Web Design & Development
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Some common search engines
DEVELOPING A MARKETING PLAN
One of the first things to address in developing a marketing plan is to determine what you want to sell. Next you should evaluate who your target customers are. For example, if I wanted to sell pogo sticks my target market would probably be children between the ages of 8 and 14 in either warm weather regions or during spring and summer months.
Next you will want to consider the message you want to portray. In the case of pogo sticks I may want to emphasize they are fun, low-cost, sturdy, moderately safe, active (promoting fitness in children), challenging, and can be used as an individual or in groups. Of all of these points you should choose a few "key" or main points. My main point may be that my pogo sticks are more sturdy than others and have a cushioned handle.
After that, you need to consider the current competition and macro-environmental factors that make up the current environment in which you are attempting to market. If there are 100 other pogo stick marketers I am going to have a tougher time, particularly if others are emphasizing some of the key points I aim to use for my product. I need a way to make myself distinct, or a way to cause the perception of my product to be of greater value than the others. Equally, in looking at my environment, if there is a strong emphasis on child safety at the moment in the area I wish to market I may need to bring up safety concerns, even if it was not a key point for my original marketing campaign.
Now I need to consider the budget within which I am operating. How much do I have to spend? What are my expected outcomes to make my expenses worthwhile? The greater the amount of money spent, the greater the expected outcomes.
Also, what is the duration of my marketing campaign? How much money will be available at each point in my campaign? I need to ensure I can cover all costs throughout my chosen campaign.
Ok, now I get to consider the platforms and alternatives for how I will market the product. Some alternatives are print, radio, TV, Internet, face-to-face, and word of mouth. For the purposes of this discussion we will focus on the Internet.
Optional - Learn more at:
SEARCH ENGINES
Wired 200 Submit Corner notes, "Search engines are by far the starting point for Internet users each and every day from home and the office. With nearly 90% of Internet traffic originating from the major search engines and directories daily, getting your website listed with the major portals is essential. The larger search engines index over 120 million documents, so competing for the top spots is extremely difficult and competitive. " (Wired 2000, n.d.)
A key to marketing your site on the Web is going to be in registering your site with search engines so users can find you. There are seemingly limitless search engines on the Web, so pick which ones are most important to you and do what you can to ensure your site ranks high on their list.
One thing you will want to look into is how the site ranks. Often ranking is based on one or all of the following:
View a summary of differences in search engines:
You can also pay at a number of sites to be considered a "sponsored" site such as at Overture (previously known as goto.com), FindWhat, or Google.
Important note: Search engines that use cannot link to dynamically driven pages as there is not a "real" page to link to. Thus, if you are making an entirely database driven site you will want to wrap it in standard html pages that "call" the database information instead of going fully database driven and then focus on linking these standard pages in search engines. You can link any page with a set URL such as example.php though.
Note: It may take up to eight weeks for your site to be listed after you register with them.
LINKS FROM OTHER SITES
If you can you will want to have other sites link to yours. Why? Well because that alone will draw more users to your site, but also because search engines use link popularity (number of sites linking to yours) as one of their means of measurement.
OTHER WEB-BASED MARKETING TOOLS
Online advertising is on the up-swing when it comes to marketing, as the Wall Street Journal notes in their article Online-Ad Sales Show Signs of Return to Growth, "Online-ad revenue, which includes banner ads, paid search listings, pop-up ads and other formats, totaled an estimated $1.58 billion for the fourth quarter of 2002, up 8.9% from $1.45 billion in the third quarter, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (www.iab.net) — the first quarter-to-quarter uptick since the fourth quarter of 2000. That represents a small revision upward from preliminary numbers the IAB released in April showing fourth-quarter revenue of $1.5 billion. Total spending for 2002 was $6.01 billion."
BANNER ADVERTISEMENTS
Currently, the most popular type of online advertising is banner ads. Displaying eye-catching designs and enticing logos, banner ads usually run on the top and bottom of web pages to generate traffic and create brand awareness.
Banner ads are advertisements that are displayed on Web sites, usually rectangular in shape (the standard measurement is 460 x 80 pixels, but they can be both smaller and larger), and placed on the side, top, or bottom of a Web page.
advertise on sites your customers frequent
As Buyer Zone notes (), "You'll usually pay on a CPM basis (cost per thousand impressions). This can range from anywhere between $10 and $50, depending on the reputation and traffic of the site. For this price, expect to reach the industry average click-through rate: 1 percent." (BuyerZone, n.d.)
Buyer Zone also notes:
"you'll need to choose the type of campaign to run. For instance, with a Run of Network (RON) campaign, your banners appear randomly throughout an entire site. (For a full list of banner ad terms, click here) But if you are more interested in targeting only those users who have typed in a particular key word, you can use a key word campaign. While key word campaigns can offer click through rates as high as 3 to 5 percent, RON rates tends to hover much lower, between 0.1 to 1 percent.
.. banner ads are priced per CPM, or cost per thousand impressions. CPMs can range from $5-$20 CPMs for RON campaigns, to $30 -$85 CPMs for highly targeted or popular areas.Even better, some sites allow you to pay by cost per click, or by the number of click-throughs to your site.
To gauge how effective your ads have been, calculate the cost on a clickthrough basis. For instance, let's say you're buying 100,000 banner impressions for a total of $1,000 at a $10 CPM. If 1 percent of web users click on the ad, you'll pay $1 per click-through. If only 0.5% click through, you'll end up paying twice that for each click-through. Armed with that info, you can decide whether it was a banner ad or a bust." (Yee, M. Y., 1999)
MAILING LISTS AND EMAIL
Email is one of the oldest ways of transmitting marketing information to end users. In some cases it may be "on request" (solicited) and in other cases it may be "spam" (un-solicited). The best method is to have the end user request that you send them more information or become a part of your "newsletter". Another method however is to purchase lists from an outside vendor. If you go the latter route make sure the list you are obtaining is a list that would potentially be interested in your product.
Important note: For legal purposes if you submit emailed marketing, particularly on unsolicited lists you obtained from elsewhere, you need to include an "opt out" - or a way for users to get off the list - to be legal.
As noted in the Internet Advertising Report in June 2003 called "Senate Panel Overwhelmingly Passes Anti-Spam Bill":
"The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Thursday that could cost spammers who use false headers or misleading subject lines up to a year in jail and a maximum fine of $1 million. The sponsors of the bill, Conrad Burns (R.-Mont.) and Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.) promised that the penalties would get even tougher before the full Senate votes on the legislation.
The Can Spam Act (S. 877) requires that commercial e-mailers use clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation and that the e-mail contains an opt-out provision. Under the bill, unsolicited commercial e-mail must contain the valid physical address of the sender. " (Mark, R., June 2003)
REFERENCES
Buyer Zone (n.d.). Banner Ads. Buyers Guide. Internet Marketing. Retrieved on June 20th, 2003 from http://www.buyerzone.com/internet/web_marketing/buyers_guide2.html
Mark, R. (2003, June 19). Senate Panel Overwhelmingly Passes Anti-Spam Bill. Internet Advertising Report. Retrieved on June 21st, 2003 from http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/2224681
Yee, Mie-Yun. (1999, October 11). Use Banner Ads Effectively. Savvy Shopper. Retrieved on June 20th, 2003 from http://www.buyerzone.com/features/savvy_shopper/savvybannerad.html
Wired 2000 Corporation (n.d.). Search Engine Guide. Submit Corner. Retrieved on June 21st, 2003 from http://www.submitcorner.com/Guide/SE/