Create a Marketing Timeline

Have a plan.  Start by laying out a detailed strategy for at least the first two quarters of the year.  This way you can begin to budget and allocate internal resources needed to make the strategy successful.

Keep What Has Been Working

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.  Keep doing what has been working in the past.  You may be able to make a few minor adjustments to make those marketing tactics even better.

Test a Different Marketing Approach

If every year you decide to do the exact same marketing, you will never really know if other types of marketing are more successful.  Marketing tactics have changed drastically compared to 30 years ago…even 5 years ago.  Don’t be afraid to try different things.  Even if your marketing budget is small, do the research, understand where your target market is communicating, and find a new way to reach out to them.

Here are a few things you can try:

• Sponsor an industry newsletter
• Write a guest blog post for a well respected, high traffic blog
• Host/Sponsor a local meet-up in your area
• Invite clients and potential clients to your office for a Free Seminar
• Create a great piece of content that you can give away on your site (white papers, free tools, etc.)
• Test different discounts, special offers, promotions

Monitor, Analyze, Adjust…Repeat

In any marketing campaign it is important to be able to measure its success.  In order to do that, you need to define what you consider a conversion.  Is it a download? A contact form submission? A phone call?  For traditional media it can be a bit harder, especially for radio, TV, and billboard advertising.  But for the Internet everything is trackable!

Make sure you have a good analytics program to track what people are doing on your site.  You may want to invest in a phone tracking solution, so you can track calls that originate from your website.

Once you have a significant amount of data, it is important to analyze it by seeing which campaigns were more successful.  If certain marketing programs are generating more business and a better ROI, start allocating more budget towards those campaigns.  For the campaigns that did not return a positive ROI, you could try tweaking things like messaging, offers, keywords, etc.  Sometimes a simple tweak can bring back a big return.

Marketing Trends for the Upcoming Year

Forrester Research reported that Internet Marketing spending will increase another 13% in 2010.  More and more companies are starting to shift their advertising dollars from traditional media methods to things like search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media, video creation, e-mail marketing and mobile marketing.

We are really starting to see a major shift in how companies are marketing their products and services.  With social communication tools like blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube; companies are able to track and monitor the progress of their Internet marketing campaigns unlike traditional marketing.  In this down economy, business owners are being smarter with their advertising dollars.  Make sure you do the same and invest is marketing programs that are well-researched, targeted and measurable.

So…have you planned your 2010 marketing strategy?

Colleges and Universities across the country are starting to offer Internet Marketing as a degree.  The question is: “Is it worth it to get a formal education in Internet Marketing?”

Rhea says:

This industry moves too quickly to study it in a formal classroom setting. You have to be in it everyday, testing, learning, sharing, succeeding.

I thought that was an excellent point.  By the time you finish your degree, the entire internet marketing landscape will change.  There will be new tactics to rank well, new tools to help analyze websites, and new mediums to reach your target market.  On the other hand, a formal classroom education would be useful to understanding the core fundamentals of internet marketing.  Things like keyword research, competitive analysis, content development, link building, site structure, etc., are always going to be aspects of internet marketing that will never change (at least for the foreseeable future).

With that being said, I feel that you do not necessarily need a degree to understand the fundamentals of internet marketing.   There are plenty of specialized classes and training seminars that will teach you the basics of Internet Marketing/SEO.  Once you understand those basics, that’s where experience will come into play.  The only way to apply these basic concepts is by jumping right in and working on websites.

From an employer or Search Marketing agency standpoint, I would love to get some feedback as to what you feel is more important – Classroom Training or Experience?

Here at Atlantic BT, we’ve always been an industry leader for web design, internet marketing, programming, SEO and web hosting.  We really want our new and improved blog to be a valuable resource for you to learn more about what we do, what’s going on inside the industry, hints and tips, and just about anything and everything else having to do with this niche.  This new blog has many tools to help us do that, first feel free to subscribe to our RSS feed, it will make it easier for you to stay completely on top of every new post we do.

Next, take a peek at the top of the site where it says “Site Tools.”  By clicking that, you will find the drop down menu that is absolutely jam-packed with ways to help you share anything you find interesting on this site.  You can share any post you wish with the world with a simple click of a button.  Having trouble reading the text or your eyes aren’t quite what they used to be?  No worries, even that can be adjusted.

