Strategies & TechniquesAn overview

for Entrepreneurs and Business Managers

Abul Kashem

Internet Marketer , CEOXPONENT InfoSystem (PVT) LTd.

Internet Marketing

My Story

•Started as Faculty Member•Freelance Programmer•Software Firm •Goal was Internet business•In 2005 first Sell and Everything Changed•Online Business Consultant , SEO experts and a business owner

Your Story

• Your Knowledge• Your Goal • Your Expectation

Overview

Starting Online Business

- Find your business

- Develop your business

- A business plan

- Planning & Building the Website

Promoting Online Business • Online Advertising

- Search Engine Optimization

- Social Media Marketing

- Email Marketing

- Blogging

- Web Analytics

- Online Public Relation

Internet marketing

• Strategies and Tactics Applied on the Internet to Market Products or Services Online.

• Also described as e-marketing , web marketing and online marketing

• Goals May Include: – Driving targeted traffic to a Web site and converting visitors to customers at

the highest rate– Customer retention – Establishing brand-awareness

Importance of Online Marketing

• More than 75 percent US population are online.( InternetWorldStats.com)

• Ninety percent of internet user use search engine to find products, services or information ( iProspect.com)

• Social Media uses rise. Every 24 hours 175 million active users shares about 500 million pieces of web content . (facebook , 2010)

Internet Marketing Benefits

• Allows for Frequent Testing and Quick Updates of New Online Promotions

• Better Targeting & Segmenting Than Traditional Media– Tracks online user behaviors– Gathers geographic user information

• Relatively Inexpensive Way to Generate New Business and Build Brand Awareness

– Average customer acquisition cost - Search Advertising: $7-$10; Printed Yellow Pages: $15-$25; Direct Mail: $60-$80

Internet Marketing Rules

1. It is not something one spends time or money on . It is something that ( when done ) becomes an investment.

2. It is not about what you know. It is about what you are open to learning and what you are committed to managing.

3. Optimal online marketing cannot occur without help.

Internet Marketing Components

Internet marketing can also be broken down into more specialized areas such as •Web marketing - advertising on search engines, search engine optimization, banner ads

•Email marketing -advertising and promotional marketing efforts via e-mail messages

•Social media marketing: both advertising and marketing efforts via social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Digg

Planning Website

First Step of In Building A Good Website.• Capture your goal• Brainstorm• Arrange & prioritize content• Create a graphic design• Building your website

Planning to Start A Website

• Who is your audience?

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/customers-profile.htm (Preparing a

Customer Profile for Your Internet Marketing Plan)• How can you tailor your website to reach that audience?• What is the purpose of your site?• What content and services will it contain?• What content will drive people back to your site?• What are your sources for content?• How often should the website be updated?• Who is responsible for updating the website?• What are other websites with similar goals or with a similar audience?

Planning Website- Brainstorm

• After defining your project goals, take inventory of everything you might want to include on the site, and what you want your site to do for those who visit it. It's always extremely useful to get input from key people in your department or group and write down their suggestions.

• Identify root keywords • Keyword Research• Keyword Selection

Planning Website- Content• Arrange & prioritize content -what areas are most important in

supporting your ultimate site goals and objectives?• Content Blueprint • Make a visual flow chart : Use organization flow chart model, or boxes with lines that

link to sub categories. Mind map software can help too. (Site Structure)• Write and finalize your content – Keyword Focused– SEO Best Practice

Web Site Development

- Key Factors for Building Successful Web Sites- Content and Messaging

- Usability – Navigation, Site Search and Information Architecture

- Visual Design

- User Engagement and Relationship Building

- Confidence Building Capability

- Customer Communications and Feedback

- Web Site Conversion Optimization

Website Promotion

Online Display Ad & Rich Media Advertising• Placement of Text Ad Links, Banner Ads, Expandable Banners, Rich Media,

Video Ads,

• Various Targeting Options: Contextual, Behavioral, Geographical

• Flexible Price Models (CPM, CPA, CPC)

• Extensive Reach Through Vertical Web Portals, Ad Networks, Ad Exchanges and CPA Networks with Thousands of Web Sites

• Placement Mechanisms: Direct Buys or Direct Ad Placement Through Ad Networks, Ad Exchanges or CPA Networks

• Generates Targeted Sales, Leads and/or Builds Brand Awareness

Search Engine Optimization

• What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a technique of optimizing the pages of

your website to be easily accessible by search engine spiders so they can be easily crawled and indexed.

