By Roshan pant

MBM 2nd

semester

Nepal Commerce Campus

Unit 6

Marketing Through E-Commerce/Internet:

Growing Popularity of E-commerce/Internet Marketing:

The worldwide expansion of the internet has considerably contributed to the transformation of trade

and store transactions. E-commerce, or electronic commerce, largely means buying and/or selling

products through the internet and is commonly associated with online shopping. E-commerce also

makes use of regular technological maintenance to ensure the smooth functioning of online store sites,

monetary transactions, as well as everything to do with providing and delivering products. E-commerce

statistics confirm the explosive pace at which this industry has developed as worldwide B2C e-commerce

sales amounted to more than 1.2 trillion US dollars in 2013.

There are several different types of e-commerce, the most prevalent being B2B (business-to-business),

B2C (business-to-consumer) and C2C (consumer-to-consumer) e-commerce. Furthermore, mobile

commerce in the shape of buying and selling goods and content via mobile devices such as smartphones

is also on the rise.

Current e-commerce statistics state that 40 percent of worldwide internet users have bought products

or goods online via desktop, mobile, tablet or other online devices. This amounts to more than 1 billion

online buyers and is projected to continuously grow.

According to popular e-commerce market data, US-founded Amazon is one of the leading e-commerce

platforms worldwide. Asian competitors such as Rakuten or Alibaba are also constantly expanding their

share within the B2C e-commerce market. Online auction website eBay is the most popular example for

C2C e-commerce whilst also providing a platform for merchants to sell their goods.

Mobile commerce growth is another exciting trend to watch in terms of e-commerce statistics,

considering the popularity and widespread use of smartphones and growing usage of tablets. In 2013,

US mobile commerce revenue amounted to more than 38 billion US dollars. This type of e-commerce

includes mobile media and content, retail services, travel purchases and various other services.

Digital payments are also closely connected to e-commerce. Alternative payment methods such as

digital wallets or online payment providers have seen increased adoption rates and rapid growth in the

past few years. Ebay-owned PayPal is one of the current market leaders with more than 14 billion US

dollars in mobile payment volume alone. Digital payments are not only convenient for the mobile

shopping experience but also for the increasingly available paid digital content like streaming music,

online video subscriptions and apps. For example, global mobile app revenues are projected to surpass

30 billion US dollars in the coming year.

Introduction to E-Commerce:

The Internet is a channel that businesses can use to advertise, connect with customers and make sales.

The right Internet strategy can play a significant part in the successful marketing and sales of products.

Internet Marketing or Online Marketing is the full range of activities that you undertake on the

web in order to make certain that you are meeting your customers‘ needs and that you are

receiving enough value in return for doing so. Internet Marketing is related to online advertising,

promotion, PR, and sales, but is actually a distinct activity that helps prepare you and your

organization to perform the related activities thoroughly and well.

Internet marketing, like marketing off-site (off of your website), requires that you know enough

about your customers and markets that you know how best to price, sell, and distribute your

product or service. Doing so requires a level of marketing research and the development of a

marketing plan.

Internet marketing is important because it aligns with the way consumers make purchasing decisions.

Studies by analysts indicate that increasing numbers of consumers use social media and research on

mobile Internet to carry out preliminary product and price research before making final decisions.

Internet marketing enables you to build relations with customers and prospects through regular, low-

cost personalized communication, reflecting the move away from mass marketing.

The Growing Popularity of Internet marketing is also Due to:

1. Convenience

Internet marketing enables you to be open for business around the clock without

worrying about store opening hours or overtime payments for staff. Offering your

products on the Internet is also convenient for customers. They can browse your online

store at any time and place orders when it is convenient for them.

2. Reach By marketing on the Internet, you can overcome barriers of distance. You can sell goods

in any part of the country without setting up local outlets, widening your target market.

You can also build an export business without opening a network of distributors in

different countries. However, if you want to sell internationally, you should use

localization services to ensure that your products are suitable for local markets and

comply with local business regulations. Localization services include translation and

product modification to reflect local market differences.

