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Marketing
Smarts for the Netpreneur
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Drive
business to your web site with online and offline tactics.
By William Poe
OK, you have your web site up and running. You’re strapped into
cyberspace; not exactly a dot-com enterprise perhaps, but at
least you’re with it on the Internet. “Now,” you wonder, “does
anyone know I’m here?”
Web savvy marketers have the answer. The answer is a resounding
“YES” if you have effectively promoted your web presence. For
businesses with web sites, marketing falls into two broad categories:
online marketing and offline marketing. Marketing experts say
you need to engage in both.
A few years ago, many e-tailers built web site traffic with
inexpensive banner exchange programs, e-mail marketing, search
engines and free links from other web sites. A few years ago,
online advertising might have been enough. No more.
“Three years ago you might have received a certain amount of
traffic just from search engines and online tactics, but you
can’t rely on that today,” says Matt Warmack, an executive with
Solutech, an Internet marketing company.
“The sheer number of web sites today and the sheer number of
indexes make it dicey.”
Scott D. Dieckgraefe, senior vice president and director of
media services for Adamson Advertising, Inc., warns that businesses
should ensure that their web sites are well designed and operating
smoothly before launching any web promotional effort.
“Make sure the house is in order before you invite guests,”
Dieckgraefe says. “There’s nothing that’s going to kill off
a bad web site faster than good promotion.”
Experts say the best way to build traffic these days is a combination
of online and offline promotions. “It’s just not likely that
all of your customers are online,” says Steve Burkhardt, chief
marketing officer for OnlyLink, a St. Louis-based applications
services provider. “If you just use online methods, you are
not doing a complete job. You need a combination.”
All marketers seem to agree that traditional marketing methods
such as print and broadcast advertising, direct mail and publicity
placements are still vital parts of the marketing mix, even
for web site promotion. “Our clients find that the same mechanisms
they used to get customers to an 800 number or to a catalog
also work for the Internet,” Warmack says. “It really need not
be different than traditional branding, merchandising and selling
you’ve done in the past. The answers can be found by always
revisiting the key question, ‘How are we going to help this
web site make us successful?”
At giant Emerson Electric Company, marketers use some fairly
traditional advertising to drive customers to the company’s
web sites but stress that the company considers the World Wide
Web an opportunity “to shift marketing expenses” to non-traditional
areas, says Charles A. Peters, executive vice president and
head of e-business at Emerson.
“Communications and advertising have shifted from promotion
of product attributes to enticing prospects to visit the web
site where you can communicate in far more depth,” Peters says,
who estimates that Emerson has spent $50 million so far to implement
its e-business strategy among its various companies.
Industrial advertising, Peters observes, “was never very effective,”
because it could not efficiently address multiple decision makers
within a target company. The web, he adds, offers “infinite
depth and far richer interaction” and is made to order for a
lot of business-to-business marketing.
Mackey Mitchell Associates, an architectural firm, is trying
to integrate its online and offline marketing activities. “What
we want is for people to know the firm Mackey Mitchell, and
the web site helps with that,” says Dan Mitchell, a principal
of the firm. “Everything we send out is tagged with our web
site name.”
The firm uses traditional direct mail to stimulate inquiries,
Mitchell says. Existing clients, prospects, industry trade organizations
and others receive every three months a postcard featuring a
photo of a new Mackey Mitchell project, and Mitchell says the
firm “always sees a surge” at the web site following a mailing.
Better yet, Mackey Mitchell has the capability to capture the
domain names of certain visitors to its web site and can respond
with e-mails.
So, what can you do to drive traffic to your web site? Adamson’s
Dieckgraefe and OnlyLink’s Burkhardt agree on the basic tactical
options:
Online
- Search
engine strategies — Most web sites should be registered
with the leading search engines, such as Yahoo!, and
marketers know some wrinkles to increase a particular
site’s rankings in the search engine results. Adamson
Advertising recommends that web marketers register the
domain name and key words, or “metatags,” with five
to 10 search engines.
- Establishing
links — Dieckgraefe recommends that any web site identify
complementary sites and establish links with those sites.
A parts supplier to motor manufacturers, for instance,
might contact major motor manufacturers, such as U.S.
Electrical Motors and MagneTek, and seek reciprocal
links. The motor manufacturers would provide a link
to the supplier who, in turn, would provide on its web
site links to each motor manufacturer.
- Viral
marketing — A high-tech version of good old-fashioned
word of mouth, viral marketing at its best creates a
public buzz regarding your web site. Dieckgraefe says
the film, “Blair Witch Project,” is an example of successful
viral marketing. Film producers contacted boutique filmmakers
via e-mail and encouraged them to talk up the movie
upon its release. The film became a surprise box office
hit.
- Live
events — Just as a tried and true ribbon cutting can
be used to generate awareness of a retail store opening,
e-tailers can host online live events to promote products
and services. Victoria’s Secret once hosted a live webcast
fashion show to promote its catalogs and retail stores,
Dieckgraefe notes.
- Discussion
forums — Although America On Line took the discussion
forum to the masses by offering entertainment performers
and other celebrities as online discussion stars, online
discussions can work well to narrow audiences, too.
Adamson Advertising recently encouraged an engineering
firm to raise awareness by making its earthquake specialist
available for an online discussion of interest to those
in the construction industry. Discussion forums can
be arranged by many web hosts and most Internet Service
Providers.
- E-newsletters
and e-mail campaigns — Essentially electronic direct
mail, electronic newsletters and e-mail campaigns reach
prospects very inexpensively. Marketers can rent e-mail
names and addresses in the same fashion as direct mail
lists. Effective e-mail campaigns target only “opt-in”
recipients who have indicated, or “opted-in,” a willingness
to receive unsolicited e-mail.
- Banner
ads — Product or service advertisements placed on other
web sites can still be effective, but Burkhardt warns
against the high level of clutter with this medium.
Moreover, the percentage of visitors who click on a
banner, the so-called “click-through” rate, has declined
from five percent a couple of years ago to less than
one percent now, Dieckgraefe adds.
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Offline
- Sales
promotion — Discounted price promotions and free giveaways
can be the most effective way to drive consumers or
businesses to your web site. A common approach is to
offer a special discount or premium for those purchasing
online. “Free and discounted offers still work real
well in any medium,” Dieckgraefe says.
- Paid
advertising — Still the mother of all promotion techniques,
print and broadcast advertising are used extensively
to promote web sites. Dieckgraefe stresses, though,
that not every web site should be advertising in the
mass media, much less on the next Super Bowl broadcast.
“You still need to find the right niche for offline
advertising,” he says.
- Public
relations — Some marketers argue that public relations
and publicity are vital to establishing brand awareness
and say that PR can be one of the best tools to drive
traffic to web sites. Dieckgraefe says PR “is a wonderful
way to promote your web site,” especially for business-to-business
marketers who can use trade press.
- Direct
mail — While traditional printed direct mail might appear
to be at odds with the slick image of e-business, direct
mail is effective, especially for business-to-business
marketers.
- Printed
web directories — The “Yellow Pages” of the Internet,
web directories can be an inexpensive but effective
medium for some.
- Personal
selling — Yes, there’s still a role for personal selling,
especially in business-to-business segments. Peters
of Emerson Electric believes, however, that effective
Internet marketing can allow some organizations to downsize
their sales force and reduce personnel-intensive tradeshow
promotions.
- URL
tagging — “Put your URL (Uniform Resource Locator) on
everything,” Dieckgraefe advises.
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William V. Poe is principal of Poe Communications, a St.
Louis advertising and marketing communications firm.
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