The golden days of marketing solely with flashy television advertisements or print media have quickly faded with the advent of the Internet as a marketing and sales platform. Online businesses have unique needs that need a multi-tiered approach to increasing sales and building a solid customer base for long term success. A uniform plan is no longer an ideal solution because the competition is only getting stiffer and more up to date with marketing advancements. Each part of an integrated marketing plan will help reach each business owner’s goals and Optimum7 wants to build one from the ground up for your company.
Why Internet Marketing
Compared with other techniques, Internet marketing is the most cost-effective and adaptable form of advertising. A majority of customers will use the Internet as a resource to find all kinds of information about every product or service imaginable. More businesses are learning that ranking high in search engine results is imperative to improving sales and profit. The problem is getting your company to the first page when there are countless other businesses jockeying for their own page 1 rank.
As Internet marketing becomes more complex and algorithms approach a human capacity to scour content, it has also become the best way to reach a global audience, despite the challenges. The Internet offers businesses the ability to reach a much larger pool for potential customers. Identical to the limited options of an offline store, absence of Internet marketing strategies significantly lowers the chances of sales. Making the Internet work for you takes the experience and research only Optimum7 can provide, to bring you great results.
Integrated Digital Marketing
Integrated internet marketing includes your website, technology, content, services, products, brand visibility, and conversions. Everything is integrated. You cannot separate Facebook from Google AdWords, Google AdWords from content marketing and SEO, SEO from online conversions, online conversions from your store or technology from your eCommerce platform.
Why do we keep saying this? What is the most significant message that we’re trying to provide to the end-users, prospects, and clients?
When we say you have to look at things as a package, as an integrated approach. Times have changed. There’s no more building a brand and building a business based on one channel alone, right? We need an omnichannel approach.
Common Marketing Mistakes
Increasing ROI is a top priority for every business in any niche but the process requires time and the resourceful skills of an experienced marketing team. Most websites on the Internet are launched quickly without any real strategy in mind. Many business owners add basic information and a few catch phrases but invest little or no time into overall presentation and advanced features. The most common mistake made is flooding a site with keywords but no interesting or useful content to complete the page.
Marketing aims to bring you more traffic and help customers find exactly what they are looking for. Simply because a visitor lands on your page does not mean automatic sales or a guaranteed returning customer. Helping more potential consumers to find your page is the first obstacle but proper presentation is the key to making that final sale. Before taking on the complicated process of integrated marketing on your own, consider the difficulty of element of creating a strategy.
Integration is Crucial
It makes perfect sense that in order to compete with different levels of competition you will need to integrate the tools used in battle. There are several ways to market on the Internet and each business will require a unique arrangement of methods. This is where Integrated Internet marketing can get tricky because luck is not enough to determine which company needs what.
A milestone in Internet marketing is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which are essentially strategies that help you rank higher in the list of results. A customized SEO plan can include services such as social media optimization, keyword targeting, website architecture, link building, content development, and more. Depending on the objectives of each business owner, a unique combination will be required.
Since SEO processes are meant to cater and accommodate the needs of varying niches, adaptability is the answer. Every business owner may want to market their brand in a different direction or context so SEO is meant to adjust according to short term and ongoing changes in the business. Online competition is only getting stiffer with each sale so sticking to just one game plan is not recommended.
Integrated Internet marketing is highly effective but may not be successful right from the start. Fortunately, the positive or negative effects can be easily measured and analyzed. This is a top benefit of having customized strategies because changes can be made if results are not evident or as anticipated. Unlike television advertisements, Internet marketing efforts are not set in stone and can be readily retargeted and reorganized as needed.
Aside from the all-important ranking on search engines, integrated internet marketing solutions also offer the ability to measure website activity. This allows business owners to evaluate valuable data such as the total number of visitors, bounce rate, and the length of time visitors stay on the site. The data collected can be used to further adjust and tweak strategies as well as ascertain how well the chosen methods are working.
Sponsored searches, commonly known as Pay per Click (PPC), are often forgotten when it comes to integrated Internet marketing. This modern way of advertising utilizes keywords to achieve higher visibility on search engine results. It is highly effective for targeting traffic to your website and should be considered as an integral part of every company’s customized marketing plan.
SEO is an extremely sophisticated process because it includes many both onsite and offsite characteristics that are interdependent on each other. Though there are many specific techniques including content generation, targeting traffic, indexation, PPC or site tracking, each offers different benefits, such methods must be bound together for the best results. There simply is no one quick fix or set strategy to automatically rank high in today’s search engines, which is why the team at Optimum7 takes the time to let you know what your unique strategy will be and basing the cost largely on the results delivered to you.
Leverage Your Online Marketing Channels Through Content
Appear on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and as many other social media sites as possible. Obviously, it needs to make sense for your brand, but you need to be on as many channels as possible because everything is now integrated.
The omnichannel approach is also easier than it looks. People think, “I need published content on Facebook and YouTube but I don’t have the time for that.” That’s not true.
The same content that you produce for your site can be recycled and reused for every other channel. Creation and distribution don’t take as much time as you might think.
