WSI Blog - Internet Marketing Tips and Strategies

These days website traffic can be increased through numerous methods. Whether you're initiating a PPC campaign, sending targeted emails or adding valuable content to your site you need to keep one constant in place. Your goals!

The ultimate (macro) goal may be to sell a product or gain a customer. Other macro goals may be:
    •    Downloading a whitepaper
    •    Signing up for an e-newsletter
    •    Requesting a quote
    •    Submitting information in return for something of value
    •    Viewing a product, service page or consuming some form of content (article, video, blog, etc.)

These macro goals can take time to achieve. Equally important to success are smaller (micro) goals that help build to your ultimate goals. Micro goals are the steps it takes to complete the macro goal. These may include:
    •    Opening an email
    •    Clicking on a PPC ad
    •    Browsing your website and viewing multiple pages
    •    Putting products into a cart and providing billing information
    
Initiating an analytics package can easily help you track the actions of consumers during a visit to your website. Where did they spend the most time, what actions did they take and what was the bounce rate upon the initial arrival? Understanding the steps taken prior to completing a macro goal can help you better understand your consumer and how to direct them where you want them to end up.

Think you have squeezed every last dollar out of your Pay Per Click campaigns? Or think you have your Custom Landing Page down to a science? Maybe....maybe Not.  As the old saying goes, "You can't improve what you can't measure." This holds true even more so during tough economic times like we are facing today. The answer is effectively managing your Analytics.

Maketing managers and business owners are looking for ways to trim marketing budgets and increase ROI  (we should always be looking to do this, recession or not). If you can spend less and make more money, why wouldn't you want to do this?

Ask yourself:
1)  Does my print ad in the local newspaper really work? And how well does it work?
2)  What is my Yellow Page Ad costing me per lead? 
3)  Is my website unattractive to my visitors?
4)  Is my search engine optimization (SEO) work giving us the leads we are looking for?
5)  Are my email marketing campaigns even reaching my prospects INBOX or going straight to Junk Mail?
6)  I am spending all this money on a radio ad, but how can I measure its effectiveness?

If you are asking yourself these questions then its pretty clear that you probably aren't up to speed with Web Analytics. You can track and measure all of these marketing campaigns effectiveness. Without proper analysis and not being able to make informed decisions, business owners and marketing managers might stop campaigns that might be working or just need some tweaking. 

Check out our Analytics Webinar and Whitepaper on Web Analytics and How to Optimize Your Marketing Dollars During a Recession.

Optimize Your Marketing Dollars During the Recession (410 KB)

Watch the Webinar
 

At WSI, we have been saying this for years....SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click), and E-mail marketing are the most effective ways to increase company wide "conversions", and now Forbes Media has just completed a study that confirms this.

Forbes Media "Ad Effectiveness Survey" polled 112 marketers online back in February and March to learn more about their attitudes towards digital marketing. Not only were these forms of internet marketing considering most effective at increasing conversions, but also considered most effective in demand fulfillment rather then demand creation. That is the true beauty behind effective internet marketing, your message appears at the exact time the prospect wants it to appear, its not forced, the prospect has the control.

Internet marketing is not a "demand creation" marketing medium like TV or radio. TV, Radio, and even magazines can be effective in creating demand for your product, but we get bombarded everyday with thousands of marketing messages and most people are simply tuning out. A greater ROI can be derived from effective internet marketing campaigns because we are focusing only on those who want to learn more about our products and services, and not wasting our time/money on those who don't. In today's economy, a great website marketed effectively on the internet, can be the difference maker between those companies who survive and those who don't.