3. Cost

Marketing products on the Internet costs less than marketing them through a physical

retail outlet. You do not have the recurring costs of property rental and maintenance. You

do not have to purchase stock for display in a store. You can order stock in line with

demand, keeping your inventory costs low.

4. Personalization

Internet marketing enables you to personalize offers to customers by building a profile of

their purchasing history and preferences. By tracking the web pages and product

information that prospects visit, you can make targeted offers that reflect their interests.

The information available from tracking website visits also provides data for planning

cross-selling campaigns so that you can increase the value of sales by customer.

5. Relationships

The Internet provides an important platform for building relationships with customers

and increasing customer retention levels. When a customer has purchased a product from

your online store, you can begin the relationship by sending a follow-up email to confirm

the transaction and thank the customer. Emailing customers regularly with special,

personalized offers helps to maintain the relationship. You can also invite customers to

submit product reviews on your website, helping to build a sense of community.

6. Social

Internet marketing enables you to take advantage of the growing importance of social

media. An article on the Harvard Business School Executive Education website

highlighted the link between social networking and online revenue growth. According to

the article, a group of consumers that responded most strongly to the influence of social

networks generated increased sales of around 5 percent. You can take advantage of this

type of influence by incorporating social networking tools in your Internet marketing

campaigns.

7. Web Advertising

Marketing is one of the vehicles businesses use to attract customers. The Internet

provides a platform to place advertisements with the potential to reach millions of

consumers around the world. Several advertising options are available on the Web. You

can place banner and text ads on popular websites that are relevant to your particular

business. For example, if you sell your own brand of hot sauce, you might consider

buying ads on food-oriented websites such as Allrecipes.com, focusing on pages that

feature recipes that use hot sauce. You can also place ads on social networks such as

Twitter and Facebook.

8. The Web as a Sales Channel

The Internet also gives retailers an additional channel to sell products. Thirty years ago, a

retail store without a physical storefront was all but unheard of. Today, you can buy

almost anything you want on the Internet by visiting a company's website. This lets you

sell more products without the cost of having to rent out and stock additional retail floor

space. The ability to sell goods without the cost of a physical storefront is especially

helpful for entrepreneurs who want to keep start-up costs low. If you don't have storage

space yourself, you can use a third-party drop shipper to store and distribute your

products.

9. Market Research

Gathering information about the preferences and habits of consumers is an essential part

of marketing. If you don't know what your customers want, how much they are willing to

pay for products, and who your competitors are, it is difficult to offer the right product to

the marketplace. The Internet can be used to gather consumer data through Web-based

surveys, email surveys and online tools that let you track user activities and preferences.

10. Communication and Customer Service

Building a base of loyal customers that come back and buy products repeatedly is

essential to creating a successful small business. The Internet can help companies

improve customer service by giving customers an additional channel of communication

that is available at all hours of the day. In addition, the Web lets businesses distribute

important consumer information such as product manuals, guides and answers to

frequently asked questions. This can help customers make informed decisions about their

purchases

The Five Ps of Internet Marketing – Product, Price, Place,

Promotion and People

One popular definition of marketing is known as the Five P‘s of marketing. The five P‘s refer to

the type of decisions that you will have to make when you effectively market your product.

These decision categories still apply in Internet marketing, though the decisions you make

around them may differ when you are dealing with an online environment vs. a ―brick and

mortar‖ store or location.

These decision categories are:

Product - The physical product or the service that you are offering to the customer. You will

decide what to sell or offer, how it should appear, what customer service support will come with

it, and any warranty or additional aspects of the product that will be included. You may be

offering the same product or service as dozens, hundreds, or thousands of other websites, so

you‘ll need to somehow distinguish yourself from the pack if the customer is to choose your

offering over all the others.

People - The people decisions that you will make are those that refer to how you want your

customer service representatives to interact with your customers. How will they be instructed to

work with the customer? How will you make sure they have the information they need to help

the customer? How will you incorporate your current customer service strategies into your

Internet strategies? Will you offer live support even to online customers?

