Online Marketing Made Simple

The historic shift from traditional to digitally-based marketing has created a mini-renaissance in marketing methodology. The level of innovation and creativity is at an all-time high. The airways are filled with new methods and tricks to the point of saturation. The downside to this phenomenon is that it is easy to get distracted by the latest and greatest and lose site of the marketing basics that apply, regardless of media.This article will cut through the chatter and focus on the basic elements of the online marketing business.

The lay of the land

Developing an online marketing program exposes us to tools and terminology that might be new to us, but the underlying framework and goals are consistent with all good marketing efforts.

The Mission. Your online marketing mission is very simple: generate quality traffic, convert visitors into results, and take the money to the bank.

Online Marketing: the simplistic view

The Challenge. An effective web marketing campaign involves a delicate balancing act. Generating qualified web traffic requires lots of hard work and significant investment. Spending a fortune to attract a high volume of “eyeballs” that never make it beyond your homepage is of little use. Converting your website visitors into customers is the true measure of website effectiveness. Accomplishing these goals in a cost effective manner has not been easy to date.

Online Marketing: Pitfalls

Now that we understand the game, let’s see how it’s played.

Traffic Generation

This component of online marketing is generally well-understood. When industry professionals talk about traffic generation, they typically address both outbound and inbound channels. Let’s explore these in some more detail.

Traditional Outbound Marketing Channels

These channels are best described as traditional marketing approaches, just applied to the Internet as a new medium. One typically begins by segmenting the potential market based on probability of success and then ‘shooting’ at your target(s) with one of tools below:

Email Marketing – build your own or buy e-mail lists and send email newsletters, product promotions, etc.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) – bid for keywords at major search engine sites, your ad location will depend how much you bid.

Online Public Relations – create press releases – traditional PR firms have expanded their focus to include online media, as revenues from programs targeted at traditional print media have diminished.

Affiliate Marketing – bid in a way that is similar to PPC – basically this is a variation of display advertising with a success-based cost structure.

Innovative Inbound Marketing Channels

Most of action and buzz as of late is associated with inbound marketing channels. These channels represent one of the more significant innovations in the last half-century. The uniqueness of inbound marketing is that it leverages the Internet as both a medium of communication as well as a cultural phenomenon.

The basic premise of inbound marketing is simple: we will not contact you — instead we will create an environment where you will want to contact us. To succeed, the online marketing professional must use new communication channels to attract attention to his or her offerings:

Blogging and Viral Content – creating unique content that will further increase your ranking with search engines and establish interaction with your potential customers.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) – leveraging social media platforms (small and large) to earn visibility and traffic. For example, your participation in Facebook Group pages, Twitter marketing, pushing content on Digg, etc. will in return help you build your brand and generate traffic to your website.

How to choose your channel mix?

There is no universal answer to this question. On a very high level, more established companies that are selling better-known brands will benefit more from the traditional outbound channels than younger companies with niche offerings. For a more in-depth analysis, we recommend the following blog: A Checklist to Choose Which Internet Marketing Channel is Right for Your Business.

Conversion

Conversion rate management is the least understood element of online marketing. Few online marketers know the conversion rates of their web pages, nor are they really aware just how much money they are losing because of poorly performing web pages.

Online Marketing: Conversion importance

For example, FireClick reports that 98% of web traffic is wasted.

Fireclick Stats

In the past Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tools (often also called A/B, split, and multivariate testing (MVT) tools) were complex and expensive and resulted in most marketers avoiding this potentially profitable area. Now, with solutions like Hiconversion and Google’s Website Optimizer (GWO), along with affordable turnkey services, it is hard to understand why companies of all sizes are not using these tools.

Often, the cause for inaction is misinformation. Some common myths surrounding CRO include:

Myth #3: CRO is very expensive
Not true. Before Hiconversion, you had to invest $5,000 to $25,000 for a single web page optimization. Not any more. With Hiconversion, you can optimize your web pages for only $145/mo.

Myth #4: CRO is very technical and a very complicated
Not true. Hiconversion is designed for a non-technical marketing and business users. A simple, point-and-click interface makes the optimization process a breeze.

Myth #5: CRO is risky
Not true. Before Hiconversion, you had to be prepared to have a dip in your conversion rate during the MVT. Not any more. The Hiconversion system adapts to your web traffic in real time, while lifting your conversion rates even as you test.

Dollars and Sense

To maximize your profitability, you have to find a critical balance between investment in traffic generation and optimization of your web pages for higher conversion rates.

Investment in Traffic

It pays to keep in mind that an investment into traffic generation provides a linear (proportional) return on your investment (ROI). On the other hand, a small investment in CRO can produce an exponential ROI.

Investment in CRO

In reality, of course you need both increased traffic and increased conversion rates. We believe that 90%-95% of your marketing budget should be allocated to traffic generation activities. That is where you need to do the heavy lifting. What you should not do is to completely ignore the importance of CRO. If you are interested to dive into more details please read the Business Case for Conversion Rate Optimization.

Final Thought

We are often asked where to start and what things need to be done first – should we generate additional traffic or optimize our web pages? A simple 10% rule comes in handy. Determine the monthly value of a 10% increase in the conversion rate of your most important web page(s). If the answer is $1,000 or more you are a prime candidate for CRO. If it is less than $1,000, you should first focus on generating more web traffic.