Portent Interactive's CEO discusses how to avoid common marketing mistakes while using a holistic approach to design, structure and buying.
Online marketing seems easy enough: build a website, buy some keywords on Google, and then watch the world flock to your site to buy your products and/or services. Unfortunately, life is rarely that easy, and marketing on the internet is no exception.
Almost every mistake you can make on the web derives from the fundamental assumption that designing and building a website, marketing your product/service, and measuring the results are separate, compartmentalized activities. In fact, the opposite is true: one must approach online marketing with a holistic philosophy that recognizes the interrelatedness of, say, the structure of a website and its ability to rank highly in search results.
Ideally, your graphic designers, technology architects and coders, search engine optimization consultants, and media buyers should work together as a single organization, even if they are not from the same company. The failure to take such an approach can result in making one or more of the following Five Big Mistakes…
Mistake #1: Thinking That Keyword Advertising Is Everything
Everyday I meet people who are pouring money into pay-per-click search and ignoring organic search. This is a costly mistake that only helps to line pockets of Google shareholders. Not that I have anything against the success of Google. To the contrary, Google has done more to shine a light on the power of internet marketing than anyone else.
No, my beef is with the advertisers who only care about being number one in ad words, when they should be more concerned with end results. The ingenious Google bidding model, in which advertisers compete against each other, ensures the highest cost per click for Google.
But people forget that a Top-Ten search result is just as powerful as an ad that costs $5. I know many people who are more inclined to click an organic search result because they think it has more credibility than a paid advertisement. Do you ever do that? I know I do.
Instead of focusing exclusively on keyword advertising, you have to strike a balance with organic search, eNewsletters, email, blogs, and all the other marketing vehicles available on the web today. Utilize the entire universe of options and you will lower your overall cost per click.
Mistake #2: Thinking Cool Design Equals Good Marketing
You want visitors to buy your product, get your message, support your cause, etc. and the only way to do that is to build a website that appeals to them. That means using the right design. Not the "cool" one.
Yet most websites I see are clearly built to appeal to the tastes of the CEO, the marketing director, or the VP of sales. These sites don't address the needs of the customer. A 45-second Flash introduction may stroke someone's ego, but it also may make your site invisible to search engines and completely turn-off potential customers who just want to buy a product and get out as quickly as possible.
Remember that your customers want have an intelligent conversation with you, where you exchange information, discover their needs, and offer solutions. If a Flash animation helps accomplish that goal, fine. Otherwise, focus on solving your customer's problem, and leave out the fancy graphics.
Mistake #3: Ignoring Measurement
One of the most amazing benefits of the web is how it allows you to measure results. With a traditional television ad, you have no idea how many people actually buy your product after viewing the ad. Put a website address at the end of a television ad, and suddenly you can measure exactly how many people took action after viewing it. This is revolutionary stuff.
Sadly, few companies are continuously measuring and refining their marketing campaigns. At my seminars, I'll ask the audience how many of them know how to find simple web traffic statistics like page views. Sometimes not a single hand is raised.
You can start by learning how to use one of the standard web analytics package, such as WebTrends, Urchin and Webalizer. These tools can provide a wealth of information about your site's performance. In general, unique visits and page views present the most accurate measure of campaign success.
Mistake #4: Ignoring Return on Investments
When it comes to internet marketing, people tend to ignore the most obvious question of all: am I getting a decent return on my investment in a particular campaign?
I can't always blame them, since they've been told by their web site designer, their website host, or even their webmaster, that it's impossible measure returns. But those folks simply don't know what they are talking about.
The truth is that you can actually reduce spending on marketing and simultaneously increase lead and sales generation by measuring results and adjusting as you go along. Remember the objective is not to generate more traffic. The end goal is to grow your business.
Mistake #5: Assuming that Meta-Tags Can Help With Search Engine Optimization
Admittedly this is a smaller mistake than the ones previously discussed, but this one really bugs me because I make my living helping companies get better search engine results. Too many consultants are running around telling companies that they can achieve search engine nirvana by simply changing meta-tags.
The truth is that you need to look at code, title tags, and site structure all together to have any real impact on search results. Take code. Well-written HTML code is at least half the battle, because smart HTML is more easily crawled by search engines. Clean HTML also brings your body content closer to the top of the coded page, which definitely provides a boost. And clean HTML code minimizes the chance that you'll have something on your page that stops a search engine in its tracks, or gets you banned as a suspected unscrupulous marketer.
It's easy to avoid these five mistakes when you take a holistic approach to internet marketing. Try to see everything -- site design, site structure, advertising, media buying -- as interconnected. The best part is that you don't have to risk a year's marketing budget to get smarter. Thanks to the natural leverage of the internet, you can make small changes and reap big rewards.
Ian Lurie is an Internet marketing professional in Seattle, Washington. His firm, Portent Interactive, has helped businesses generate value using the Internet since 1995. Ian is about to publish a book on Internet Marketing called Conversation Marketing. You can visit his blog at http://www.conversationmarketing.com.