Price – Pricing decisions are made based on profit margins, pricing that competitors use, and the

demand in the market. You will also have to make decisions regarding when to offer price

discounts and whether or not you‘ll allow financing or other payment arrangements. With the

Internet market, you‘ll need to compete on price but also on shipping charges and any other fees

that might change what the customer pays for the product or service.

Promotion – As described earlier, promotion decisions will need to be made regarding how you

will communicate and sell to your potential customers. You‘ll have to decide what you can

afford to spend on promotions as well based on the expected return on investment (ROI). If not

done carefully, you could easily spend thousands of dollars on promotion activities that do not

provide any significant return on investment. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one example; if

it‘s not delivering you buying customers, you will spend a lot of money for little to no results.

Place - Also sometimes called Placement, these decisions regard how you will distribute your

product or service to the customer. Will you have a store front shop in addition to your website?

Will you deliver the items yourself or will you simply resell someone else‘s products for them

(called being an affiliate)? Will you offer immediate delivery of electronic information products

or just use your website as a tool to drive customers to a live location?

5 New P’s of Internet Marketing

These new 5 P‘s of are:

Push/pull

This relates to the way you are treated on visiting a website and the ease of which you are

navigated through it. The ―pull‖ process involves discovering almost intuitively the way to what

you want to purchase and it feels easy, whereas a ―push‖ process would involve lots of

searching, back tracking and potentially being lost and frustrated with the feeling that you are

being pushed all over the place but not to where you want to go.

Payment

The payment process is often where the marketing of the website can break down, right at the

last moment either because it is not secure enough, it is too difficult to understand the steps or

the host bank has a poor image i.e. Paypal. If the general public believes that the security aspect

of your payment process is weak then it doesn't matter how much time and effort you have

invested on your website marketing strategy, your ad word strategy, your keywords, your page

ranking and your website design because you will lose a customer at this final step.

Personalisation

Personalisation is the key to enabling individuals to be contacted automatically by linking their

preferences and personal tastes to new product offers that are constantly being developed. These

automatic personalised e-mails that relate to previous purchases and to the purchases of other

people, who have similar tastes to oneself. This process of personalisation is the reason why

those people who purchase on Amazon and eBay constantly receive personalised e-mails

offering them new products that they might be interested in. This marketing process of

personalisation is extremely targeted, very focused and uses the existing trust built up between

the purchaser and the website.

Precision

It is generally accepted that you have up from 4 to 10 seconds to ensure that anybody reaching

your homepage stays on it before going off to another website. It is therefore crucial that when a

website recognizes a returning customer that the offer is exactly what the customer requires or at

least recognizes and finds attractive. This could be something simple like a personalised

welcome message with a precise offer that could be of interest to the returning customer.

Privacy

One of the main challenges that the internet has is the privacy and security aspect of people‘s

information. It is one of the main reasons that many people still do not bank on line, me

included. Huge advances have been made in the protection of personal privacy but unfortunately

the hackers have not been idle either. This aspect of internet marketing is a crucial area for all of

us as suppliers and customers and one of the areas why businesses need to pay close attention to

registration under the Data Protection Act.

Identifying Products and customers through Search Engines

Search engine marketing is all about getting in front of customers at the very moment they are

searching for your products on Google and the other engines. But how do you take full advantage of

search engine marketing and outshine your competition? The following seven steps will put you on the

right path to search engine marketing success.

Step 1 – Define an Effective Strategy

All too often, companies dive into search engine marketing without a coherent strategy. Don‘t

fall into this trap. Get off on the right foot by thoroughly defining your target audience(s),

identifying their needs and motivations and highlighting how your products can serve these

needs. Next, review your company‘s position in the marketplace. Identify your top competitors

and your company‘s competitive advantage. Finally, identify specific goals and benchmarks,

such as search rankings, Website traffic increases, sales lead volume and other ROI metrics, to

allow you to measure the success of your search engine marketing campaign. This strategy will

form the foundation of your campaign and put you on the path to search engine marketing

success.

