Online Marketing Checklist: Are You Covering Your Bases?

The days when all you needed for online marketing was a nice website have long passed. In order to be effectively represented online, you’ll need effective campaigns on several critical platforms. The platforms vary depending on the type of business you are in, but for those of you still finding your footing; here is a short checklist of platforms you should consider.

Stable Content

• Website: Since its 2010, you should have professional website. If you don’t have one, get on it.
• Bonus Points Wikipedia Entry: Businesses haven’t fully embraced Wikipedia but it is the authority for information reference. Having a Wikipedia entry will become increasingly important for online credibility and exposure.
  

Regularly Updated Content

• Blog: A critical platform for establishing credibility with the online community and search engines. If your organization doesn’t have a blog, you are missing out on establishing yourself as an online authority in your industry.
• Bonus Points Periodical Press Releases: Press Releases still have their place online, particularly when pushed out with a service like PRWeb.com. It can do more than just a blog posting or website update as it pushes to many channels, allowing for more exposure and credibility.

Social Networking

• Twitter/Facebook Fan Page: Twitter and Facebook are the kings of social networking and an increasingly important platform to promote dialog between companies and the online community.
• Bonus Points LinkedIn/Foursquare: LinkedIn and Foursquare aren’t for everyone, but depending on the kind of business you do, these maybe valuable platforms to reach potential customers.

Video Media

• YouTube: YouTube continues to be a predominately an entertainment focused community, but its reach is undeniable. If you have how-to videos, or a business presentation, they are good candidates for YouTube.
• Bonus Points Webinar: Webinars are a great way to interact with customers and the community. Webinars add great value for any customer base.

Search Engine Marketing

• Google AdWords: This isn’t a must but for those of you who are just starting out, or struggling in competitive markets, pay-per-click campaigns with Google can get you that exposure when you need it.
• Bonus Points Pay-per-click on Facebook/LinkedIn/Yahoo/Bing: Although Google is the most recognized player; pretty much every major platform (Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Bing, etc) has a similar version of the pay-per-click program. They may present a less competitive and more targeted environment to push marketing efforts.

Depending on your business and goals, the platforms mentioned may not be critical. Also keep in mind that just because you are represented on these platforms doesn’t necessarily mean you are being represented well on each platform. However, how to assess your effectiveness on the various online platforms is the topic for another post.

Do you have other platforms that are critical to your business’s online marketing strategy that you feel should be on this list? Please share it with us in the comments.

Author: Jimmy Wong

Effective Email Newsletters

Many companies send regular email newsletters to their customers but not many of them measure the effectiveness of their newsletters and adjust them. I recently helped a non-profit organization improve its email newsletter campaign. They had been doing several newsletters each month in the past but they didn’t know if they were being read or even opened. Peter Drucker once said that you can’t manage what you don’t measure, and this can apply to newsletters too!

When I looked at the newsletters. I found that it had too many articles. These articles covered many different topics and the staff had to spend quite a bit of time collecting these articles each month. They created long newsletters and there wasn’t any focal point in them. I then looked at the email opens and click thrus from previous newsletters and found that the numbers were very low.

As a result, I advised them to greatly reduce the number of the articles in each newsletter and focus on a theme for each month. For interested readers, we provided headlines and excerpts linking to longer articles on their blog and website.

I also noticed that they used the same email subject line for every month. The only difference in the subject line was the month. Many recipients will automatically set it aside in the hope that they would come back to it when they have time, but this may not happen unless the subject line has relevancy. I advised them to make the subject line more relevant and describe the theme of the newsletter with some curiosity and urgency for the recipients.

The results: It freed up time for the staff and the email open and click through rates increased significantly. Now the recipients see the value to them and some are even anxiously waiting for the next e-newsletter!

So the point is: You have to regularly monitor, measure and adjust your email newsletters to make it work. Don’t give up on it – it can be one of your most powerful marketing tools.

Author: Ray Yip