Strategic Internet Marketing Services
What is Internet marketing as it pertains to your business? Marketing a business online involves a multi-pronged approach. Starting with a domain name and a website presence is only a minor part of the overall challenge facing businesses today. The days of setting up a sign online, stating, “we are open for business,” and expecting the World Wide Web to open the door for hundreds of product orders daily without any marketing and advertising efforts, expenditures, and time is extremely naive business thinking.
We all want the quick road to success with very little effort expended. Being successful with Internet marketing still requires an understanding of the four Ps involved with marketing in the first place. Product, pricing, promotion, and placement or distribution are keys to understanding of how to use the Internet and all the related online tools to be successful for the long haul. Actually, having a thorough understanding of the customer’s needs and wants in a product or service can be critical to the introduction of the product or service online.
Product understanding from the consumer, or end user, is important from being able to make the customer connection online. Too many times, companies from both the B2B – Business to Business, and the B2C – Business to Consumer side of the equation forget about the end users. Management so often is interested in using the exact terminology that only a very narrow spectrum of end users understand, has effectively alienated a large portion of market segments. Because of this lack of understanding by some organizations of how the customers are thinking, along with the refusal of management to even acknowledge the end users’ needs and wants, can really put a company behind the competition; especially when it comes to Internet marketing and online advertising.
Pricing, while important, is not necessarily the most important part of the equation. Value, and perceived value can help a business online.
The promotion of a business online has many challenges. Take for example a business that manufactures various OEM components across a broad spectrum of industries. Each of these industries has certain key names for their components and even the manufacturing process is also known by at least a dozen different names depending on which engineer and the industry is focused upon. How can a company be successful in targeting each of these industries and engineers online? There really is no simple solution. Market research continues to be a key factor in this area. Market research requires obtaining more information from customers than just calling them up on the phone and asking them what they do.
The art of listening, and focusing in on the keywords used by various customers, is of prime importance when setting up a strategy online. Setting up an Internet marketing plan that integrates the ongoing market research along with the changes in the marketing landscape can really help propel a company using some very powerful Internet marketing tools. Keep in mind, that the Internet marketing tools also include using online advertising, blog marketing, email marketing, news releases, RSS feeds, and a host of other new and related technologies. Audio and video are becoming more important as consumers and B2B customers are expecting to be able to view product demonstrations.
Other market research tools should include Web analytics. Understanding of how a customer finds your website online can give great insights into the customer’s thinking. How is the website navigated? What is important to the customer? These are just a couple of the questions that need to be continually evaluated for good website optimization. The website is a time to showcase your business, but don’t make the mistake that many in the industry think that the home page is the most popular entry point to the website. While the home page may be popular with people that already know the name of a business, it is the ones that don’t know the name that may find a website when searching for the products or services provided by a business. For that reason, Web analytics can give the Internet marketing team the internal feedback required to improve the website structure. Additionally, as in the previous OEM manufacturer example, a potential B2B customer from one of the diverse industries could enter into the B2B website from one of the many product information pages through a Search Engine search. Each web page may very well be specific to a particular industry, and as such, the navigation of a potential customer could be significantly different than would be typical of some other industry. A dental or medical tools manufacturing company would probably not be interested in products built for cellular phones, or NASA antennas. Likewise, the keywords used by each would be completely different when talking with the engineers. That means, each web page must be evaluated and targeted to the specific industry. B2C, Business to Consumer can have the same type of web issues to contend with. This is where Internet marketing analytics and good market research can pay off dividends for both B2C and B2B companies online.
Placing and the distribution of a product or service can have many channels online. For example, Google provides a service to website content providers in what is know as their AdSense program. The Google AdSense program is an advertising revenue sharing program that content providers can sign up for to display targeted advertisements based on the content of the web page and the website. This blog can be considered a distribution channel for any advertiser promoting a product or service through the www.pwebs.net network of websites. Google is in a type of symbiotic relationship with content providers. While at the same time, advertisers can be using Google AdSense program as both a form of advertisement and a distribution channel. Taking this a step further, Google also offers free product placement (products submit) on their free Google Products distribution system, by allowing anyone to upload a product or bulk list of products for sale, a business now has another channel for online distribution. There are other forms of distribution on the Internet that often get blurred as to the meaning of distribution (placement) or product promotion (advertising). Building quality links with other websites and relationships with other businesses on the Internet is definitely a major factor in building a business today.
Professional Web Services, Inc. offers strategic Internet marketing services, ethical SEO – Search Engine Optimization, online advertising strategies, blog marketing services, and Web branding solutions. Get your business discovered on the Internet. Contact Professional Web Services today to get an online marketing evaluation. Find out what needs to be done to get your business more web traffic, visitors, qualified leads, and more sales originating from your website.