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 The Shifting Marketing Landscape!
Published Date: 2002-12-14 09:32:20 WorkOnInternet.com
 Many of us in the marketing services and/or agency business are
starting to see some real tangible marketing patterns emerging
that businesses need to be aware of if they want to leverage
their marketing dollars in this "post .com implosion economy."
GOOD WEB SITE DESIGN INCREASINGLY MORE IMPORTANT
It's imperative for a company to have a quality web site today
- but many firms are still throwing up web sites that are just
poorly designed or overly complex. Poor navigation (menus and
overall site structure) when coupled with low quality graphics
is really problematical (!) - online visitors think less of
your company as a result which will hurt revenue in the long
run. Many think just doing a minimal job is sufficient but
they aren't factoring in how close your competition is! On
the web any potential customer is only one click away from
seeing a high quality web site that is well designed and
conveys a quality image.
A good rule of thumb when budgeting for a web site is to
assume you will pay approximately $250-300. USD per page
- this should include your graphics design, content
development, setting up registration forms, etc. This may
sound too expensive for many companies but for better or
worse perception is reality in the online world! So, don't
short change yourself, put some resources into your web site
and be prepared to continue to do so - it's now a vital
component of any company's ongoing marketing processes that
needs constant upgrading like traditional marcom (PR, print,
etc.) materials.
OPT-IN E-MAIL TRENDING DOWN BUT STILL VIABLE
Opt-in or permission based e-mail (meaning people give
you "permission" to market to them) response rates for
Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer are dropping
below where they were a year ago by 30-50% on average.
What's happening? The ever-increasing deluge of Spam is
negating the throughput (response rates, purchases, etc.)
of quality opt-in e-mail.
Opt-in e-mail is still a viable and excellent way to market
your company but expect less results, lower costs/fees (more
vendors equals more competition which is good) and the need to
repeat your campaigns if you want to see tangible results. And
don't get dazzled by a design firm or your in house marketing
staff that wants to design a fancy HTML e-mail message for you
- 65-75% of the market today still doesn't want fancy graphics,
they want a short message, delivered concisely with short
paragraphs in a text format. Less is more!
PERFORMANCE BASED MARKETING ON UPSWING
Publishers and advertisers are more and more willing to accept
advertising which is "performance based" and/or based on a
"cost per click" or even a revenue share basis. Meaning, it's
not like putting an ad in the USA Today and hoping people
respond to the publication - you can now work with list
brokers, online publishers and marketing organizations to
setup very targeted campaigns that are based on your paying
a small cost for an actual response to your message via an
opt-in e-mail campaign, text link ad on a web site and/or an
insert in a newsletter.
Case in point, companies like Virtumundo, Inc. (they are a
pioneer in the performance based market) are now willing to
charge nothing upfront in many cases for an advertising
campaign and to just do a revenue share with you on the
back end; this is typically 20-40% of your SRP, will vary
depending upon your goods and/or services. And, they will
do a test campaign prior to a full-bore campaign to make
sure that the response rates will be worth their investment.
Another key benefit to any business that wants to leverage the
shifts occurring in performance-based marketing is its inherent
ability to be highly targeted. You can tie a marketing process
(campaign) to web site, newsletter or pay per click search
engine (Overture and now via Google's Ad Words Program) with
specific demographics that are highly qualified and targeted.
Contrast this again with the traditional print medium where you
can target to a certain extent; but not like performance-based
marketing. Consider an ad again (for example) in the sports
section of the USA Today - it will clearly deliver a sports
enthusiast, but not a male who plays tennis that lives in the
Western US, etc. And, better targeting will always deliver
better results, assuming all other issues are on a level
playing field.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING STILL A MYSTERY TO MANY
I hate to say it but most of the web sites we analyze still
don't have the basic HTML fundamentals (Title, Keywords,
Description) in-place so their sites can/will be indexed
(reviewed by an automated bot/software agent) properly.
Their title is wrong (don't repeat your company name), there
are too many keywords (you want 8-12) or the wrong keywords
and the description of the company is either poorly written
or reads like yet another "mission statement" that has been
developed by the CEO/CFO and three Senior VPs. This is basic
block and tackling marketing and should be setup properly
when a web site is designed.
Be prepared to deploy some marketing resources for quality
Search Engine Marketing - it's fiercely competitive for web
site rankings; you've got 3-5K web sites coming online every
single day of the week and many are trying to drive market
awareness via S/Engine ranking. What's a rule of thumb of
what to pay for standard S/Engine Marketing Services: i.e.
Title/Description Development, Keyword Analysis, Content
Rewrites, etc.? Costs can vary tremendously, depending on
your market segment, web site size, what type of services
you outsource, competitive issues, etc. Generally expect to
pay $3-6K for a basic 3-4 month campaign and then some modest
fee for ongoing maintenance (say $200-500.per month). There
are alternative sophisticated S/Engine processes that cost
much more than this, but these are typically suited for
companies that have a good sized marketing budget and or
a large web site that necessitates a different approach.
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Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and
marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective
Communications, Inc. http://www.intelective.com, a marketing
services and software company which provides strategic and
tactical marketing services exclusively to small to medium
sized companies. Lee@intelective.com Reprinted with permission
from Intelective Communications - this article may be reprinted
freely, providing this attribution box remains intact.
(c) 2001-2002 by Intelective Communications, Inc.
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