| |
| |
|
Marketing Resource Center |
|
|
|
Get Results: Start with Your Marketing Message and Objective
Recently I was talking with a very bright traditional marketer on the value of integrating Internet marketing into an enterprise's marketing mix. Personally, I have witnessed significant and measurable increases in the online results of an enterprise when they include traditional marketing strategies like direct mail, radio, television or publicity with their internet marketing strategies. Although he did not disagree with the concept, he re-focused the discussion on the importance of an enterprise establishing their marketing message and objective even BEFORE contemplating their traditional or Internet marketing strategies. What an excellent point! What about you? ? Have you created a clear and concise marketing message? ? Have you defined your customer benefits and integrated them into your message? ? Have you established a measurable objective to determine your success by? Your Marketing Objective Defines Your Results Business owners and marketers have a tendency to think in broad terms about their marketing objective by focusing on ones such as "generating traffic" or "designing a website." Instead, the effectiveness of their internet marketing strategies should be driven by specific marketing objectives established from the end result required of the business to be economically sustainable. For example, "generating traffic" is not directly tied to a financial objective like "generating a cost per sale of $75." The common misperception of "traffic equals sales" has wasted tremendous amounts of business' capital on poor quality website traffic. In addition some businesses have developed negative attitudes towards Internet marketing by falsely associating poor results to it instead of to a lack of an objective. Recently a new client described his horror story of spending a significant part of his budget on contracting with a paid search service provider. The resulting paid search campaign was a major failure in terms of satisfying the client management's net profit objective. Actually, to be precise, the campaign caused a massive negative net profit. After asking further questions to understand why the situation occurred, I discovered that the blame could not be attributed to the service provider's failure to perform but instead to the client's failure to define the correct marketing objective. The client contracted with the service provider under an objective of "generating traffic" versus "generating a positive net profit." The goal of "generating a positive net profit" involves a more strategic performance-centered setup and management of a paid search campaign which this particular service provider was not capable of delivering through their business model. Unfortunately, directed by the client's defined objective, the service provider delivered massive volumes of paid search "visitor traffic" which failed to satisfy the client's non-communicated but expected increase in positive net profit. Your Marketing Objective is the Balance between Determining Success and Failure. By defining a measurable objective, an internet marketing strategy is regulated by the resulting increase or decrease of it. From this perspective, a simple "yes/no" decision is made as to the success of a particular strategy: "Yes" it achieved the marketing objective and should be maximized; or "No" it fell short of achieving the marketing objective and should be dropped or the message adjusted and tested again. Without a measurable objective, the success of an internet marketing strategy is determined by subjective means versus real data. A Clear and Concise Marketing Message Ensures Achievement of Your Objective The marketing message is essential for generating performance from your Internet marketing strategy. Rather on your website, landing page, or paid search ad, the message attracts visitor attention, qualifies the type of visitor and persuades the visitor to complete your defined marketing objective. An excellent book written by Doug Hall titled, "Jump Start Your Business Brain" outlines three essential components every effective marketing message should include. They are: 1. Overt Benefit: answers the customer-centric question of "what's in it for me?" 2. Reason to Believe: what persuasive credibility shows that you will do as you promise? 3. Dramatic Difference: what is your uniqueness to the customer? The rudimentary knowledge gained from these three essentials is that you must focus on your visitor and answer their buying questions. By satisfying your visitor's needs in a manner that persuades them to buy, they will correspondingly satisfy your needs. Are You Satisfying Your Visitor's Needs? An easy way to assess whether your marketing message is even capable of satisfying your visitor's needs is to count the number of times your website copy states "you or yours" versus "we and us". Although primitive, this exercise will immediately tune you in to where your marketing message is directed. If you're talking more about "we" then about "you" then you're focusing on the wrong message. Instead of spending more time on developing a traffic generation strategy, re-focus your time and thinking on developing an effective marketing message with a measurable objective. Ultimately your traffic generation strategy will achieve higher returns and stronger results when you attract the most qualified visitors through an effective marketing message and gain "data-driven" insight from a measurable objective. Kevin Gold is a Partner and Co-founder of Enhanced Concepts, Inc., which specializes in turning website visitors into leads or sales through tested website conversion strategies and performance-focused search engine marketing. To learn how to generate greater performance from your search engine marketing and to turn more website visitors into leads and sales go to http://www.enhancedconcepts.