Some of our former clients, unfortunately, didn’t want to do the work. We then asked, “How are you going to differentiate yourself from the competitors if you don’t put out incredible, exciting, shareable content out there?”
Content has taken a generic form. It doesn’t have to be that difficult or standard. A piece of content is as basic as a great review for a product, case study, client testimonial, article, product guide, or eCommerce buying guide. You have to put that content out there and distribute it through an integrated channel.
What is the challenge here though?
Many people don’t understand or know where to start. If I want to do an integrated marketing plan or an integrated marketing strategy for my brand, for my business, I need a plan. Let’s say I’m an eCommerce site, doing $6 million in revenue with two brick and mortar shops.
Building an Integrated Internet Marketing Strategy
How can I build an integrated marketing strategy?
Step one is to identify your target demographic. So you can now pinpoint where they are on other channels. Then you can create accounts accordingly.
Look at your data and target demographic. What is your ideal target demographic? Who are your existing customers? From there you can now pinpoint where they are across the web, right?
If you have an older target demographic, you’re going to be looking at more of the Facebook and those types of social platforms. Whereas if you have a younger target demographic, you’re going to be looking at TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and similar platforms.
Growing Brand Awareness Online
We’re putting a lot more emphasis on the brand nowadays. Why? The brand needs to have a story.
Sadly, people do not always comprehend. Many eCommerce owners say, “I sell this pen or this phone, and I put it out there. It’s 100 bucks. Why are people not buying it?”
Customers aren’t buying because they aren’t engaging with you. They don’t know you, they don’t trust you, they don’t have a relationship with you.
Determine what kind of relationship you have with your end-users or your consumer. Then find your story. if you don’t have that story, you will not be able to survive after 2020. Things are going to be moving a lot faster now.
With all of these integrated marketing methodologies and strategies, you have to build your brand and you have to have a story behind your brand. Story and end-user relationships will fuel your content.
An Omnichannel Approach to Internet Marketing
Consider the following brands: Apple, Coca-Cola, H&M, Zara, and Nike. They have relationships with their end-users and consumers. How can you learn from them and set your story?
Integrated marketing strategies are not solely about marketing anymore. You need to merge every aspect of your business with technology.
Always ask these questions. What kind of operation do you have? What kind of an inventory management system do you run? Do you have a CRM that you’re leveraging or using? How is it integrated with your overall methodology and system, BigCommerce, Shopify, Volusion, Magento, SAP, or hybrid store?
I’ll give you one very small example; we look at similar elements daily when we analyze our client’s operations. If you are shipping one thousand packages per day, at the end of ten days you have ten thousand packages out there. What tool are you going to use?
Let’s go further. Say you’re using USPS, FedEx, and DHL. You have 10,000 packages ordered and mailed out. How are you tracking the exceptions on those?
Holidays are a killer for bad press. When somebody doesn’t receive their product, they’re going to bring hell to your operation. Angry customers will call your 800 number, file complaints, and leave negative reviews everywhere.
How do you track the exceptions, on-time deliveries, returned items, lost ones? What evidence will you have for customers regarding the evidence left on their doorstep.
Packages aren’t the only priority. Are you using a tool for insurance? If not, you’re going to destroy that relationship with your end-user and consumer because they’re not going to be happy.
You might have hundreds of thousands of operational issues that then affect that relationship.
Do you have a business intelligence tool and know your customer lifetime value? Do you know your VIP customers or your top 100 customers that are consistently buying from you? If you have that information, you can now target and segment your customer base differently, right?
If you have clients that haven’t purchased back from you in a year, why? Did they have a negative experience due to the shipping? Did they dislike the customer service process? Go in and identify what points need to be fixed and also how to segment and target previous customers.
A multimillion-dollar operation can have layers of complexity. Conduct an audit or an analysis of your current structure or infrastructure that combines your marketing, technology, operations, customer satisfaction, and other aspects. At Optimum7 this is exactly what we do.
Optimum7 Internet Marketing
Since internet marketing is a basic need for almost every business, there are countless marketing experts to choose from. The best way to sift qualified professionals from others is to see which will offer all the options and services that could benefit your business. Most marketing companies will boast about immediate results but this is a red flag. Optimum7 first asks questions about your business and what you are looking to improve, before jumping to any conclusions.
We have the background on all the elements necessary to execute a strategy for your business. Don’t fall for those who tell you of a secret formula that has worked for other businesses because this could never be possible. Even companies within the same niche will call for special marketing arrangements so a single strategy is a sign of inexperience or worse
Many companies go with a marketing company that has limited services simply because it seems sufficient at the time. But keep in mind that increasing ROI requires constant site monitoring, analyzing, and upgrading for the best results. A company that has the basic services you need now may not be able to provide advanced options when your goals change. We specialize in SEO processes and will collaborate with you to successfully meet every objective set forth.
Patience is an essential virtue when it comes to integrated internet marketing. Since a customized plan includes different areas of focus, it may take some tweaking time before significant results – become apparent. Optimum7 will help you see all of the options available and apply them according to your requests. This is where expertise is priceless because only consistent efforts are certain to prevail when it comes to integrated Internet marketing and the success that comes from it. Contact us today for a consultation!
