Anatomy of a good internet marketing campaign

I was having a think earlier about what steps make up the core basics of a good online or internet marketing strategy and I think I managed to boil it down to the following 6 steps:

1. Audience research
2. Keyword research and selection
3. Content creation and sculpting
4. Content placement
5. Content promotion
6. Tracking and response

And in true marketing stylee here it is in a diagram (you know you love ‘em!)

Anatomy of a basic internet marketing campaign

Yes this is highly simplified but that is what I was after – boiling it down to core stages. For those of us who like a little more detail here are a few examples of what activities would be typical under each stage:

Target Audience Research

Most companies already think they know who their target markets are and where they operate but my experience has told me that this knowledge is based more on assumptions made throughout general business operations rather than hard research and facts. It is highly worth re-researching your target market/s before any major campaign is even drafted – especially when the campaign involves online distribution channels. So here a few things to consider:

1. Who
   Who are the people who most frequently purchase your products and services – demographics to consider: age, gender, race, education, socio-economics, language, geographic location, disability. All these things can play a part in how your message is found and, more importantly, how it is received.
2. Where
   Not just where are they based but where they interact and where they look for answers to their questions – e.g. I am British, I live in the UK, I use Google to search – but I use Google.co.uk (not .com) and often filter the results for the UK – if you are selling internationally you need to be aware of this at the very least. Other considerations are social networks, blogs, forums etc – where do your potential customers “hang out” online?
3. When
   What time of day are they most active – for example if you are targeting tradesmen it could be noted that they are usually out on site during normal office hours and thus will not be searching online during these hours – so save your PPC pennies and schedule your adverts to display during non office hours. Content scheduling is not just limited to display and PPC advertising – with Google’s realtime search, twitter listings and blog search prioritisation it is much more powerful to publish/promote your content at the right times in order to make the best use of realtime search.
4. Why
   Probably the most important factor – why are they searching? Answer that question quickly and visibly and you’re onto a winner!
5. What
   What are they searching for – as with “why” it is very important that this is addressed quickly with high visibility. Use search based keyword tools to find out what actual search terms are being used and then look a few up – see if you notice any listings which provide the answer in the Search Engine Results Page – even before you click through – are you one of these? It is key to know what your market is looking for and lead them effectively down the right path.

So with understanding of your audience it should be quite easy to generate your keyword glossary.

Keyword Glossary and keyword Effectiveness Index

Say what? OK – in English. You need to find a list of keywords and keyphrases which people actually use to find related products and services – but that are not so saturated with competition that you will find it impossible to rank for. This is a careful balance of researching popular kewords and checking how difficult it will be to rank for any of them. There are many tools to help with this but my two favourites are SEOMoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool (for Pro members only) and WordTracker’s Advanced keyword metrics which include their keyword effectiveness index – again it is a paid service, sorry. For a non paid service you can use Google AdWords External Keyword Tool – but this is focused more on PPC advert keywords than organic.

I normally suggest starting with a glossary of 5 primary terms for your main site, 5 secondary terms and 5 geographic plus 5 primary, secondary and geographic for each product/service offered. Once you start to dominate for these 5 then you have a solid grounding to expand your glossary with more keywords. Remember to appear to the search engines that you Specialise – not Generalise – too many keywords can dilute your site’s ranking for your key terms. Try and stick to one, maximum two, keywords/phrases per page.

Content creation and sculpting – The Message

This one is for the writers out there. You now know your audience and what terms you are targeting – now to make your content sing. Create valuable, engaging, intruiging and insightful content, make it look good and read well (or watch) – but don’t ever forget – The Message. What is the take out? If someone reads your article/page/blog or watches your video, what do you want them to see or hear? What do you want them to remember? What do you want them to do? Paying attention to this is the difference between someone liking your stuff and moving on and someone linking your stuff and buying it – or sharing it – which you are more than welcome to do with this content!! – you can use the ReTweet button at the top if you like!

Content Placement

Where should you put your content? This is a difficult one to answer as it really depends on the type of content – if it is in advertising style then maybe it should be made into an banner and distributed across your favourite display advertising network or even AdSense. If it is editorial then look at online PR syndication or newswire services. If it is a video then look at TubeMogul to syndicate it across the top video sharing sites in one hit. If it is bloggable then blog it, Tweet it, Digg it etc. Put it in a place which suits it’s message style the best and where it fits most naturally – this will make it easier to promote.

Promotion

And now the fun really starts! You have your content, written and sculpted to the best of your ability targeting your audience and selected keywords – now, how to drive traffic to it. There are so many channels you can go down but here are just a few to get your ideas flowing:

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
   By this I mean – onpage/onsite and content SEO – not link building or online marketing (that comes below) – get your pages and your site working well. For help tell your developer to look at Yahoo’s list of site performance tweaks to make your code more efficient. You could even use my script to reduce HTTP requests
2. Pay Per Click Advertising – PPC
   Also known as sponsored links – Google Adwords, Yahoo Advertising or Microsoft AdCenter are the main ones – these are great to use as short term research tools as well. Make sure you target your keywords effectively – quote the major search terms in your ad title and include a feature or benefit – give them a reason to click through. Once clicked through make sure you serve up a page which echoes the message of the Ad which prompted the click-through – don’t just drive them to your homepage and hope they can work it out from there.
3. Social Networks (aka social media)
   Networks where people interact and connect onlie – the most obvious being Facebook, MySpace and Twitter but also sites like YouTube, Friends Reunited and Flickr which also have the ability to grow your own network. One big tip for all of these is that you have to enter into the spirit of the site and your followers/friends – they may be free in financial terms but there are so many factors you have to take on board to make them successful that you will find there is a time cost attached to each. And if you get it wrong then it can do more damage than not being there at all. Give each network the time and attention it deserves.
4. Social Bookmarks
   These are that likes of Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon, Shinn, Technorati etc – build your profile wisely with these tools and provide a valuable list of favourites/links and your friends will begin to mount.
5. Online PR
   Utilising free and paid-for newswire services plus sites like Propeller to get your editorial content out there. Make contact with a good PR firm who have a solid list of active online journalist contacts in your industry – they are worth their weight in gold.
6. Link Building
   Go on the scrounge – find industry related sites and contact them to ask for a backlink. Find sites who are already linking to you and ask them to change the anchor text to your preferred keywords. Find sites linking to your competitors and see if they will link to you as well (or even instead!). Golden rule – if you don’t ask you don’t get.
7. Link Baiting
   Oooh I like this one – make your content so good that people just have to link to it. Although remember they need to find it before they can link to it – that’s why it is last on the list even though it can be the most effective solution.

Tracking and Response

Take into consideration click through rates, visitor stats, signups, search engine rankings, friends and followers – these are great gauges of how a campaign is doing – but NEVER forget the end goal – sales (or whatever affects your bottom line). Even pure awareness campaigns need to drive sales or uptake of some sort. If your campaign brings in 1 million visitors a day and gets you top of all the search engines for all your primary keywords then yes your campaign has worked on one level but if you make no money from it then it has only been a glorified ego stroking exercise. Make sure you keep a close eye on your income from the campaign – pay close attention to the return on your marketing investment – and be honest with yourself – pretty graphs and justification documents are not the same as cash in the bank or a villa in the Caribbean and never will be. Track, analyse, and adjust and improve.

So that’s it for now. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions or steps you think I have missed – comment below or Tweet me: @mjdigital