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Five Steps to Partnering with Companies to Build Your Client Base Wouldn't you love a simple formula for easily growing your small business? Here is something that could be just what you are looking for:1. Create an information product based on your expertise. 11 Rock Solid Techniques For Generating Product Ideas Anytime Anywhere! Whatever business you are in, either online or offline, you've got to constantly generate business/product ideas.If you've ever wondered how on earth those big corporations and companies generate wonderful and irresistible products plus powerful and revolutionary ideas, here are the 11 basic principle behind it all and the greatest of news is that it can be applied to any business. CRM System: Give Meaning to Your Data A customer relationship system (CRM) system uses technologically-driven strategies to assess customer needs and buying behavior. This allows businesses to market their products and services more effectively. Costly Web Copy Pitfalls One secret to a site that sells: Look at your site from your customer's perspective. Another secret: Watch out for these common web copy pitfalls. Reach Thousands of Your Prospects, Absolutely Free I'm big on getting maximum marketing exposure at the lowest cost possible. After all, most small business owners don't have huge marketing budgets, so finding inexpensive ways to market is a necessity. How To Successfully Launch A New Business Activity I often talk with business owners who tell me how excited they are about a new product or service they are offering .. How to Turn Your Marketing Into a Money-Making Machine - Examples of solid Marketing As Claude Hopkins presented in his Scientific Advertising many decades ago, there are scientific ways of tracking your Marketing and Advertising and determining clearly and unequivocally what works and what does not. Without knowing the facts about what is effectively increasing your leads, and subsequently your sales success, you might as well be throwing money out the window-literally. 5 Tips to Grow Your Business Globally Entering into Global markets is a great way to organically grow your business. However, many small to mid sized businesses have a hard time, if they even venture to go global at all, entering global markets. How to Use Marketing Judo to Beat Big Competitors If yours is a small business and you have big or even huge competitors, you may be laying awake at night wondering how can you possibly beat them. You can't out-advertise them, or out-promote them, and you probably won't be able beat to its prices. Non-Profit Success Requires Ongoing Marketing In a crowded marketplace of ideas, it is important for non-profit organizations to establish a well-defined niche. While most non-profits are not selling products, they are selling their organization's mission, their ideas, their programs, and their services. Motivating Your Target There's just no time to waste in a cyber day; competition for your target's attention has always been stiff, but now it's just killer. There's less time and more to do, more to see, more to read--ad infinitum. Multicultural Marketing - Taking Care of Business At Hand Multicultural marketing mirrors the changed face of America and is getting the attention of small-business and other organizations looking for an edge in diverse ethnic markets. "Gone are the days when businesses succeed with a 'one size fits all' approach to marketing. Using Direct Mail The advantages of using direct mail to promote your home-based or small business are: Selectivity-the ability to send your advertising only to people and organizations who can use and pay for your product or service. Flexibility-the freedom to use either the simplest or the most elaborate presentation, ranging from a single-sheet mailer to an entire package, and the flexibility to test all sorts of minor changes in your mailing pieces. More Scams! Do you Really Believe It? Quit spreading those chain letters, nothing is going to happen to you if you don't mail it to the next person. However, there is a better chance that if you continue mailing, you may have the FTC on you. There's More to Marketing ROI (return on investment) Than Meets the Eye All too often people look at marketing ROI in terms of response rate: in other words, "I sent out 10,000 pieces of direct mail and only got 39 responses which is terrible." This is wrong think. The Future of Marketing Part 1 It used to be if you were a small business, you were at a distinct disadvantage with your marketing compared to the bigger companies.No more. Identify The Ideal Target Audience With These 5 Tips Narrowing your focus to one primary group of people is often difficult for small business owners. They want to help everyone - and very often their product or service CAN help a variety of people. Color Part 1: Accuracy Color is one of the most difficult parts of a design to show accurately to a client.Color perception can be affected by many factors, including:Human perception:The way each person sees color can vary, depending on the structure of the individual's eye. Private Practice Marketing: 3 Secrets I Wish I Knew When I First Started Out I don't know about you, but I am still waiting for my first class in graduate school about how to develop, market, and run a private practice.I'm also still waiting for my father to have a discussion with me about the facts of life. Develop Your Curiosity And Increase Profits If anyone was to ask me what my greatest strength was I'd say curiosity. The reason I would say that is because curious people learn a lot.
|
| home | site map | Advertising Articles |
| © 2006 |
