2009's Online Marketing Summit: 7 Key Takeaways
Online Marketing. By now it’s no secret that if you’re marketing at all, you must be marketing online. Still, with the speed that online marketing tools, techniques, and approaches come onto the scene, it can be overwhelming.
The fourth annual Online Marketing Summit took place in San Diego earlier this month. Fellow marketing professional Tracy Anthony attended two and a half days of conference sessions and an additional day of training as part of a new certification program.
She has graciously agreed to provide our readers these 7 key takeaways:
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It all starts with business goals! As a good marketer, you know that a successful marketing plan supports and helps your company realize its business objectives. Whether the objectives are to increase revenue, improve customer satisfaction or build the brand, all facets of online marketing can help you achieve these goals—from search engine optimization (SEO) and search marketing to email deliverability, landing page optimization, social media, and analytics.
GTMS Editorial Note: So as you choose and implement your online marketing vehicles, be sure to ask yourself…”just exactly HOW is this helping me with the stated business goal.”
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Focus on customer retention . You’ve heard it a million times. It is less expensive to retain a current customer than to acquire a new one. During this economic downturn, be sure to keep your customers happy. Focus on their needs, listen to them and through feedback identify growth opportunities through up- and cross-selling. Use videos that enable feedback, blogs, and surveys to solicit opinions and feedback from your customers. Ask them about their preferences, what they find valuable and then deliver on that.
GTMS Editorial Note: We feel so strongly about this takeaway. Check out “Sales & Marketing's #1 Lost Opportunity” for more on the subject.
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You need a content strategy (that includes a keyword plan). Since online marketing is all about the content, you need a content strategy before employing any tactics. Define and develop relevant content (interesting and valuable to the recipient) with keywords incorporated within the content itself. For a free keyword suggestion tool, visit freekeywords.wordtracker.com.
GTMS Editorial Note: If you haven’t the time or the resources for constant content generation, then hire someone. It’s THAT important.
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The social marketing generation gap is closing. No longer is the social media audience comprised solely of 18-24 year olds. While discussing the impact of the recession on budget cuts, AARP (an organization that traditionally used direct marketing to target seniors) trimmed their direct marketing budget to invest in their web site, email, video and analytics.
GTMS Editorial Note: So for those of you who “just don’t get” twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and the like…it’s time you did!
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Customers are defining brands through social technologies. Burgeoning social/viral networks are where true branding takes place now and you must have a clear understanding of your online reputation. You can use sites like Technorati, Buzzmetrics and Google Blog and Google search to monitor your reputation. Start engaging with your customers by participating in existing online communities rather than building a new one. The key here is to LISTEN.
GTMS Editorial Note: That’s right…don’t just comment for commenting sake. Make it relevant!
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Impactful “Public Relations” must be integrated with online marketing. With any individual serving as both reporter and publisher online these days, corporate America must go about PR a bit differently. News releases must be optimized for SEO with keywords and links and distributed through news search engines (such as Yahoo! News), blogs, and RSS feeds, as well as social media networks like twitter, Facebook, Newsvine, Digg and iReport.
GTMS Editorial Note: We’d also like to add LinkedIn. Join “Groups” that house your target market and then make sure you post all news, articles, and other content you generate to each Group. Checkout our free LinkedIn Checklist for more information!
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Think differently about ROI metrics. Ask yourself, “What do we know now? What don’t we know? And what do we need to know to accomplish A, B, C?” Connect what you are measuring to what your goals are and only measure what you need to measure.
GTMS Editorial Note: So true. Enough said!
Who is doing it right? Several companies came up over and over in presentations as those with best practices in online marketing.
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In the B2C space, check out Carhart (subscribers can tell their story when they register online and this content feeds into their blog), HomeDepot (they are leveraging dynamic coupons and triggered remarketing), and Dell (after changing their corporate culture to empower every employee to monitor online reputation, they are the comeback kid).
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And in the B2B space, Cisco (with a focus on engagement, they’ve incorporated video, surveys and a click-to-chat feature on their site in 32 countries using native languages), HP (they sell the value of email registration with their Technology@work newsletter which leverages user-defined dynamic content) and EMC (their website is designed to meet visitor objectives and they have also deployed customizable enewsletters featuring content by interest area).
Tracy Anthony is a marketing professional with more than 15 years experience. She is currently a senior marketing manager at Hitachi Consulting, working to improve the company’s global online presence and rankings in the business and IT consulting services space.
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