Step 2 – Choose the Best Keywords

The most critical step in search engine marketing is to strategically select the most important

keyword phrases for your company. If you do not perform this step properly, your search engine

marketing campaign is destined for failure. When choosing the best keywords, it is critical to

choose phrases that are not only relevant to your business, but also ones that are searched most

often by your target customers. Begin by getting inside the heads of your customers and

brainstorm about potential terms your customers use when thinking about your products and

capabilities. Ask your salespeople and customer service people what phrases they think are most

important. You may even want to ask your best customers. Then, turn to keyword research tools

provided by Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and Google Adwords to create a list of highly

searched terms that will drive targeted traffic to your Website.

Step 3 – Optimize Your Website’s Content

Now that we know your most important keywords, let‘s put them to work. You need to make

sure your Website content is optimized to take advantage of these important phrases. Begin with

your Website copy – the information people can read on your Website. Make sure you skillfully

write your Website copy to effectively market your company, while using your important

keyword phrases in a relevant fashion. Next, focus on your Website structure – the code under

the hood of your Website that search engines see when they visit your Website. Use your

keyword phrases relevantly in page title tags, heading tags, director names, file names, alt tags

and meta tags. Please note: while the ‗keywords‘ meta tag has been exploited over the years, the

‗description‘ meta tag is very important. This description will show up in the search results

below your link, providing a great opportunity for you to entice the searcher to visit your

Website.

Step 4 – Get Your Site Indexed by the Top Three

To be found online, you must make certain that all pages on your Website are fully indexed by

the top three search engines: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search. I recommend you start

by focusing on Google since it handles over 55% of all searches, and it makes the process easy

for site owners. While all search engines allow you to submit your Website directly for

consideration, Google also provides you with a backdoor to get your site indexed quicker.

Google allows you to create a Google Sitemap, which essentially serves as an ongoing invitation

for Google to visit your site and a roadmap detailing the pages it should index. To speed up the

process of getting indexed by the other engines, submit your Website to the DMOZ.org Open

Directory Project. Once your Website is accepted by DMOZ, Yahoo and Microsoft should have

no problem indexing your Website.

Step 5 – Attract Quality Links to Your Website

Link building involves gaining links to your Website from other Websites that are frequented by

your targeted visitors. The more quality inbound links you have, the more popular your Website

is in the eyes of Google and other engines. And, these links can have a dramatic effect on your

search ranking. A good place to start your link building efforts is to make your Website content

link-worthy. Good content attracts links, so fill your Website with interesting and informative

content such as a library of best practices articles, a blog about developments and trends in your

industry, etc. Next, get your Website listed in online directories and portals. Look first to

important online destinations within your industry, then focus on general purpose directories like

Yahoo Directory and Business.com. You can also garner links from vendors, customers, business

partners and trade associations. Finally, you should leverage online public relations and

distribute press releases and articles online. By consistently applying these link building

strategies, you will dramatically impact your ranking on Google and boost your online

popularity.

Step 6 – Manage an ROI-driven Paid Search Campaign

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) in the sponsored links search results offers a compelling ROI-

driven marketing opportunity. Unlike traditional advertising, where you ‗pay for exposure‘

regardless of the results, with PPC you are not paying to be listed in the search results. You only

pay if someone clicks on your ad and visits your Website, providing a compelling ‗pay for

performance‘ mode of advertising. To manage an ROI-driven paid search campaign, first, bid on

the most relevant keywords. Don‘t pick terms based on popularity alone. Make sure your product

offering will be of interest to the searcher. Second, tie your bidding strategy to business results.

Think cost-per-lead and cost-per-sale, instead of just cost-per-click. In many cases a lower ad

position will produce a higher ROI. Finally, include a compelling ‗call to action‘ in the ad and

send traffic to a relevant landing page tied to the ad. A compelling and relevant offer will help

lift response and boost your ROI.