• Benefits – Cost-effective Customer Acquisition– Repeat Business – Customer Acquisition - Targeted Prospects– Your Own 24-Hour Marketing Team

Search Engine Optimization

• Search Engine Starter Guide

• Google Webmaster Guidelines• Google 101: How Google crawls, indexes and serves the web.• Keyword Strategy• Competitive Positioning• SEO Web Design• Creating Content• Linking• Optimizing the Functions• Analyzing Results

What is Social Media?

• Online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with each other and can be used to build a community around

• Social Media is built on generated content that can take many forms: text, images, audio and video

• Popular social mediums include: blogs, message boards, podcasts, Blogs

• Social network sites include: Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, Linked-In (Business)

• Social media tools and platforms are websites where you can place and spread your marketing message

Social Media Optimization

- Increase web site linkability: Linkbaiting- Create content on your web site that cauess someone to link to you – funny,

controversial, informative (Tip lists, How To’s), creative (calculator tools)

- Facilitate easy tagging and bookmarking- Make tagging easier by including a list of relevant tags and through “Add to”

buttons (e.g. Del.icio.us)

- Reward inbound links- Reward blogs that link to you through a (manual) return link and trackbacks

(automatic return link)

Social Media Sites

Social News Web Sites- Digg- Reddit- Newsvine

Collaborative Content Aggregators

- Wikipedia (text)- Flickr (photos)- YouTube (video)- PodcastAlley (podcasts)- iPodder.org (podcasts)

Blog Search Engines- Technorati

Shared Bookmarks

- Del.icio.us- Furl- Shadow- Diigo

• Promotion of Products and Services via Email • Variety of Formats: Text Messages, Graphics-based Ads

and Newsletters, Rich Media (Multi-Media ads) • Self-Service or Full Service Email Programs Include:

– List building – Creative design – Message delivery – Campaign results tracking – List management

Permission-Based Email Marketing

Permission-Based Email Marketing• Precision Targeting Through Email List Segmentation• Retargeting Through Analytics Integration• Builds, Retains and Strengthens Customer Relationships • Builds Brand-awareness• Campaign Results Tracking through Website Analytics

- Open Rate, Click-through Rate, New Subscribers, Subscribers Opt-out

• Retargeting Visitors Who Did Not Buy With Targeted Offers• Lower Cost and More Flexible Than Direct Mail

Blogging

• An online conversation medium• Can be anything• Helps you improve user engagement and customer service• Discuss , share and exchange views• Improving product, launching new product• Build Content• Build Incoming links• Should be updated regularly

Web Analytics

• Web Analytics Basic• Measuring Success• Indentifying what you are tracking• Key Performance Indicators• Analytics Packages• Analyzing log files

Web Analytics

• Helps to understand customers' preferences and online behaviors

• help us to understand where people are going, where they came from, where they drop out and what might help them to convert

• Helps to measure how successful a website is in attracting targeted traffic

Importance of Analytics

• Extremely Important to define business objective.• With defined objectives and a good analytical tool measuring

website success becomes easier• Some common objectives of four types of commercial sites

– Ecommerce sites : sales, returns and allowances, sales per visitor, cost per visitor and conversion rate.

– Content sites: visit length , page views, number of subscription and cancelled subscriptions.

– Lead generation sites :downloads, time spent on the site, newsletter opt-ins, reject rates on contact pages, leads-to-close rates.

– Self Service sites :decrease in visitor length or fewer calls to customer call center.

Identifying What are tracking

• You need sample data of at least three months – Web Analytics from SEO Perspective

• Percentage of traffic from search• Conversions ( leads, sales and subscriptions) from search• Average time spent on site ( or visit “duration”)• Share of search traffic ( Google Vs Yahoo Vs Bing and so on )• Pages clicked on

• ROI (PPC or Paid Adv)

– You can start with following items• Top Search Queries• Top Landing Pages• Top Exit pages• Bounce rate

Choosing KPI

• Key performance indicators – helps organization to achieve organization goals through the definition and measurement of progress.

• KPIs Yardstick to measure website success. • Should be based on business goal and the role of website plays in achieving those

goals• KPIs must be measurable.

– To increase customer retention is useless . No goal– To increase customer retention by fifty percent has a definite number and can be tracked.

