A Definition of Web Marketing
Web Marketing or Digital Marketing is a common term used to describe marketing that specifically uses the Internet and its various aspects to grow your market share and your business online.
What is included in Web Marketing?
Web Marketing can include, but is not limited to the following:-
Lead Generation
Social Media Advertising
App Development
Online Advertising
Affiliate Marketing
Generating Sales Leads
Social Commerce
Content Marketing
At Scoosh, we refer to the above as Marketing Campaigns and combining multiple together would become an overall Marketing Strategy.
Traditional Marketing versus Web Marketing
In many respects, web marketing is not really different from what could be described as traditional marketing.
In 2022 we are seeing that as Web Marketing has grown and very few businesses do not have at least one Social Media page, we are also seeing the trend begin that is dropping the word Digital or Web from Marketing.
Studies have shown that over 90% of people researching a product or service begin that journey online.
As they are both simply facets of what would normally be called, simply – marketing.
The same rules apply to Marketing or Digital Marketing.
We recommend that web marketing is included in your overall marketing plan, rather than thinking of it as a separate discipline.
Benefits of Web Marketing over Traditional Marketing
One of the major benefits that web marketing offers over traditional marketing is the ability to measure, more accurately the success of your marketing budget.
In Traditional Marketing it is not always clear if there is a benefit (e.g. increase in sales from marketing spend.
There is an old saying in marketing that half the marketing spend is money wasted – and if only we could tell which half!
It is easier to identify which marketing campaigns are working and more importantly which are not using web marketing.
The four Ps in marketing still hold true whether marketing is described as traditional or digital.
The four Ps of Marketing are
- Product
- Price
- Place (distribution)
- Promotion.
Product
Products or services that exist to solve problems.
Price
What the consumer pays.
Place
Where and how the product is stored, manufactured or fulfilled from.
Promotion
The marketing strategy that essentially ties up the other three.
This shows the consumer why they need to buy your product or service over your competitors.
Using the Internet as a Marketing Channel
If you think of Marketing as pushing your product or service through your existing channels, then Web Marketing is simply using the Internet as another channel.
The goal of traditional marketing is to gain the interest of your target market to then generate leads or enquiries and then convert these into sales of your product or service.
The main goal of Web Marketing is to attract targeted visitors to your website, where you can then begin the process of converting them to paying customers.
A targeted visitor is one that you specifically target that you have researched as being likely to buy your product.
A benefit of web marketing is that you can be very specific in your target audience. (e.g. age, geography, sex, business type.)
It is essential that whatever web marketing campaign that you run that you have first researched your audience.
Depending on your style of website these visitors can be channelled to your product or service.
Examples
- Download Product Information
- View a Product Demo
- Contact for Sales Visit
- Buy your Product or Service
- Sign up to Club
- Make a Booking or Reservation
- Book a Trial
- Take out a membership
Effective Web Marketing puts your products and services in front of your target audience
Scoosh works with you to help you understand Web Marketing and how to develop a Web Marketing Strategy.
A successful Web Marketing Strategy will grow your market reach and ultimately grow your business.
We will help you understand how to maximise the potential of Web Marketing for your business.
- Understand how to use Website Statistics to understand your Website Audience and attract them.
- Increase Qualified Traffic to your website ? get more sales or generate more leads.
- Understand and get the benefits of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
- Utilise Social Media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram) to build your market and audience.
- Benefit from Blog Marketing and Content Marketing
Frequently Asked Questions about Web Marketing
What is Web Marketing or Internet Marketing?
Internet Marketing is another term used for Web Marketing.
Internet Marketing can also be known as Digital Marketing or Online Marketing.
It refers to advertising or marketing campaigns or strategies that use the web and email to drive traffic to a website to generate sales or leads.
What is an example of Web Marketing?
Web Marketing covers a wide area.
Some examples include Email Marketing, (e.g. MailChimp ) Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) or Search Engine Optimisation.
How much does Web Marketing Cost?
Asking how much it costs to market or advertise online is a difficult question.
The most common answer is – it depends or how long is a piece of string?
This is not very helpful.
Web Marketing can include Social Media Marketing, SEO, PPC, Content Marketing and Email Marketing.
You can run one Campaign or build campaigns into an overall Marketing Strategy.
Costs can range from £100.00 per month to £1,000.00 to £10,000.
A good starting point is to establish a budget and also what return you require from that budget.
This gives a good indication of which service to use that gives you the best return on your investment.
Contact us if you need some help in this area.
How can I improve my Website Marketing?
There is so much that can be done to improve Web Marketing.
There are many great ways to improve a marketing campaign or strategy
One of the great benefits of Web Marketing is that your success (or failure!) with any marketing campaign can be measured very quickly and accurately.
If money is being wasted, action can be taken quickly to either stop a campaign or divert your budget into more successful campaigns.
Here are six great tips to improving your web marketing
Investigate SEO
It can seem initially daunting but SEO is a very fruitful campaign to undertake.
Essentially SEO ensures that your website and content are optimised to perform well in search engines.