Step 7 – Measure Success

As with all marketing activities, you must measure success to see how well you performed in the

past, as well as identify actionable strategies to improve your results in the future. Since search

engine marketing is all about attracting targeted traffic, begin by leveraging Web analytics to

monitor traffic increases from search, as well as what search engines and phrases peoples are

using to visit your Website. To make sure the volume of targeted visitors continues to increase,

you should also monitor your position or ranking in the search results. On a regular basis, check

your position in the top three search engines for your most important keyword phrases to see

how well you are trending upward toward a top 10 ranking. Finally, to measure success of your

pay-per-click advertising efforts, harness the measurable nature of the Web to track the cost-per-

visit, cost-per-lead, and cost-per-sale for all of your pay-per-click ads.

Key components to successful search engine marketing for a Web site

Start with a descriptive domain name: The domain name you choose is important. It is

so very important because the name itself can help your Web site be more relevant to

search engines. Pick a domain name that is easy for your clients to remember.

Submit to the top engines: Submit your Web site for review and indexing only to the top

search engines where people are actually doing their searches such as Google, Yahoo,

MSN, etc. Be careful to read the submission guidelines for each search engine before

submitting. For example, have a look at Google's search engine guidelines.

Focus on your homepage: Your homepage is the single most important page on your

site. Your homepage represents your business and its image. Make sure you focus on

developing the content and the relevancy to search engines for this page.

Develop content rich pages: Add content that includes keywords and phrases you are

targeting. Many search engines consider the location of the keywords in your site along

with their frequency to assess how relevant your site is to those keywords.

Keep an eye on your competition: Stay informed of your competition's rankings. Top-

ranked pages rank well for a reason - so see what you can do to be more competitive! Can

you offer something they do not offer?

Add new content: Keep your Web site fresh and updated with new content. Your visitors

will appreciate it, and the search engines will look favorably upon it.

Networking with others: Expand your "link popularity" by gaining more inbound links to

your site. Get the word out and let other sites know about your site and how to link to it.

The more links coming into your site, the more doorways you open for visitors to find

you.

Title Tags: Make sure the title tags across all the pages on your site are relevant to that

particular page. Your domain name is not a good idea for a title tag.

Pay Per Click Advertising: Consider "pay per click" strategies such as Google.com and

MSN.com to enhance your overall marketing strategy. Pay per click now offers local

search options to better reach a targeted audience.

Review your activity logs: "Activity logs" or "server statistics" provide you with statistics

on the number of visitors coming into your site, where the visitors come from and what

keywords are used. Some Web servers/hosts provide this information free. Google also

offers this as a new free service called Google Analytics.

Checking on who links to you: Google offers a service to determine who is linking to

your Web site. Go to Google.com and in the search box type in

"site:http://www.yourwebsite.com/". You can also go to bing.com: enter

"site:www.yourwebsite.com/".

Outsourcing search engine optimization If you would like to out source search engine optimization, ask your professional

consultant for the names of previous clients or "case studies". Speak with these clients to

determine what, if any, improvements they experienced. Make sure that unethical or

questionable practices are not used that will be harmful in the long run.

Targeted e-mail E-mail allows you to communicate directly with your customers. It is also one of the

most abused forms of online advertising. Nobody enjoys receiving unsolicited e-mail

touting a business or service. While it is possible to purchase huge mailing lists of e-mail

addresses that can be used for marketing your product, you are likely to turn off large

numbers of potential customers by engaging in this practice. Instead, opt-in mailing lists

are now the preferred method of establishing e-mail lists of customers who are genuinely

interested in your product or service. Consider creating an online newsletter. Make it

informative, useful and worth reading. Finally, remember that each e-mail should also

contain instructions for how the recipient can be removed from the e-mail list.

Planning and Creating Websites for Business

Opportunities

Having a website allows even the smallest companies an opportunity to market their products

and services to a global audience of potential customers. Establishing a web-based enterprise

does not require a large capital investment compared with having a bricks and mortar physical

location. But the tremendous opportunity created by the Internet comes with an equally

tremendous challenge: getting these millions of potential customers to find your website and

purchase goods and services.

