So you’ve invented the next big thing, now how to you tell people about it? With so many destinations to post, advertise and promote, it’s easy to make a whole job out of digging, tweeting, stumbling, blogging and commenting. Sales and marketing specialist Paul Reeves has spent the past few years helping major brands like Samsung, Motorola and LG run marketing campaigns that not only raised brand awareness, but turned real profits. We asked Paul, who now owns his own Sydney-based firm Octane Marketing, about marketing online.
What are the most valuable online marketing channels?
Online Marketing is constantly changing and can be extremely challenging. Marketing your business online brings with it many benefits that are not available with traditional and offline marketing. Firstly it allows you to track real-time results using online analytics to make a determination on how your marketing campaign is performing. Secondly you can target specific demographics in your advertising. There are so many options when marketing online. You can use audio, video, blogging, email, social media and ongoing newsletters. If you were to do the same thing in traditional marketing you would need to select several media outlets to cover your bases which would cost a lot more and take a lot longer to implement. So which are the most valuable online marketing channels at the moment?
Social media – we have all heard the term. It includes social news, social bookmarking, social networking, media-driven sites like Youtube etc. Top social media sites include Digg, Stumbleupon, Facebook, Twitter ,MySpace, YouTube, and dozens of other smaller sites.
Blogging – It is cost effective, measurable, viral, and can get you closer to your customers. Blogging has a huge impact on readers, search engines, blog search engines, other blogs, and social media.
Paid search - The most popular place to run paid search advertising is Google ( AdWords). You can set up a campaign fast, you have a lot of control over your message and what people are seeing on your site, and you will view results in hours. Paid search does require experience and a healthy budget in order to get great results.
Natural search - This is listings in the search engines (unpaid listings). The higher your web site ranks in the listings will mean a greater opportunity to drive large amounts of traffic to your website. People trust natural search and it’s unpaid. There specialists who focus on search engine optimization (SEO) for your site.
Database or E mail marketing - This is probably the most valuable marketing asset you can have. If you do not have one today start to build one immediately. A database will give your business a solid foundation for a campaign when you decide to do one. You can use your list for qualitative data from surveys, and other customer feedback mechanisms. In addition, you can segment your list for more power and and create targeted campaigns for each demographic.
You can find out more about Paul Reeves and the Sydney-based Octane Marketing here. The Expert Advice series taps Australian pros for startup and investment tips. If you have a marketing question or want to offer your expertise, email us.
