Online Marketing Planning for 2008

We have always used our chart of online tactics according to their return on marketing investment in planning Internet marketing programs. As 2008 approaches we see no reason to change our ways. The Web environment has changed, however, to make some of the tactics easier to implement and others more competitive. What new opportunities should marketers view in 2008?

Take it from the Top

If you recall the Marketing Tactics ROI Chart  the tactic at the top is called Customer Referral. A customer referral is many times more likely to convert into a customer than any other kind of website visitor. And a website visitor can be swayed by seeing what other customers have had to say posted on the site. So, for 2008, think "How can we get and use those customer referrals?"

Ask for the review/referral
Don't have referrals or testimonials? Ask for them. If you are receiving notes or phone calls of praise, ask if you can quote them. If you customers have websites or write blogs that would be appropriate to link to your site, request the link. If you publish a newsletter, ask the recipients to forward it to friends and colleagues. Ask website visitors to add your site to their shared book-marks.

Get those stars and smileys
If yours is an ecommerce site, services such as Shopzilla and Yahoo Shopping have rating ser-vices as part of them. Participate in those venues and work hard to get the gold stars and green glowing smiley faces. The ratings are another way for your customers to influence the prospective shopper in your favor. Savvy authors always get a friend or seven to write a glowing book review on their behalf on Amazon, for example. Your customers can even give your store stars and re-views on Google Maps.

Find out if you can use the shopping service logo with a phrase like "five star Yahoo Store" or similar designations on your website and link to their review pages.

Use the testimonials to help close the sale
Rather than a separate "testimonial" page on your website, put the quotes beside the product or service being praised to help close the deal or get the inquiry. Help people through the online purchase with a quote about how prompt the shipment was on the page where you collect the ship to information, or a quote about how quickly a replacement return was handled when the payment information is being requested.

Got a Widget?
Viral marketing is hard to accomplish, partly because it's hard to tell what will catch on. The current fad is widgets—handy little tools on a website that people will use and refer to other people. Our widget is the little calculator to help website owners to figure out their conversion rate and calculate what their average cost per click should be to meet ROI goals. ROI Calculator.

Review Your Site's Optimization

It's a good idea each year to update your copyright information and check the content and SEO status of your Web pages. Are the pages still telling the company story or has some area of emphasis changed?

If you are not checking your search engine position on a regular basis, monthly or quarterly, then it is a good idea to run a check to make sure it is holding position in search engine results. Up-date page titles and descriptions so that your page summaries in search results compete well with the other results on the page and are consistent with your brand promise.

Review Your Inbound Links and PR Strategy

If it has been a year or more since you did a campaign for inbound links, chances are very good that there are many new referring sites that your site should be listed with. Take advantage of peer to peer networking sites that are appropriate for your business and set up your profile page.

Take advantage of product announcement sites, classified ad sites, article distribution sites and even YouTube to publicize products and services.

Review Your Advertising Options

Maybe this is the year to step up paid advertising and add new advertising options. If you are maxed out on search engine paid and natural search options and have your products listed with Yahoo and Google Shopping as well as other major shopping sites maybe it's time to step up the advertising tactics.

Google continues to add features and options to content advertising. They now have a cost per action (CPA) program in addition to the pay per click (PPC) content ad programs. They have targeted placement, where you get to pick the specific sites where your ads will run and they sup-port graphic and flash ads in addition to the traditional text ads. With the conversion tracking that Google offers and the ability to turn on and off the campaigns quickly without placement commitments, it is a good place to try out graphic ads.

Get Creative

The Internet is not done evolving. Bandwidth keeps growing and new devices keep appearing. Perhaps 2008 will be the year that the mobile Web comes of age. If your products or services are appropriate for mobile users, better get on board with a small screen version of your website and a plan for serving the mobile user.

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Have a Prosperous and Great 2008!