You can’t do business alone – you will need groupies.

Imagine a rock band. They start out playing in a garage and eventually move to the high school dance circuit. They complete an indie album and open for someone vaguely remembered by some. Their music might be heard on an Internet station or the alternative rock station in the region on “Indie Music” night. At some point the band’s persistence develops a following. Their hard work endears fans. It is this fan base that provides the initial spark needed for this group to be recognized. Why? These fans are motivated to share their interest in the band with others. They will share their music and the band’s story. Others will be intrigues by the optimism.

Ecommerce can be a bit like that. It starts with you. As the ‘lead singer’ in this dream you will have to persistently take your message to virtually anyplace you can. It may start small like the proverbial garage or high school dance, but you must not be content to stay there. Keep pushing forward seeking out new placed and faces. Frequent boards and blogs, offer an advice column on a complimentary site, write expert articles for free article directories and keep ‘singing’.

Every successful band was established when the members continued to push on when the halls were silent and the requests weren’t phoned in. When it would have been easy to go home, lick their wounds and give up they stayed put. When family and friends questioned motive and talent they continued to work at their craft and in the end someone miraculously saw the diamond.

Business startups are always difficult. There can be the exception, but for the most part the individual developing the business will wage a friendly war with the world in an attempt to have enough people view them as a credible source for business that others provide some enthusiastic and much needed support.

Online networking remains the best way to pitch your idea and establish your presence. Are you credible? Authoritative? Enthusiastic? Honest? Does your idea come across as too good to be true or an empire built of plastic? Learn to present yourself well, be professional and welcome new friends to your ‘movement’.

You might consider standard social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Then add relevant forum boards. Establish a credible and highly focused blog. Make your presence known and keep growing your network. Develop a mailing list, maybe even an ezine. Keep in touch with the interested and enlist their help in sharing the cause.

Dale Carnegie once said, “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

It can be easy in today’s economic environment to want to give in and give up. Don’t do it. Don’t get wrapped up in pessimism. There are opportunities and there are individuals who want desperately to believe in quality, service and integrity. Give it to them. Provide a reason to trust you. Give them more than they expect. If you’re passionate enough about this then the consumer will be at the very least intrigued enough to take a second look at what you are offering.

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Online marketing can no longer be considered as an afterthought when developing a marketing strategy. In 2008, Ofcom reported that online marketing represented a fifth of total UK revenues from advertising – and we believe it’s still got a long way to go.

There are good reasons for its unprecedented growth. One of the main reasons online marketing has always been at an advantage to other forms of marketing is because of its ability to drive acquisition, in such a transparent and accountable way.

More often than not, it is ‘acquisition marketing’ that clients are looking for – marketing with the end goal of acquiring new business. A well thought out acquisition marketing shouldn’t even stop there, but should really continue into the realms of adding value to the acquired customers to ensure repeat business where applicable, and/or referrals.

How to achieve acquisition through online marketing

In order to achieve effective acquisition marketing, there needs to be a clear and cohesive pathway for the customer to follow, right from the first click through to the point of conversion. This starts with a clear understanding of what you want the customer to do. If this isn’t clear in your mind, then it’s going to be very hard for the customer to figure out.

A marketing campaign which successfully brings thousands of people through to your site, all of whom are not particularly interested in what you have to offer and so leave immediately once they get there, cannot be called acquisition marketing. Traffic is simply a means to an end, and as such – can become a time consuming red herring.

A campaign which brings in thousands of people who are interested in your products or services, only for them to be bamboozled with such labyrinthine navigation or off-putting messages or design that they give up and go elsewhere before converting, is also not acquisition marketing.

A successful acquisition campaign must keep the visitor engaged at every single point along their journey towards becoming one of your valued customers.

This can only result from a genuinely integrated approach to online marketing, working on all areas of a campaign simultaneously, with the sole aim of leading visitors through seamlessly to the point of purchase or conversion. Implementing funnel / drop-off tracking is also key in this process, as often there is more to learn from the ‘non-converters’ than the ‘converters’.