Performance is measured by what position your website achieves in the Search Engine Results Pages (also known as SERPs).
SEO is mainly common sense and follows Google’s guidelines to ensure your website is ranked well.
You can find out more about SEO here.
Listen to your customers on Social Media
Social Media has made it very easy to communicate with your customers and at a very low cost.
They are a valuable resource to help you understand how to make your product or service better.
A good example is to add Facebook Messenger to your website and make it easy for your clients to reach you.
Measure It
There is an old phrase If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it? and it still has resonance today.
Tools like Google Analytics make it very easy to find out if the money you spend on web marketing is getting results.
Setting up your website to track what your visitors are doing and measure the success or not of their behaviour will allow you to spend your budget wisely.
Make your website fast
Whatever marketing plans you implement the ultimate goal is to drive traffic to your website.
It is therefore essential that your website loads quickly.
Google takes into consideration (among many others) how fast a website loads in determining how well it will rank it in its search engine.
Make sure that your website is fast.
Slow-loading websites not only turn customers away, but Google will not rank them highly either.
The key here is to not waste marketing budget on a website that people won’t use.
Make sure your website is mobile friendly
Google prioritise mobile-friendly websites.
It’s as simple as that.
If your website does not work on mobile devices, tablets, iPads and all the other devices we use today – it won’t deliver results from your marketing efforts and budget.
You can test if your website is mobile-friendly here.
Create a Web Marketing Plan
Create a simple 12 month marketing plan.
This does not need to be complicated, a list of what online campaigns you intend to run, their time frames and budget.
You are more likely to implement and then measure the success of your campaigns by following a marketing plan,
Is Offline Marketing still relevant?
Yes.
Online Marketing is a great tool to build a business, but don’t neglect the basics of offline marketing or traditional marketing – the 4 Ps still apply.
Corporate Literature and Brochures
On business cards, letterhead, envelopes, faxes (you would be surprised!), invoices, marketing material and every other piece of paper you produce – display your website address, as well as any relevant email addresses.
Promotional Items/Freebies
People love to receive gifts.
Promotional material offers an inexpensive way to promote your company’s website while reinforcing your brand through various items such as pens or mugs.
An added benefit is that you are in front of your customers each time they use one of your promotional products.
Choose a branded product that people will keep or use.
Company Uniforms and Clothing
Whether it’s a free T-Shirt or the company uniform, promote your company’s web address on what is free ad space.
Advertising
Advertising can be as simple as a yellow pages ad in your local phone book (it still exists) or as extensive as radio and television.
Each of these avenues provides an excellent opportunity to broadcast your website to your target market.
We still see clients with adverts on air or in print that don’t mention the website.
Signage
If you provide a service with on-site signage opportunities, such as an architect or builder, make sure to place your website address in large letters on your signage.
This is an excellent way to have potential customers see the type of work that you do, become interested, and then visit your website to learn more.
Word of Mouth
Probably one of the most underestimated types of promotion for your business is through word of mouth.
Make sure to talk about your business and website with friends, family and customers as much as possible.
Existing customers, referrals and testimonials are a great way to develop your business.
Articles
Authoring articles provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your expertise in your field to potential customers while giving you a free plug for your business.
Include your website address in the ‘About the author’ text found at the end of the article.
Press Releases
Does your business send out press releases?
If so, your website address should be included in the About Your Company paragraph that accompanies each article for potential customers as well as a resource for the media.
Your Products and Services
Include your web address on your product and services literature.
Run a class or seminar
Start a class on the topic of your website.
This can get you wide exposure with your community and even if they are not directly interested in your website they will talk to others about your class and website. This gives you a lot of free exposure.
Successfully promoting your business website should include a mix of online and offline promotions to ensure you are reaching the full potential of your target market.
How do I write a successful web page
It depends on what you mean by successful, but one way of looking at this is simply that a web page is built to be read.
If you spend too much time on writing for SEO and not for your audience, the content will not perform well.
Another way to look at this is to give your page a purpose.
Remember, Google’s famous mission statement is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful?
Google is looking to index content that it deems useful and what people are looking for – when writing your content ensure that it serves a need for your audience or provides valuable information.
Google will rank that content more highly.
Some considerations for your web page
Content is still king
Carefully consider that each page on your website is an opportunity to capture or lose your audience.
Too much text is difficult to read on a screen, visitors to a website tend to scan the screen and then decide to read.
Use Clear Headings and Titles
Visitors decide whether to invest time reading your content after scanning the page.
Keep headings concise, clear and pertinent. Understand the power of header tags.
End at the Beginning
Visitors to your website are impatient.
Clearly indicate what the page is about in the first few lines.
Create a Strong Introduction
Create a strong introduction which summarises what the page is about.
This will determine if the visitor will read on.
Track all your website pages and their performance
It is very easy to set up your Google Analytics account to track all your pages and the number of website visitors to each.
This will allow you to see which pages are working and which are not.
You can then revisit the content and ask why visitors are not using it.
Is My Website Legal?
An often overlooked aspect of website content and your website overall – is it legal?
What are the legal requirements for a website?