Step 1

Outline your vision. Think long range, a three-year to five-year time horizon. Perhaps your

vision is to be the leading Internet marketer of books, music and movies that appeal to the over-

50 demographic. This vision will shape the design, content and themes of your website--as well

the types of affiliates and advertisers you can attract to your site.

Step 2

Develop your business model--the revenue streams your company will have. Determine what

mix of products and services you will be offering through your website. Include revenue streams

specific to Internet companies, such as membership fees, downloaded e-books and software or

web hosting. Design your model so you can market more than one product or service to each

customer, and encourage each to be a repeat customer.

Step 3

Determine your marketing strategies. The key to success in starting an Internet venture is

devising marketing strategies that will bring large numbers of visitors to your site, and do this on

a cost-effective basis. Viral marketing, using your customers or visitors to introduce your

company to other potential customers, is a powerful way to use the social networking aspect of

the Internet to your advantage.

Step 4

Profile your competitors. You may think your idea is unique, but it is highly likely

competotors' websites are doing something similar to what you are. Take a critical look at their

websites and marketing strategies. Determine what you intend to do better, how you will provide

a superior overall experience for your customers.

Step 5

Describe the human resources you need. In the beginning, your management team might only

be you, or you and a partner. But you will need other resources, such as a web design firm

familiar with your market niche, a credit card processing firm and perhaps an Internet marketing

adviser. Provide the reasons you chose these particular firms or individuals, and why they have

the right mix of experience and skills.

Step 6

Create financial projections. Start with a simple revenue model that projects number of

visitors, and conversion rate to customers, for each product or service you will be offering. Run a

number of scenarios for years one through three until you are comfortable the numbers are

reasonable. Unrealistic financial projections are the No. 1 mistake venture capitalists believe

entrepreneurs make in their business plans, according to a survey by Profit Dynamics Inc. in

―Attracting Capital from Angels.‖

Use of E-mails and social media in Creating Business;

Why use social media?

As traditional methods of marketing to customers like advertising, or direct mail become less and

less effective, businesses are turning to social mediums to connect in positive ways with

consumers and the people who influence them. The key to social media success is to not get

hung up on the tools and technology but to focus on how you can use them more effectively to:

increase the visibility of your personal brand and that of your business build and cultivate your personal and professional networks develop and grow relationships with customers and influencers engage in real-time two-way interaction with people, including answering queries publish and distribute original content that demonstrates your expertise share curated links to relevant information that adds value to the lives of your customers communicate with your community of followers, advocates and supporters ultimately generate new leads and boost sales for your business.

We need to be acutely aware just how social media has fundamentally changed the way we are

connecting, communicating and collaborating as individuals, and therefore society as a whole.

Understanding the social media equation

Think of social media in two parts. Firstly, there is social media participation, this is where you

are present on social channels and are constantly delivering value to the online community in the

form of:

sharing other people’s content on Facebook or LinkedIn, or retweeting them if you’re on Twitter answering people’s questions if you’re in a position to help whether they’re directly related to

your business or not joining the conversation on a particular topic- this could be a group on Twitter talking about a

certain issue that’s sprung up through the media, or joining a LinkedIn Group leaving genuinely interesting and relevant comments on selective blogs you read and podcasts

you listen to promoting other people’s businesses and causes (for example, your municipal council may be

running a street festival that could be good for you to be promote via your networks).

Make sure that before jumping into conversations on social networks, it‘s critical to listen first,

sit back and take note of the ‗lay of the land‘ - try and get acquainted with the nuances of the

particular network you‘re intending to become active on. Secondly, there is the creation and

distribution of original content that informs, empowers, educates and/or entertains - content that

will attract the right people to your brand, potential customers as well as the people who

influence them.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an efficient way to communicate and stay connected to your clients or

customers while also promoting your business. It‘s a distribution channel for content. Common

email campaigns consist of product or service announcements, a company newsletter, lead

nurturing, and sales promotions.

