Make Sure the Internet Works for You
The Internet has influenced how companies market their products or services.
First, it’s important to remember the Internet is just a tool. You can use it to get your products or services to your target market but it won’t help you figure out who should be in your target market, which products or services you should offer or the best way to do that. That’s what your marketing strategy is for.
Start by revisiting your marketing strategy and figure out how to adapt it to include the Internet. Many companies don’t review how well their marketing strategies are working on a regular basis. Remember, a winning strategy applies the most effective mix of marketing tools (product/service, price, promotion and distribution channels) to a well defined target
market. Ask yourself if you can use the web to drive down costs (Amazon.com has no retail stores); can advertise on or link to other web sites to increase traffic back to yours; or if you can use blogs or publish articles to build your reputation as experts in your field.
You can offer new or additional services because of the Internet.
For example, Michelle is a wonderful assistant and her industry, Virtual Assistants, didn’t exist before the Internet came along and made virtual organizations possible. Many manufacturers and distributors now allow their customers to access progress and delivery status information about their orders over the Internet – a new way to add value.
The Internet can make promoting your products cheaper while giving you more flexibility. Ask any realtor if the Internet has made it easier for them to promote their homes and they’ll talk about the virtual tours available on their web sites. You can’t do those in a newspaper. You can change the copy in a banner advertisement more quickly than you could change a radio or magazine advert. There are a number of web sites on which you can post articles you’ve written for little or no cost – getting P.R. with fewer hassles than trying to get published in periodicals. Email is cheaper (to create and send) and more flexible (it can be changed instantly to reflect feedback) than direct mail pieces sent through the postal system.
You can close a sale over the Internet. According to a survey conducted by Marketing Sherpa (another web-based business, sherpastore.com) the number of orders processed by e-commerce sites increased by more than 20% in 2006 over 2005. The same survey says that roughly the same amount of traffic comes from organic clicks (mainly from search engine optimization - SEO) as from paid clicks; the majority of consumers prefer sites with peer-written product reviews; and that over 50% of shoppers abandon their purchase before completing it. There is clearly still work to be done in the e-commerce field but the survey says that by the fourth quarter of 2005 online sales were 3% of total retail sales, up from 1% five years ago.
Testing and measurement apply to the use of the Internet too. Testing new products, advertising pieces, pricing strategies, etc. by showing them to 6 or 7 clients you can trust to tell you what they think is very useful. The same thing applies to web pages, email campaigns, banner advertisements, etc. The Internet also lends itself to measuring the results of everything you do.
You can:
• Check the popularity of keywords before you use them at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
• Track how many visitors come to your site, which pages they visit, which pages they enter and leave from and a myriad of other metrics. If your ISP doesn’t provide them, use Google Analytics https://www.google.com/analytics/home/?et=reset&hl=en-US
• See how many of your emails bounce away, how many are opened and so on by using a provider like Vertical Response http://www.verticalresponse.com/ or Constant Contact http://www.constantcontact.com/features/index.jsp
Yes, the Internet is just a tool; an enabler and you don’t gain a competitive advantage simply by using it. It’s how you use it that can give you an advantage over your competitors. There’s no doubt that the Internet can enhance your marketing strategy, but you have to decide how to make it work. And then, it becomes a process of testing and trial and error in order to get the best results.
Jim Stewart is a marketing and business consultant. Contact him at jimstewart@profitpath.ca or 416.258.9610.
2600 John Street, Unit 207, Markham, ON L3R 3W3 T: 905.475.5222 F: 905.475.6369