Your website as a minimum must have the following:-
- If you are a company you must show the registered office.
- You must show the company’s registration number and the place of registration.
- If you are a member of a professional body or trade organization you must provide details.
- Any prices on your website must state clearly if they are inclusive of VAT and delivery costs.
- Your business name, geographic address (PO Box is not sufficient) and email address.
- Your name must be the name of the business that your potential customers will contract with. You might have a trading name, you must explain this clearly.
- You must show your VAT number even if your website is not ecommerce enabled.
- Privacy Policy and GDPR
These points are important considerations when reviewing your website. Many visitors will click away from your website if they feel that something is just not right.
With cyber-attacks, phishing scams, web hacking on the increase visitors need reassurance that it is safe.
This is especially true if you are selling products or services on your website.
A great way to measure this is to review the bounce rate on your website overall and the individual web pages.
What is bounce rate?
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who enter your website and then leave (“bounce”) rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site.
A high bounce rate is an indicator that the website is not doing a good job of attracting and maintaining the interest of visitors,
The above is not a complete statement of the law and if you have concerns in this area we recommend you speak to a suitably qualified lawyer.
How do I build a successful website blog
A good company blog can help you build and maintain a closer and more fruitful relationship with your customers.
A blog will allow you to be looser even irreverent sometimes with your customers which allows you to show a human face, rather than a corporate, cold one.
But be careful if using humour it can sometimes backfire.
Is Blogging worth the effort?
Make no mistake, keeping a blog up to date takes time and effort.
It is relatively cheap to set up a blog on your company website, but it will still take time to create your content and this is where the cost of a blog is measured.
It will take time to build an audience, but it is, in the Scoosh view, worth it.
If your business is large then look at the possibility of multiple blogs, for key departments or key personnel within your organisation.
The key is to know your audience and create content that engages them.
Add a human face
Add a face to the blog.
Blogging is an excellent way to show your company has a human face and is a great way for visitors to get an easier introduction to your business – as opposed to a hard sell.
Keeping Track
Finally, as you should with everything in your business, measure your results.
Most blogging application software can be set up for analytics (e.g. Google Analytics) that will allow you to see all manner of statistics, from visitor numbers, sources of incoming links, links within the blog that were clicked on, and the percentage of new readers of the blog.
By keeping track of your statistics, you will gain insight into how your visitors perceive your online presence and therefore your business.
You may well be surprised by what nuggets of useful information you will find.
What are the common web marketing mistakes?
Setting up in business, buying a new business or reviewing an existing business, will require marketing skills and knowledge.
Many websites are created to launch new businesses, here we discuss the most common marketing mistakes that we see.
Not doing your market research
While it may pay off – why risk a new business venture on gut feeling?
Test your product or service, before launching it.
Create an MVP (Minimum Viable Proposition) first.
Check the prices for similar products in your target market.
This is easy to do via Google Search and other online tools.
Can you make a profit at these prices?
Can you differentiate your business from the competition?
Who are the competition? (We can provide reports on your competitors to arm you with insight into how you will target their customers.
Why are you better?
Not planning
Fail to plan. Plan to fail. Cliche? but true.
A marketing plan outlines your business strategies to reach your target customer base and sell your products and services.
A marketing plan will give you clear guidelines and a structure of what you have to do to hit your business goals.
Not setting goals
There is so much to do and time can just disappear – we all experience this.
If you don’t set a goal then you will never hit it.
Start with a clear objective and break it down into monthly, then weekly, then daily tasks.
The goal(s) may be the number of enquiries, number of prospects or the number of referrals that your business needs to generate to ultimately drive sales.
Competitors know it all ? don?t they?
Don’t fall into the trap of being another me to company.
Many business owners that we speak to make the assumption that their competition does things so much better and so they just copy them.
Differentiate your company and its products and services.
Sometimes it’s better to lead than to follow – take a chance.
Know your customers
Unless you are Amazon, Tesco or BT, forget trying to sell to everyone.
Only a specific percentage of the population will actually buy your products or services.
You need to know as much as you can about them and learn how to make your product appealing to them.
Web marketing tools allow you to perform very specific analysis on your target audience.
Don’t confuse Marketing and Sales. Do both.
Many new companies begin their marketing efforts to kick start sales, then stop marketing when the sales begin to come in – then sales drop off.
Be consistent with your marketing strategy and never stop.
Always follow the lead
Have a system in place for following up leads.
CRMs are more affordable, available and easier to use than ever.
Contact us for information on choosing a CRM.
Never give up on a lead as it may bring in future sales and ensure that (with permission) you are building your email marketing database.
Keep in continual contact with leads and don’t let it go cold.
A CRM can easily be integrated into your website so that any leads or enquiries from your website can go straight to the right person to follow up.
This can also be measured as win/loss ratio.
Don’t forget about me
It is easy to get caught up in the thrill of the chase, the new contract, the new customer, the new opportunity, but don’t forget about your existing customers.
Existing customers have already shown that they like your product or service and are much easier and cheaper to sell new products to.
If you have any questions about this article, your business and web marketing don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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