Numerous studies have explored how email marketing works, why it works, how frequently

businesses should send emails, what the content of emails should be, what you can put in an

email that will lead the recipient to take the action, and much more.

Salesforce compiled a list of interesting statistics about email marketing, including:

Promotional emails prompted 44 percent of people to make at least one purchase in a 12-month period.

Seven out of 10 people will use a coupon or discount from an email. Sixty-four percent of people say they open an email because of the subject line. More than a quarter of consumers felt their favorite companies should invest more in emails. About 84 percent of all email traffic is spam.

Email marketing works, but only if it‘s done wisely. Shotgun emails that go to the inboxes of

people who have no interest in your company or product are worthless. They waste time and

money and annoy disinterested consumers.The keys to successful email campaigns are simple:

Focus on growing and pruning your email subscriber list. Solicit emails through your website, blog, social media channels, or through in-store promotions. These consumers are already aware of your business and are more likely to be receptive to additional contact.

Segment your list. Not every customer or prospect will be interested in every email you send, but some emails will be highly relevant to others. There are many ways to segment your mailing list. Using an email service provider like VerticalResponse, makes it easier to determine how to divide contacts based on age ranges, location, birthday, or any other information you collect from the subscriber. You can also segment based on email campaign activity – whether subscribers have opened or clicked on certain emails. Using this contact information and engagement metrics help you target your message better.

Deliver quality content aimed at fulfilling the needs of the targeted list. For example, couples who just bought a home might welcome an email from their realtor that provides tips for new homeowners, or a list of resources like movers or handyman services. This type of content is useful and relevant. It strengthens the relationship between the realtor and the clients and is a perfect example of how content marketing and email work together.

Communicate regularly but don’t inundate customers with email. How frequent is perfect? You’ll need to experiment to identify the optimum pace for your target audience. Try increasing email frequency to a small, targeted group and track the results. Do more people make purchases? Or unsubscribe? An email service provider can help you track results, including open and click-through rates.

Social Media Marketing

By now, only the most tech-resistant are unaware of this thing called ―social media.‖ Twitter,

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest and a host of other social media sites are channels that

connect millions of users to each other — and to businesses. In fact, nearly three-quarters of

American adults use social networking websites, according to the Pew Research Center.

These social media networks are distribution channels for content. Social media users are

looking to stay connected and therefore are open to engagement. They tend to be much more

connected and interactive with each other and the businesses they patronize. Skillful use of social

media can put your business message in front of a highly receptive audience.

To maximize your use of social media channels, follow these best practices:

Learn which social media channels your customers prefer. Establish a presence on those platforms. Use social media to distribute content that resides on your blog, YouTube page, or other places. Follow what your customers are doing and saying on social media — before you put your own

statements out there. Tailor the content you share on social media to your audience, just as you do with email

marketing. Always provide quality content — information that is relevant and useful for your target

audience. Use social media to grow your email subscriber list.

Making these three approaches work in harmony

You‘ll realize the true power of each of these marketing efforts when you deploy them together.

Consider this scenario as another example of how to integrate these three aspects:

1. Create a blog post about a topic your audience would find interesting. 2. Make the call to action at the end of the post an invitation to sign up for your company

newsletter. 3. Pubish the blog post, and also post it to your social media channels. Encourage fans and

followers to share their thoughts in the comment section to stimulate engagement. 4. Round up one or two weeks worth of blog posts, any videos you’ve created, or links to

presentations and use this content in your newsletter. 5. Distribute the newsletter to your email subscribers, and also share it on social media. 6. Send any new email subscribers (generated from the blog post or elsewhere) a welcome email

that provides additional content, and an incentive to connect on social media by promising exclusive promotions to followers.

This is only one path. There are many more to create and explore. Let us know what works for

you!

Conclusion: Content marketing, email, and social marketing are each powerful tools for

communicating with consumers and building your business. However, doing only one or two of

these tactics isn‘t going to get the job done. You need to do each well and ensure you‘re using

them in concert with each other.