Short AND long-term benefits

Despite our strong belief in acquisition marketing, there is clearly still a place for brand building exercises which will not only change or enforce your consumers’ perceptions of you over time, but also deliver better recall, referral and brand equity.

But with acquisition marketing, we look for measurable ways to increase levels of sales and conversions in a much shorter space of time. Part of the trick here is to not only make the process easy for customers, but also to spend time understanding their mindset, needs and concerns. By understanding these, we can begin to alleviate them – by offering them extra information, assurance or testimonials along the conversion funnel. Ideally, we want to dispel any concerns they have before they have even manifested.

Working with this mindset, we are able to take marketing forms such as pay-per-click advertising, and make them work even more efficiently than they are already.

Keeping your customers happy

At atom42, we get most of our business through referrals. When people have had a good experience with a customer or product, they simply can’t spread the word fast enough. Looking after your customers in the same way is one reason why acquisition marketing is also of long-term. Happy customers do two things: return and refer.

Increasingly, as natural SEO has evolved from being focused on “onsite” optimisation techniques – and moved into using more and more “offsite” factors when determining a site’s importance – we see an increasing number of long-term benefits from our SEO work as well – including link building, content optimisation and strategic partnerships – all of which can yield results for many years to come.

The significance of measurability

The real key to acquisition marketing is measurability, and this is something uniquely suited to online marketing.

For those in the business of online marketing, there are now an almost infinite number of tools at our disposal for diagnosing precisely what kind of results our efforts are generating with our online marketing techniques.

This means that we can prove without doubt that we are gaining the right kinds of results for our clients, with an extraordinary amount of precision. It’s no wonder that, according to the European Online Advertising Through 2013 report, online ad spend is predicted to carry on growing throughout the recession.

Andrew Atalla is the founder of atom42, a London online marketing agency for companies wishing to improve their online presence. atom42 employs a range of marketing fields to create a holistic online marketing strategy for each of its clients.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Opportunities in online marketing have never been so great or so diverse. In June 2008, 70% of UK population was online, according to Internetworldstats, and while we are there, the UK population is now spending more than ever online.

The figures say it all – in July 2008, 17p in every £1 was spent online in the UK, and growth in UK online spending for November 2008 saw an increase of 26% on October 2008, according to IMRG. It is therefore in an advertiser’s best interests to approach this vast online audience from every possible angle.

It is hugely important to be aware of how differently people are now using the internet. Social media sites are booming and online competition from competitors in all industries is rocketing.

Advertisers must make the effort to interact with users at all stages of their purchase, whether they began by asking a question on a forum or by searching for product-related information and reviews, as well as making the effort to learn from their feedback where possible.

Businesses need to look further afield than traditional paid ads.

Many people think online marketing is virtually synonymous with Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search advertising. However, more and more companies are now discovering that an integrated online marketing strategy be far more rewarding than only using PPC ads in terms of increasing revenue and acquiring new business.

The range of online marketing opportunities most businesses should now be looking into include PPC search as well as other areas of online advertising, email, natural search engine optimisation (SEO), social media, site content and usability.

It almost goes without saying that, once set up, every one of these areas must regularly tracked and analysed, as it is the findings gleaned from this analysis which should be used to inform the entire online advertising strategy.

How you can benefit from an integrated online marketing strategy

Not every potential marketing field will be appropriate for every business. However, a good online marketing company will pick and choose a number of avenues, and use the information from tracking each one to improve the performance of the entire campaign.

Different areas will contribute in different ways to building and refining the overall structure of an integrated online marketing strategy, and the more methods you employ to attract and convert visitors, the more effective each one will become.

Here are some examples:

1) PPC Search can inform your language and terminology

Analysing which keywords lead to conversions in your PPC campaign can be a useful way to inform your thinking on the type of keywords you use in your content and anchor text links. It can also give you an idea of where to target online ad placements and email campaigns.

