Online marketing has become a vital vehicle to sell products, services or brands. The ease and speed, however, of executing web-based exposures have unfortunately given many businesses the wrong notion that they no longer need careful planning.

 

While everyone and everything on the World Wide Web thrives on a fast-paced lifestyle, rush website launches and instant promotions without any strategy aren’t the way to succeed at all. It doesn’t mean that you should throw away all the sensible foundations of marketing, customer service and other business aspects.

Remember you’ll still spend time, money and effort on this, no matter how minimal. They have to contribute to your ROI. You do need to make the most out of everything you invest in your online marketing endeavours.

Here are 3 essential actions you should take to accomplish this and more:

1. Integrate.

Online marketing isn’t an optional matter anymore. It’s rare that a business won’t benefit from having a decent web presence. So when planning your marketing action, instantly include what you’ll do on the Web.

Integrate your online marketing with your whole brand or business. If you’ve got a brick-and-mortar shop, make sure that all your promotions in-store are all announced through your website, social media and other Internet channels used by your target market. Never treat your Web program as an element that’s disconnected from your brand or other marketing campaigns.

All your efforts to promote your products should be comparable to one well-orchestrated band. They’re like different instruments having their own sounds and parts, but blending flawlessly to give a resounding performance that makes the audience clamour for an encore.

2. Measure.

There’s a business adage that’s been used too many times and said to be wrongly accredited to management guru Peter Drucker – “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Many experts in business and management think that it’s too rigid to be entirely true.

It would be better to say that you can manage more efficiently what you can measure. This is why when you want to make the most of your online marketing, you shouldn’t just think about choosing the most attractive taglines and images.

You have to know what the business situation is before you start implementing campaigns and after you’ve launched them. You need to know the differences and their implications for your day-to-day operations. And market research tools for the Internet are just getting more and more exciting. For instance, customer surveys and website and call tracking analytics.

Customer surveys. They’ll let you know if you’re hitting your targets. It can also inform you how you can satisfy your customers further.

Surveys have evolved tremendously and can take on any form these days. Choose a technique and a style of surprise that will work for your targets. One effective channel today is giving out prizes through social media as long as you answer one golden question.

Website and call tracking analytics. They aren’t really so new, but are still under-utilised. Many businesses still haven’t explored their potentials, which are actually abundant.

You can use them to know instantly who are the people coming through your website or your phone lines. You can also trace where they came from and which advertisement made them buy from you. Most analytics programs today also have real-time capabilities that will enable you to make some adjustments in a day’s operation.

3. Educate.

Some marketing efforts, both online and offline, don’t deliver the maximum returns due to the people running the show. In certain cases, some leads don’t go on with their purchase, because they were turned off by the staff who weren’t able to help the potential customers.

Everyone on your team must know what’s going on and what his/her role is. Remember that your marketing efforts will only be as good as the people who will receive the customers drawn and close the sale. If you’ve got a special discount promotion, confirm that everyone who interacts with your customers know about it and how it can be availed.

Use your measurement (number 2) to inform and educate your team. For instance, your call analytics program can give you information about the calls that came through but weren’t answered. Train your team further on how not to miss those business opportunities anymore. You can even devise staff incentive programs based on data from these research and analysis results.

Online marketing may mean a speedy way to reach your customers who are all having a fast-paced lifestyle dependent on advanced technology. But its success definitely doesn’t come with rushed decisions or half-baked plans. Create focused web marketing programs. The three actions steps mentioned here can help you start on it right away.