magazine would you? ( I hope not ) by ensuring that the right type of prospect see your ad in the right offline mediums canhelp improve your businesses chance of obtaining new customers – online it is no different you in that you must make sure that the right people arrive at the correct landing place (targetted traffic) for the search query (keword) associated to that product or service and not another unrelated product.

3, Measure responsiveness- just as you would measure response for offline marketing to an ad, radio or TV campaign you should do the same online – measuring which pages or sites are working. Measuring responsiveness helps you to tweak, remove or change an ad and where best to position it for maximum effect – lets face it why spend money on a campaign that does not work , measuring allows you the ability to stop wasting moneye. Use freely available tools like Google Analytics and Optimiser to help you see what is working and also help you split test pages, if you do not know how find an internet marketing specialist to help.

Finally your best gauge of the success of your marketing campaign on and offline are your customers and also the people who you did not convert (yes I did say the people who did not convert) – the people who became customers by buying from you should be willing to tell you why they bought your product or service and how they would use your product or service within their offline/online business – this is no different online – think about testimonials these are just customers recounting why they bought a particluar thing.

Funny but the people who did not buy are equally if not more important as they are the people that for whatever the reason was, were not quite happy with your offering – offline you may ring them up or survey them, online why not find out why by showing them an exit screen offering them a discount for your product or service (some will buy with a discount – this is a proven strategy) but if they will not offer them a free report to tell you why they did not choose your service (do this as a quick survey no more than five multichoice questions or as an open comment box. This may seem an unusual stratergy but it can help you improve the quality of your offering so that you are losing less customers. Again here click path analysis can tell you online what information people are viewing and finding interesting on your site so you can further push promotion of these products or services or work on those not doing so well.

My personal opinion is that offline ideology and methods are as good as they ever were and understanding them makes it much easier to market your business product or service online. Do this simple test – Ask yourself – how does what i want to do online this relate to offline marketing? Which offline idea or method is this? If you cannot answer get an internet marketing specialist and ask them, if they cannot answer find a new one ASAP one who understands both online and offline marketing and will be able to help you maximise your businesses results both online and offline.