2) Forums and Blogs can aid Communication and Product development

Comments left on social forums and blogs about your company or your competitors could give you an idea about ways you could improve what you are offering to people on your site, and how you could improve its usability. These forums allow for a unique insight into your target market, and arguably reflect some of the most honest and passionate feedback a company can receive.

3) Analytics Packages can aid web design

Tracking goal funnels effectively in your Analytics package can inform you as to what needs to be altered on your website by telling you at what point your customers are dropping off in significant numbers.

4) PR can help your SEO

By including anchor text links on your own online press releases and articles, you can help your own search engine optimisation at the same time as boosting awareness about your products or services.

There are many more possible examples, but the top-line take out is that an integrated approach is worth more than the sum of its parts.

You will also be widening your reach

In addition to the benefits of making use of all the information available to you to create an integrated online marketing strategy, you will also be reaching a far wider section of your intended audience by branching into so many different areas, leading to a greater potential for acquiring new business.

In conclusion, you’ll enjoy better results from a balanced, holistic online marketing strategy than by focusing all your attention on just one area – or by viewing the increasingly disparate divisions of the online world as isolated units.

Andrew Atalla is the founder of atom42, a London online marketing agency for companies wishing to improve their presence on the internet. atom42 employs a range of marketing fields to create an integrated online marketing strategy for each of its clients.

Popularity: unranked [?]

PPC Search marketing is a huge, and still growing, area, which grew by almost a third between 2006 and 2008, according to IAB estimates. Almost 60% of all online ad spend is spent in PPC search – with the vast majority paying for smoothies and massage chairs at Google HQ.

While PPC search remains one of the most cost-effective ways to gain conversions, the landscape is changing as the discipline begins to mature. Historically, any PPC search campaign – even one which was poorly organised – would still be likely to work well.

These days, due to increased competition, costs per click (CPC) prices are getting higher and higher, and PPC campaigns need to be a lot more competitive to succeed, particularly with non-branded keywords.

The integrated approach

Advertisers need to think more broadly to ensure that their online campaigns are up to scratch. As well as considering many more online advertising arenas, they must also leverage their interconnectedness.

While PPC marketing will aid a company’s ability to acquire new business and may generate a reasonable ROI on its own, its potential can be increased by using the best performing keywords as anchor text links when carrying out link building exercises. If search terms perform well in a paid search campaign, you would be well advised to improve your natural search listings for the same terms where possible.

Similarly, competitor and customer analysis can inform all areas of your thinking by giving an idea of where you stand in the wider market, and potentially gaining first person feedback from the very people you are targeting with your online marketing strategies.

A more connected online marketplace…

Here is a brief explanation of some of the areas businesses need to invest in to compete in today’s more connected online marketplace, and the reasons why they mustn’t be neglected. It’s important to remember that whilst each of the below is certainly a specialism unto itself – the real value is from a cohesive blend of them all seamlessly working together with common cause.

Social

In August 2008, Facebook reached the auspicious landmark of 100,000,000 users. Social spaces are booming, and anyone marketing their site needs to get on board. Social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Reddit, social networking such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, social tagging such as StumbleUpon or Flickr, blogs & online discussion forums that target your audience, all of these are important portals which, used correctly, can improve your presence online.

Online Advertising

New developments in technology are creating a world where online advertising can be increasingly targeted to relevant consumers. For example, as a result of behavioural advertising, it is now possible to target users according to their actual behaviour online, not only by what page they are looking at. Tracking this customer behaviour can once again inform your thinking in other areas of your campaign.

Tracking & Analytics

The tools now available to us to enable advanced tracking and analytics are like gold dust to savvy marketers. Not only is it fascinating on a human level to try and decipher the moods and habits of your cherished visitors, it is also crucial work if you want to leverage the information available to you.