Take a look at our new and improved Portfolio while you’re here, I think if you’re looking for the fastest and most impressive way to see what we do, and how we do it, that is a one click way to achieve that.  The bottom line is, this new site will make staying on top of everything in this industry even easier and more fun.  Be sure to check out…

• Blog Posts – Our thoughts. Looking for professional advice on improving your website? See what our experts have to say about the latest Internet trends in web development, design and Internet marketing. We welcome you to get involved and voice your opinion. Visit our blog and even subscribe to our RSS feed to stay up-to-date with the latest posts.
• Q&A – Get the answers. Have a question? We’ve got the answers. Visit our Q&A section and view the helpful tips and tricks about the industry that our specialists have to offer. Filter your Q&A’s by service—Web Design, Custom Programming, Web Hosting, Internet Marketing, Web Strategy and E-Commerce—or view all streamlined Q&A’s. Contribute your own questions and get prompt answers from one of the many experts of the Atlantic BT team.
• Social Media Connections – Follow us. Link with Atlantic BT. Learn more about who we are and what we do. Stay connected with us on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, FriendFeed and Sphinn.
• Newsletter – Get updated. The latest news is one click away. Subscribe to our Newsletter and receive updates on Atlantic BT, our clients, the industry.
• Web Portfolio – Browse our work. Check out our new and improved Web Portfolio. Get a first-hand look at our featured work and see what we’ve delivered to companies just like yours. Easily browse by featured site or service to see a snapshot of some of our acclaimed work, what we provide to our clients and how it works for them.
• Video Testimonials – See for yourself. Watch video interviews of what our clients have to say about us, our services and how it has helped their business.

Thanks for checking us out, enjoy your stay and we’d love any and all feedback from you!

Analytics

Start by installing Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free web statistics solution that allows you to track your website visitors and their actions. You can learn a lot about your market just by installing Google Analytics and studying the data.

How people find your site? Search Engine, Referring Site, Email, Direct.

Where people are from? Country, State, City.

What people are doing on your site? See which products/services are being viewed the most, see which page people are leaving your site from, see how long people are on your site.

What actions people complete on your site? Fill out a contact form, download a file, view a specific page, sign up for a newsletter.

Surveys

If you have been collection an in-house marketing list, send them a survey to find out how you are doing. This is an inexpensive way to collect feedback from your current customers and make adjusts based on their comments. Here are some things to ask in your survey.

What can we improve on?

What new features would you like to see on the website?

What products or services would you like for us to offer?

Which products would you like to see on sale?

Tiger Direct did a really good job of listening to its customers for the 2008 holiday season. They let their customers choose which products they wanted on sale. They took a survey and made the top 10 products, their holiday specials.

Forms

Creating a contact form is a simply way for website visitors to contact you and submit their information. This can also be an easy way to have people opt-in to your newsletter. Keeping the number of forms to a minimum will be a good way to increase the number of conversions.

Directory and Listing Submission

There are a number of free directories you can submit your website to, to help gain inbound links to your website. Start by submitting your local business listing to Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Also look into niche directories that cater to the same target audience.

What percentage of profit is allocated for online marketing?

A landscaping company charges their commercial clients $10,000 per season for a large account and is willing to dedicate 10% ($1,000) to acquire each new account. In this case $1,000 worth of online marketing is allocated to bring in $10,000 worth of new business.

What percentage of actions results in a sale?

Based on prior sales and conversion data gained from testing it is determined that 10% of contact forms or phone calls turn in to a commercial account valued at $10,000.

What percentage of visitors takes action (contact form, download, phone call, etc)?

Using web site statistical tracking like Google Analytics we can determine the ratio of visitors to contact form submissions. In this case 5% of all visitors to the site fill out a contact form requesting more information or a price quote. Based on the 5% contact form conversion ratio we determine the target cost per acquisition (CPA) is $50. How much should you pay for each visitor?

The target CPA for a contact form submission at $50 and it is determined that 5% of all visitors result in a contact form conversion. Based on this data we deduce that each new visitor to the website has a value of $2.50. This value really translates to the cost you can pay for each visitor and still remain profitable.

Knowing how much a visitor is worth to your business, conversion ratios, and potential profit from a sale allows you to determine if your marketing dollars are being spent effectively and how to allocate your marketing budget for the highest return.