Beyond SEO - The online marketing mix: Part 2
This month we follow on from our article in the November 2005 issue of Marketing Karma which discusses the online marketing mix.
6. Blogs
Blogs (or web logs) are becoming very popular both for businesses and individuals to generate interest in their services and products, or just for people to banter about their hobby, daily activities or anything else that comes to mind. There are big audiences for good blogs, and can drive significant amounts of traffic and interest, if they are interesting and well written. Keeping the web log up to date with fresh interesting content is key if you want to use your blog to promote your business.
Google’s Blogger.com is a free interface for setting up a blog, and you can update it anytime, anywhere.
A blog about blogging: Performancing.com
An excellent example of a blog used for business: English Cut – the blog of a bespoke Savile Row tailor.
7. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate programs are popular especially with large brands and consumer products who have a variety of
products to sell. Affiliate websites can ‘endorse’ other products and earn commission if someone goes
onto to buy a product from a link from their website. Many affiliate websites have been set up to earn
commission from as many programs as possible, not all of them successfully, however, it does give your
products much further coverage online, and if the commission is good, does encourage the affiliates to
actively promote your products. Affiliate programs can be run in house using special tracking software,
such as Kowabunga’s MyAP, or through third party providers such as Tradedoubler, DGM and
Commission Junction who have a pool of affiliates ready to sign up to your program.
Affiliate programs do require a lot of proactive management and can therefore be time consuming,
and often 20% of the affiliates drive 80% of the sales and traffic.
8. Banner / Media Buying
Advertising your products or services widely on popular portals is another way to get the word out and
provide an excellent channel for branding your products or business, and building awareness.
This form of advertising is therefore not only for just gaining sales and enquiries. Banner ads and
similar media are mostly bought on a CPM basis (per thousand impressions), and can vary hugely in price
depending on which portal you want your ads to be shown on. It is worth remembering that most portals
will negotiate the price, so if you want to go down this route, be prepared to haggle. When spending
large amounts of money on media buying, make sure your creative is up to scratch, and will encourage
those all important click throughs.
9. Viral Marketing
Viral marketing can be a great way of generating huge amounts of interest in your products,
but depends on a high pass along rate by large numbers of people to make it successful. The more fun or
controversial the viral, usually the more the word will spread. The first example of successful viral
marketing was Hotmail.com, each email had the Hotmail signature at the bottom. Remember Kylie Minogue’s
banned advert for Agent Provocateur which did the rounds virally? Another great one more recently is
Burger King’s Subservient Chicken. Games, clips and movies usually
get more interest than just stand alone images. Well crafted emails that get the right interest will
also do the rounds and get the word out.
10. Offline Marketing of website
Finally, and most obviously, do not just rely on the net to spread the word about your website. Is your domain name written on all your marketing
materials? Do all your contacts, staff, friends and family know about your site and can tell people about it. Do all your offline ads, press releases, articles all contain your website address?
Use every single opportunity to spread the word about your website, and with a strong online and offline marketing mix, your site will always be in mind.
See the November issue for the first part of this article
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