|
Easy Marketing Communications Planning Steps
‘Tis the season to be planning. Most business people are familiar with strategic planning. But what about your marketing communications program? Do you have a plan for that? For those of you with marketing communications anxiety, here’s a...
So You Think Marketing Has Changed
With the proliferation of the Internet, the meaning of the word "marketing" has also proliferated. There seem to be as many definitions of marketing as there are marketers. Many see marketing as a series of tactics or gimmicks. Some push pyramid...
Times Square vs. chocolate e-mail marketing
Times Square is a marketeer's ego wall. With more billboards than there is coffee at an AA meeting, Times Square is the Internet's ground zero for spray-and-pray marketing. Definition of spray and pray: (1) in near panic, spray fresh VC funding on...
Why Hire an Advertising/Marketing Consultant?
As a business owner, you have the option of taking several different approaches to handling your Marketing and Advertising. You may choose to handle the responsibility yourself, with the idea that no one understands your business quite the way you...
Why You Need a Marketing Plan
Being in direct sales can often give the feeling "I don't have to do much, just sell". It's true, you don't have to ship orders or create websites, or even design catalogs (even though we recommend it sometimes). Your job as the rep is to direct...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Website Marketing Mistakes Smart People Make
You have invested your time and money into putting up your company website. Your prospective customers are out there somewhere and you want to make aware of your site, your address, what you offer and why they would want to visit.
You have some ideas, but you don't want to waste money. How can you avoid mistakes other smart website owners make?
By reading this article, of course.
I'm going to outline several tactics that DON'T work. By the end of this article, you'll save time and money (not to mention avoiding throat-clinching disappointment and frustration) by skipping these Bad Ideas.
Bad Idea #1 - Let's get more traffic to get more sales.
Seems reasonable at first glance. But it's not always the best course to take. How well does your site sell now? What's the sales conversion rate of your website? If your website is inefficient at converting 100 visitors into customers, it will be inefficient at converting 20000 visitors into customers.
For instance, I may find a client's website converts 1 percent of their visitors to customers. If we can boost that number to 2 percent, they have doubled their sales without spending more money marketing. When they DO spend money on marketing, they still convert the higher percentage of their visitors to customers.
Bottomline: Take a look at your conversion rate before you increase traffic. What can you do to boost it?
Bad idea #2 - Let's just buy thousands of visitors.
Many emails I recieve start with "I paid for 10,000 visitors and I
didn't make ONE sale. You'd think I'd make at least one sale"
Many instant "traffic building systems" DON'T work. Why?
You've seen popup windows. Many times these traffic building systems automatically pop open a browser window showing your website. That counts as a visit. Yes, a person who wasn't looking for what you sell and was in the middle of doing something else. So of course they close the annoying window.
Bottomline: You have other options to build traffic. The goal is to get a return on your marketing dollars. You want the throngs coming to your website to BUY.
Bad Idea # 3 - Where can we buy some banner ads?
Here's the skinny: Targeted banner ads are placed on sites that have visitors who may want what you offer. Even these banners typically get .3 of 1 percent clickthrough. That's 3 clicks per thousand views!
Bottomline: If you absolutely want to do banners, only do them if they are free. By free, I don't mean banner exchanges where you pay by putting banners on your site. By free I mean free as part of your own affiliate program for example. There are better tactics to spend your time and money on.
There you have it. Three common website marketing mistakes you can avoid. This frees up your time and money for things that DO work.
About the Author
Raynay Valles is an independent online marketer who turns non-performing websites into websites that sell. How well does YOUR website sell? Visit http://www.jawdrop.com or email Raynay now at rvalles@jawdrop.com
|
|
|
|
|
KnowThis: For Marketing, Market Research, Internet Marketing ... |
KnowThis.com offers a wealth of information, forums, and resources for professionals, academics and students in traditional and internet marketing, ... |
www.knowthis.com |
  |
Marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Marketers depend on marketing research, both formal and informal, ... The next big thing is a concept in marketing that refers to a product or idea that ... |
en.wikipedia.org |
  |
Marketing - Marketing Strategy - Marketing Plan - Marketing ... |
Learn about marketing careers, the stages of developing a marketing plan, how to begin marketing research, create a marketing strategy, and how to market ... |
marketing.about.com |
  |
Marketing.org - Home of the Business Marketing Association |
Serves the professional, educational and career development needs of business-to-business marketers. |
www.marketing.org |
  |
Welcome - American Marketing Association - www.marketingpower.com |
Dedicated to serving the educational and professional needs of marketing executives. |
www.marketingpower.com |
  |
Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR News - Brand Republic |
Find the latest Advertising, Marketing, Media and PR news from Brand Republic, the online resource for up to the minute advertising and marketing news and ... |
www.brandrepublic.com |
  |
Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic |
Marketing Magazine - Marketing News - Brand Republic. |
www.brandrepublic.com |
  |
Marketing (Canada) |
Offers a Canadian source of news and articles on marketing, advertising and media. |
www.marketingmag.ca |
  |
BidVertiser - Pay Per Click Advertising On Sites Of Your Choice. |
Pay per click advertising - online advertising directly on sites of your choice, internet marketing solution for online advertisers. |
www.bidvertiser.com |
  |
Online Behavioral Contextual Advertising and Marketing. |
Promote your business with today's most effective online advertising technology, contextual advertising at a cost effective metric of CPC, PPC, CPM or CPV. |
www.clicksor.com |
  |
Sales Jobs / Marketing Jobs / Advertising Jobs - MarketingJobs.com |
Employment site for marketing and sales professionals. |
www.marketingjobs.com |
  |
The Chartered Institute of Marketing |
The Chartered Institute of Marketing is the world's largest international marketing professional body and helps with career support and information ... |
www.cim.co.uk |
  |
Marketing: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
See all blog posts tagged with marketing on Technorati. |
www.technorati.com |
  |
Marketing Profs - Marketing Concepts and Strategies: Expert ... |
Marketing knowhow from professionals. Newsletter, articles and how-to's. |
www.marketingprofs.com |
  |
Guerrilla Marketing Online - The Official Site |
Guerrilla Marketing Online is anonline magazine for small business, entrepreneurs, sales people and marketers of all kinds. |
www.gmarketing.com |
  |
Business Marketing - Small Business Marketing |
Business marketing - Read everything your need to know about small business marketing. |
www.entrepreneur.com |
  |
All About Marketing |
Adapted from Field Guide to Nonprofit Program Design, Marketing and Evaluation ... Inbound Marketing Includes Market Research to Find Out: ... |
www.managementhelp.org |
  |
Pages tagged with "marketing" on del.icio.us |
USA Network Announces a NASHVILLE STAR Marketing Partnership With ... - Yahoo! ... Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing ... |
del.icio.us |
  |
ClickZ Internet Marketing Solutions for Marketers |
Includes columns with commentary and analysis on a wide variety of internet marketing subjects ranging from B2B marketing to search engine marketing. |
www.clickz.com |
  |
Direct Marketing Association: Telephone, Mail & Internet Marketing |
Trade association for users and suppliers in the direct, database and interactive marketing fields, offering seminars and resources, and lobbying for ... |
www.the-dma.org |
  |