Email & CRM

Gaining new business is always great, but it’s often a lot easier to sell to those customers you have already won. Opt-in email marketing and email newsletters are two useful methods of keeping the relationship you have with your customers fresh and up-to-date. It also allows for you to communicate with users on their own terms, allowing for a two way communication – rather than simply enforcing on them your generic, default marketing messages.

Natural SEO

Search Engine Optimisation is a term incorporating a huge range of activities, including link development, improving the code and content of a site and article and press release distribution. The importance of using these tried & tested methods to gain and maintain good rankings on the major search engines cannot be underestimated, as many a business is made or broken by their positions on the search engines.

Content

The written word is the lifeblood of the internet, so content is always a major part of an online marketing strategy. Using the keywords and phrases your target audience is already searching for when they are looking for your products or services in all areas of your campaign, as well as on site, will reduce bounce rates, increase targeted traffic and ensure the right people engage with your brand.

Usability

Once you’ve done all that hard work bringing in the right people to your site, it really would be a shame to put them off with poor usability. No matter how many visitors you get to your site, you may as well not bother unless the site itself is capable of gaining conversions. Therefore making sure the design is uncluttered, the navigation easy to understand and there is a clear path to checkout is vital.

Andrew Atalla is the founder of atom42, a London online marketing agency for companies wishing to improve their presence on the internet. atom42 employs a range of marketing fields to create an integrated online marketing strategy for each of its clients.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The Promise of Affiliate Marketing Riches

You’ve seen people brag about how much money they’re making online from affiliate marketing and you’ve decided you want to start making money online too. The problem is there’s so much information about how to make money online through affiliate marketing you don’t know which information is true, who is out to scam you and what information is the best to follow. It absolutely kills you to get scammed. Let’s face it you need affiliate marketing instruction for newbies.

Don’t Believe The Hype

Unfortunately, the internet does not have a formal affiliate marketing school for newbies – which leaves the newbie, open to “gurus” who claim to be experts at internet marketing instruction. They ask you to pay anywhere from $97 to $497. Then after they hook you, you still don’t get internet marketing instruction from them. What you get are a lot of emails from them trying to sell you more things. So how do you go about finding reputable internet marketing schools on the internet?

Look Before You Leap – Watch Out For Gurus

Well, the easiest way is to put in quotes exactly what it is you are looking for. So for instance, you can type in quotes “affiliate marketing school for beginners” or “affiliate internet marketing instruction” or “beginners’ affiliate marketing school.” By putting the phrase in quotes, the search engines will give you exactly what you are looking for – people who are offering internet marketing instruction for the person who is a beginner. The next part gets tricky because you don’t know who is out to scam you and who is for real. My advice is to read each ad thoroughly. Don’t buy the first thing with bells and whistles. In fact, the more you keep reading various ads, the more you will get a feel for what it is you are looking for. But the best and least expensive thing to do is to buy an inexpensive affiliate marketing handbook (eBook) on the subject.

Affiliate Marketing Handbook

I’m a big advocate of affiliate marketing handbooks before investing in any sort of online internet marketing instruction for beginners program because eBooks tend to be very inexpensive. They can range anywhere from $1 to $9.95. My experience is that you don’t need to spend anywhere near the high end of the spectrum. In fact, when I was searching for an eBook that focused on affiliate marketing for newbies, I found one for dirt cheap on the web. It was the perfect beginning for me. It taught me how to become a successful affiliate marketer. It told me what to look for, and it literally took me by the hand. Now I’m not saying that all eBooks are quality, but what I am saying is you don’t have to start off investing $100s and $1,000s of dollars in online internet marketing instruction for beginners’ courses either.

If you’re looking for instructions for how to make money online through affiliate marketing, the best and least expensive way is to purchase an inexpensive eBook as your starting point. As you begin reading these eBooks you can then advance in confidence and start investing in the more expensive internet marketing instruction for newbies courses. Until then, play it safe and go with cheap eBooks!

Shalisha is a very successful affiliate marketer who coaches with Rosalind Gardner, who catapulted her to affiliate riches by following The Super Affiliate Handbook

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