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Online marketing: 5 trends to watch
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Online marketing has the same goals as all marketing
Image courtesy of onlinemarketingmavens.com
Welcome to this new Examiner column on online marketing! Instead of grabbing customers by the eyes and ears through TV, radio, magazines or direct mail to get their attention, the new "big thing" in marketing is to let consumers discover brands, products and services online. I intend to examine some of the new online strategies and tactics (and consequences) that are evolving, as well as supply some how-to information for budding online marketers. I hope you'll follow along and keep me on track.
The energy surrounding marketers' efforts to establish an online presence is undeniable. There are about 200 million individual web sites on the Internet according to Netcraft. And comScore says that in April 2009, MySpace had 71 million users while rival Facebook had 67.5 million. Plus, online users today also want, search for and use content provided through sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, blogs and more.
Within this context, some key trends are emerging:
The energy surrounding marketers' efforts to establish an online presence is undeniable. There are about 200 million individual web sites on the Internet according to Netcraft. And comScore says that in April 2009, MySpace had 71 million users while rival Facebook had 67.5 million. Plus, online users today also want, search for and use content provided through sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, blogs and more.
Within this context, some key trends are emerging:
- Traditional marketing/advertising goals still apply - all marketers still want to do two things, they want to stand out from the crowd and generate word-of-mouth advertising. All that's changed today are how these goals are achieved. Standing out from the crowd means a top three search ranking on Google and word-of-mouth advertising means fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter.
- Everything will be measured - digital media are completely quantifiable. And far from just counting "clickthroughs," marketers can now tell if a user interacted for 10 seconds or two hours and what behavioral patterns he or she is establishing online.
- Social media demand more than a unique selling proposition (USP) - the USP concept was developed to fit a 30-60 second TV spot. Good social marketers first take a point of view on the world and engage in a conversation about it within their selected communities. Only then do they show how their products/services add value within that context. The point of view is what attracts prospects to the conversation, the awareness and consideration of the product or service becomes an organic by-product of the discussion.
- Lots of little ideas trump one big one - Gareth Kay, head of planning for the ad agency Modernista suggests that the future of marketing will depend on breaking the "tyranny of the big idea." He proposes that marketing will become more culturally interesting if it is made up of lots of coherent ideas vs. the consistent repetition of one idea. He also says that the inherent unpredictability of marketing today makes it more practical to invest in a series of small bets, learning from them and then scaling up the ones that seem to work. I would add that new online channels make both these propositions more practical, since they do not require a marketer to establish awareness and consideration in the 30-60 second window of the traditional TV ad.
- Promises must be kept - the dividing line between a marketer's "promise" and its delivery on that promise grows thinner every day. When a marketer chooses to engage with its consumers directly in the social media, it must deliver not only on its brand/product promise, but also on its point of view. And it suggests that a marketing philosophy has to extend across the entire business - into operations, finance, logistics and so on. Because great marketing will be more and more about what a marketer does - not just what it says.
I expect to continue to examine these trends and more in this column. One thing I'll do in every posting is supply a definition or two for some online marketing terms. You can see them below. In the meantime, I'll be glad to have your company on this journey. If you have something to say, or see something that needs to be said, please don't hesitate to chime in. I hope it becomes an engaging and useful discussion. Thanks for reading!
Click-through rate (CTR) - the average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, expressed as a percentage.
Conversion rate - the percentage of visitors who take a desired action.
Cost-per-action (CPA) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.
Conversion rate - the percentage of visitors who take a desired action.
Cost-per-action (CPA) - online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.
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