Using more than one marketing channel to promote a brand has been around since the first newspaper was published. Old school marketing included yellow pages, newspaper, radio, TV, magazines, POP, direct mail, cold-calling, sponsorships, and tradeshows. Amazing when you realize that these are still in use today. Some of these techniques don't work for every brand or company, but every successful brand uses more than 2 of these to reach their target audience along with a company website.
- 80% of today's customers research online before they buy. Building and maintaining a brand presences on line is not a choice but a necessity.
Build your online brand with a diverse set of tools. Choose the ones you can implement well and on a consistent basis. Don't throw away your traditional marketing initiatives. Add a diversity of online marketing tools to capture your audience when they are online. Consider which of these get you in front of your target the most: blogs and discussions, pay-per-click advertising, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Pinterest and more. Don't just jump into setting up a company Facebook page without considering whether the time will produce a ROI. Use the best mix of marketing tools that will to drive people to your website, store and to call.
There are hundreds of chats and discussions about the latest social media site that created an overnight success. The reality is that it takes a lot of time to achieve overnight success. Case in point: the South Korean musician who hit it big with his song "Gangman Style" had already released 6 albums before that song made him a worldwide sensation. Every overnight success story was made possible by years of hard work and effort.
Your online brand presence won't happen overnight. An integrated marketing strateggy that leverages the tools that you will follow though with is required. Don't like Twitter, don't use it. Don't have time to write 2 blog articles a week, spend your time on marketing efforts you can do consistently to be effective. Success is built on consistent brand impression where your audience is looking.
Look into pay-per-click advertising to build brand authority.
It may be more affordable than you think. A small business can run a very tight PPC campaign targeted to very specific locations and generate leads for less than the cost of other types of advertising. Set up a lead capture form on your website and track phone calls to get a true measure of your cost per lead.
PPC campaigns can put your brand on the first page without having completed SEO work.
Review Google analytics to see how well your online marketing is doing. The competitive information gives up-to-the-minute tracking of your online campaign. And that is just one of the online tools available. There are other tools like Hubspot, Word Stream and HootSuite that can provide more specific information about your website visitor activity.
We use HubSpot because it has the full spectrum of tools to help you build landing pages, track visitor activity on your website, compare your online presence to your competitors and support that helps you interpret the information to improve results. It's important to think of your marketing as always being refined. And internet marketing allows you to react quickly and have your message published in minutes not days.
Find out more about online branding techniques with this free eBook.