Thursday, August 4, 2011

From Web Design to PPC: Online Marketing Tools Every Business Needs





Marketing strategies will play a huge part in every company’s success. That’s why it’s recommended that businesses large and small create a marketing plan. But what tools are the most successful? Which strategies get you noticed? For every product, service and organization, it varies. Tools and strategies should be chosen based on the goal of the plan; but there are 5 online marketing tools that are guaranteed help make every company’s plan pop and ultimately help reach those end marketing goals. A good web design, newsletters and more will reach your target audience and get your message across.

1.       Website: A necessary marketing tool in the new millennium, websites are crucial to the success of most businesses now. As a good portion of shoppers make their decisions based on online research, if your web site doesn’t have the information to help those visitors make their decisions, your company might not get a second glance. Having a URL isn’t enough – a good web design is the best route to take. Clean, streamlined information-packed sites will give you a leg up on the competition. Make sure your site is easily navigable and has a call to action; whatever your goal is for visitors should be easy to see.

2.       Social Media: This encompasses Facebook, Twitter, YELP, LinkedIN, Hunch and more. Companies should create their free accounts and use these tools to manage their online images, as well as promoting products, spreading company news and gathering informal market research. Day by day these companies grow and become more important to online visibility… 400 million Facebook users are registered – a global audience for companies and products galore.

3.       Blog: These tools can be touch and go but offer genuine sounding boards for company news and ideas – not only for business owners, but also for employees, customers, industry affiliates, potential customers and more. A company blog offers value for website visitors and can be incorporated by website designers quite easily to most sites. There are also free blog sites that offer the chance for smaller companies to promote company’s mission and valuable information month after month, providing followers with industry information in a more casual way.

4.       Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads: These ads generally work better than tradition print ads for three reasons:

·         Companies pay only when the ads are clicked on.
·         The ads link directly to the company’s website.
·         The ads are extremely targeted.
Using platforms such as Google and Facebook, you can direct your ads at people in the demographic that you choose and ensure that they see it every time they do a web search. The demographical information is based on the shopper’s surfing trends that these companies collect. Having fine-tuned these algorithmic tools, you can bet on a good return rate.

5.       Email Newsletter: Newsletters are still great tools for information dissemination. Although the paper versions are out of fashion, the email version is right on track with most companies’ marketing goals. A monthly newsletter will keep your patrons, website visitors and potential prospects informed, engaged and entertained. A good web design will include email newsletters directly on the company site as well as downloadable versions for site visitors.  Be sure to have an easy-to-use (and see) sign-up form as well.
Making use of these 5 online marketing tools is a company’s best bet for success. Using them in tandem and to the best of your abilities will enable you to provide not only value to your visitors, clients and audience, but also for your company as well.

Lilly Gordon is a freelance writer and web publisher. She is well-versed in online marketing and is currently researching Edmonton website design and Edmonton web designers.

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