Let's talk Big Picture....
Internet Marketing
How does all of this Internet Marketing stuff really work?
That’s the million dollar question and the answer lies not far from traditional offline marketing practices.
If you truly want to grow your business using the internet you need to work steadily and collectively on all of the following components:
Identify and Know Your Market – you simply cannot market to a bunch of people that you do not know very much about... and what you know about them one day may not apply six months later as markets change and evolve.
Have a Compelling Offer – your offer must be interesting and relate to the reader... it must appeal to your reader’s emotions... create excitement and a sense of urgency... it must be too good to resist.
What makes me cry tears of blood is when I see all of those elements in place in the offer and the marketer then doesn’t make it easy for me to take action because of cumbersome systems.
Deliver Your Compelling Offer – you have a number of ways of doing this. Website Design and Email Marketing certainly jump to mind and Email Marketing is the most neglected of the two.
The business intelligence that you can gather from Email Marketing is invaluable for knowing the mood of the marketplace and whether you are engaging with it.
It is imperative that you measure the performance of each of your delivery methods. I am amazed how many businesses still have no idea of which delivery channel brought a new customer into the fold... because they don’t ask.
Build Traffic and Your List and Your Database – when most people think of ‘traffic’ they think of visitors to their website but the truth is that ‘traffic’ can be considered as the frequency of any potential customer taking an action.
For example, the action of completing an enquiry form triggered by your Email Marketing is still ‘traffic’... that is, engagement with your business.
Traffic can be increased by various methods which we will explore in future posts. But... the link between your traffic and the size of your database is directly related to the quality and resonance of your compelling offer with your target market.
Now why did I say List and Database... surely they are the same thing?
Nope, no, nah nah... they’re not.
Your list is best considered to be just the contact details for a whole bunch of prospects and that is why in Internet Marketing terms the word ‘list’ is used far more often that ‘database’.
Your database is like gold and it the focal point of your progressive research and knowledge of your list. When you move someone from your list to your database they are now much more important to you and that’s why we have customer relationship management platforms (CRM).
The more you know about someone the more appropriately you can communicate with them so the goal is to be moving people from your list to your database constantly.
Communicate – yes, actually do it! Because I cannot say this enough... it’s the secret to moving people from your list to your database.
Since every action that someone on your list takes will give you a better insight into where they should be placed in your database... it is only logical that the more you communicate with your list with “different calls to action”... the faster you will know your list... and the closer you will be to being able to make an “appropriate” compelling offer to them.
Email Marketing executed properly (think copywriting as well) can absolutely give you this marketing intelligence.
But... you simply cannot “constantly” sell to your list or your database. If you try to they will desert you like fleas on a dog who has just be given a Capstar pill. You must contribute something to their lives... more on that in later posts.
And finally, Keep Them Buying – you absolutely cannot trot out the same old products and services month in and month out. Try a little innovation... re-package, have special offers, try loyalty programmes, referral programmes and any of the multitude of strategies possible
All of the elements that I have mentioned must be worked on together regularly if you want to see exponential results. Time and time again I see people chasing traffic to build their list and their offer is not the least bit compelling. It’s a journey to nowhere.
The Big Picture is that you have to have a Big Picture approach every day.
What are you doing?
keep your powder dry,
Warren Cottis