In last month’s newsletter, I took a high-level approach to Emarketing, what we at Aware refer to as marketing a business via the Web, and identified the top-5 challenges it faces for traditional business, marketing and strategy practices in place today.  As a review, the top-5 Emarketing challenges I highlighted were:

1. Market Differentiation
2. Customer Perception
3. ROI
4. Customer Relationship
5. Advertising Placement

In this month’s newsletter, I’ll suggest several analyses and tools to help you address each challenge.  Remember that the best focus for your online marketing initiatives is still your customer.  The solutions recommended below will help you draw your customers closer to your business and better establish their loyalty. 

Emarketing - Solutions to the Challenges

One of Aware’s core competencies is Emarketing. Our Emarketing Business offers three fundamental solution-oriented services that address each of the above challenges. These solution services are:

1. Online Strategic Analysis
2. Email Marketing
3. Search Engine Marketing

Solution:  Online Strategic Analysis
Addresses Challenges #1-3:  Market Differentiation, Customer Perception and ROI
Solution Overview:  Every technological initiative should be easily tied back to a clear business goal and measured with overall value in mind.

Aware offers several alternative yet effective valuation methods within an Online Strategic Analysis service that address the justification and decision making processes ROI measurements have traditionally been known to serve.  Whenever financial data is available to lend to the decision making process, a traditional ROI analysis will also be performed. 

Aware uses the following three step process to evaluate your present online initiatives, identify future initiatives and make informed decisions based on tangible factors that will help you grow your online business.

More tips:

• Make sure to read January's article "Do you know the difference between a GOOD and a GREAT Web site?" for more background on customer types.

Solution:  Email Marketing
Addresses Challenge #4:  Customer Relationship
Solution Overview:  Software or tools alone do not inherently provide the knowledge or expertise required to create a successful campaign.

Email Marketing tools on their own do not provide the knowledge or expertise required to create a successful campaign that will get your customers’ attention.  Email Marketing requires you to stay up-to-date with the United States Federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and industry best practices.  Ignoring either can limit your campaign effectiveness, hurt your brand and possibly bring legal and financial consequences.
 
Even with all the hype about email marketing, there’s something to be said for traditional print media campaigns.  Businesses engaged in print campaigns are forced to think about the audience, message, and graphical look and feel of the print piece simply because it’s a big investment of time and money.  The easy acquisition of email tools and email lists have sparked a mentality of quick and dirty email campaigns in hopes of immediate results.  Has email marketing been overdone to the point of diluting overall user interest?  Our advice?  Borrow what’s always worked well in print media campaigns and blend that with what have become best practices in the email-marketing world.

Solution:  Search Engine Marketing
Addresses Challenge #5:  Advertising Placement
Solution Overview:   A successful search engine strategy takes expertise, industry awareness, time and ongoing effort.

As with any technology, search engines are only as good as the information being fed into them.  That’s where Search Engine Marketing steps in. 

Successful Search Engine Marketing is all about achieving as high an advertising placement, or ranking, in search result listings as possible.  Yet, the Internet affords little control or guarantee over such placement.  Search Engine Marketing processes focus on optimizing the structure and content of a Web site to improve the site’s changes that it will 1) be found by search engines and 2) that the content will deliver relevant links to the end user amidst an overwhelming amount of information. 

The world of search engines is a fluid, ever changing business.  The days of quick fix approaches and automated submissions to thousands of search engines promising immediate results have proven ineffective.   Search Engine Marketing requires in-depth discovery, frequent monitoring and a watchful eye and pulse on the industry as a whole.  Search engines have merged, become defunct or gained more or less importance over time.  Modifying your tactics based on these changes can prove to be a daunting.  A well thought out search engine strategy takes time and effort to implement. 

In closing, the three Emarketing solutions presented above not only target the stated challenges, they also offer high integration opportunities with one another.  Each solution functions well as a stand-alone approach.  Yet, when combined the solutions can leverage amazing results.  A strategy can be defined and measured against the competition and then followed up with targeted marketing communications and placement techniques to execute on the strategy.  It’s a powerful combination!  Consider the full life cycle of customer attainment and conversion and you’ll be started down the right path.  We’ll visit the customer life-cycle topic more in a future newsletter. 

Interested in learning how these solutions can be applied to your own needs?  Contact us today.

If you have any comments or questions about any Aware InSites, feel free to contact us at info@awarewebsolutions.com or call 800-783-8919.