Marketing Objectives
In order to determine whether your marketing tactics are successful, it is common practice to generate marketing objectives in which goals are set for both the long-term and the short-term. The creation of goals and objectives will sanction the evaluation of current marketing techniques as well as shed insight into changes that may be necessary. For example, if a Webmaster is considering a banner campaign, he should set goals for required
click-through rates and project-specific revenue in order to determine whether that specific marketing investment is profitable.
Customer Profiling and Product Expansion
In order to better understand and serve your customers, it is good practice to generate common customer profiles through additional market research consisting of demographics,
geographics, sociographics, and psychographics. The gathering of relevant data often leads to the identification of new opportunities.
Internet Branding
Creating a brand name that is known and attractive is one of the most difficult steps in the marketing process. In order to create a name that customers are aware of, the Webmaster must commit to a long and hard fought brand awareness campaign. Brand awareness will almost never appear overnight. It can take months or even years for a brand to become known and accepted by the public. Brand awareness can be developed through a number of integrated marketing tools, such as promotions, publicity, advertising
(magazines, banner ads, etc.).
Creating a brand also involves the creation of slogans and trademarks. Effective slogans help the customer to retain residual awareness of a brand.
Guerrilla Marketing on the Internet
The Web is a vast business network full of incredible potential and sometimes crushing failures. At first online marketing was easy due to a lack of competition. A few decent search engine rankings and some ads on relevant sites was all that was needed to succeed.
After the dot-com boom and the later "Dot-Bomb" collapse, Internet business and advertising have taken on a whole new meaning. In order to rise to the top of an already saturated market, superior promotion is required, and the tactical key to success in Internet
business has become guerrilla marketing.
Guerrilla marketing involves utilizing unconventional methods to produce maximum results from minimal resources. A company must look beyond conventional search engine optimization and affiliate program marketing (although these are essential), and practice cheaper and more creative methods of marketing on the Internet. Guerrilla marketing shouldn't just be unusual it should be strategically targeted to provide maximum return. Strategic thinking can lead to low-cost and efficient marketing tactics that will give you a
competitive advantage.
Smaller operations can easily track and monitor massive marketing and advertising campaigns in detail, and modify them at a moment's notice. Small and mobile companies don't have to wait for weeks or months for decisions to be made as do larger corporations.
Also, large corporations tend to use the more conventional tried and tested methods of marketing because their managers are given a large budget to spend. The guerrilla is the new solder of fortune utilizing clever and surprise marketing methods to
their strategic advantage.
Guerrilla marketing as practiced by dot-com companies is understood poorly. Firms perform cheap tricks and stunts, and believe that they are effectively marketing in an innovative way. Instead, they often lose the trust and respect of their customers. In October of 2002, to coincide with the launch of MSN 8, Microsoft's ad agency (McCann) hired a guerrilla firm with a team of "street marketers," to place Butterfly stickers "on phone booths, subway posts, and traffic poles throughout Midtown Manhattan." (CNET) "Cesar Fernandez,
assistant counsel to the city's Department of Transportation wrote in a letter to Microsoft: In as much as your organization is noted on the illegal markings, we intend to hold your firm directly responsible for this illegal, irresponsible and dangerous defacing of public property."
CNET also reported IBM's spray-painting of their "Linux penguin mascot" on sidewalks in San Francisco and Chicago, and the ensuing fines and clean up costs, in April of 2001.
Your guerrilla marketing tactics should be fresh and clever while casting a positive image of your business. With some research and strategic planning, a business in any industry can exploit untapped, overlooked, or underestimated avenues of marketing in their respective field.
Ten minutes of effective planning can be more productive than a month of work. Remember that growing your business through client acquisition is a struggle you've got to want it badly enough to be willing to fight for it. Plan your attack, and watch the customers flood in.
Newsgroup and IRC
Another form of transfer of digital media consists of newsgroups and inter-relay chat (IRC). Although there are a number of companies that have generated substantial profits using these digital mediums, it is a difficult and often unprofitable business venture.
Aternative Media Raises Barriers to Entry
Alternative advertising of online companies is important because it raises barriers to entry into an industry. By creating a strong brand that is recognized not only online, but offline as well, a company makes it much harder for new entrants to successfully penetrate a market. In addition, offline traditional advertising is an excellent way to drive online traffic.
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