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By: Lee Traupel
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 add 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.
About the Author
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.
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