• Important to Analyze over time to improve website performance .• Periodic reevaluate performance to verify progress.• Managerial Consensus – everyone should know the KPIs• Goal continuity- KPIs are long term considerations designed to help with strategic

planning

Measuring Reach

• Is how you reach your customer• Metrics to understand the effect of marketing program

– Overall traffic volume– Number of visits– Number of new visitors– Ratio of new to returning visitors– Percentage of new visitors– Visitor geographic data– Top error pages– Impression served

Acquisition

• Percent of new visitors• Average number of visits per visitor• Average number of page views per visit• Page stick and slip ( time on page and bounce rate )• Average pages viewed per visitor• Cost per visitor

Response Metrics

• Response and respondents• Cost per acquisition or cost per click• Referring domain/url• Search Engines• Search Keywords and Phrases

Conversion

• One of Most important indicators to measure and monitor• Easy to monitor • Every online visitors should watch this• Should have Plan B ready incase certain things do not work• Industry- neutral average rates rover 3 percent• Three major process that can be measured

– Activities that lead to an acquisition or conversion– Activities that least to gathering important data ( fill up form etc)– Activities that direct visitors to information that reduces your

operational cost

Retention

• Important as it costs less to keep existing than create new customers

• Important metrics and ratios – The number of returning visitors– The average frequency of your returning visitors– The ratio of returning visitors to all visitors– The frequency of the visit– How recent the visit was– The activity of retained visitors– The views of key pages and contents– Your retained visitor conversion rate– The customer retention rate– The average frequency of return for retained visitors

Analytics Packages

• Google• Omniture Site Catalyst• StatCounter• WebTrends• ClickTracts

Factors That Affect Web Site Conversion

Message – Landing Page Compatibility

Unqualified Traffic – Keywords and Ad Text, Email Message

– Wrong Keywords – (e.g., keywords that attract bargain hunters while selling upscale merchandise)

– Incompatible Ad Text – Copy that does not extend the message to the landing page

– Out-of-Area visitors – Geographical area of local business not communicated in ad text/email message

Brand Confidence

– Low level of customer confidence in a brand or manufacturer(s) name

© Advanced Media Productions, 2007

Factors That Affect Web Site Conversion – Cont’d

Site Content and Messaging- Unique selling proposition(s) not communicated correctly

- Insufficient product and shipping information available to close

the sale

- Landing pages do not communicate the relevant benefits of

products and services and persuade the Call To Action

- No up- and cross-sell opportunities

- No after-sales support communicated

Factors That Affect Web Site Conversion – Cont’d

Site Structure and Navigation– Site design, information architecture and technology (Flash) confuse

or disorient the visitor– No site search on large sites– Lack of alternate navigation (site map, bread crumb trail)

Confidence – Trust and Credibility– No Security and privacy statement– Lack of professional design - cluttered, low contrast, small text, low

quality images, inconsistent layout and typography– No physical address on the Web site

Internet Marketing Plan

an indispensable guide to launching and operating a successful internet business.

• Provides– a comprehensive industry analysis– company's product and market strategies– a detailed advertising plan– a comprehensive online marketing strategy– a concise Executive Summary for a Marketing Plan– in-depth explanations of each concept presented, along with extensive links to relevant

websites for further material• Includes an exhaustive financial plan for the companies marketing strategies

– including budgeting,– Return on Investment (ROI) forecasting,– Contribution Margins and Sales Forecasts.

Internet Marketing Plan

Elements• Situation Analysis• Market Demographics• Market Analysis• SWOT Analysis• Competition• Marketing Strategy• Branding• Product Marketing• Promotions• Advertising Campaigns• Pricing

Strategies – Website Marketing Strategies– Ecommerce Strategies– Financial Plan

• Break Even Analysis• Sales and Expense Forecasts• Contribution Margin• Contingency Plan

Internet Marketing PlanSample & Resources•http://www.yudkin.com/sampleplan.htm•http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/onlinebusiness/a/netcampaignpp.htm•http://www.sampleplan.com/internet-marketing-plan-table-of-contents.html•http://www.sampleplan.com/internet-business-plan-table-of-contents.html•http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/issue73.htm

Thank You

Abul KashemOnline Business & SEO Consultant

Chief Executive OfficeXPONENT InfoSystem (PVT) Ltd

http://bd.linkedin.com/pub/abul-kashem/11/140/b10