Online Marketing Prof. Vidya R. Sonawane, Dept. of MCA, JSPM s Abacus Institute of Computer Applications, Hadapsar, Pune. Abstract: The web is great vehicle for online marketing. Developing a marketing plan to exploit online social networks, tools and applications can be a challenge for marketers. Social media marketing and the businesses that utilize it have become more sophisticated. Internet marketing strategies include (but are not limited to) website design and content, search engine optimization (SEO), directory submissions, Social Media Optimization(SMO) reciprocal linking strategies, online advertising, and email marketing. Pay-per-click (PPC) allows them to receive information about their ads, particular where their customers are coming from and what they are doing once on the website. This paper discusses about the concepts of social media and social media marketing and other aspects like growth and benefits, role and relevance of social media in marketing, social media marketing strategies and also You will learn How to use Social Media Internet sites, tools and applications to market your company s products and services. It also presents an overview on Internet Brand marketing strategies. Key words: Marketing, Online Marketing, SEO, Marketing Internet Technologies, Business marketing, Internet. Introduction & Overview- Online Marketing is nothing but the It is a form of marketing where internet sources are used in order get in touch with customers. There are two different types of online marketing: On the one hand the passive online marketing which is about a website for itself. On the other hand there is the active online marketing which tries to reach potential buyers on the internet. This could be realized inter alia with newsletters, search engine marketing, branding and other tools. In addition to that there is the aspect of customer loyalty where customers need an incentive to visit the web page more than once, for example with news, forum, services, blogs, raffles and many other possibilities. Marketing is a process in the economy to satisfy the needs and desires of people or groups by producing, offering and exchanging products and services. This means that all activities of a company, internally as well as externally, are interpreted as the needs of a market. Marketing is known as an entrepreneurial mindset which seeks the consistent customer orientation. This connects the customer management, the improvement of customer needs, systematic planning and innovative solutions. Marketing objectives Marketing objectives quantitative qualitative psychological economical 1
turnover degree of fame image sales benefit image degree of fame turnover growth corporate identity customer satisfaction variable gross margin market share trust customer loyalty benefit costs quality preferences ROI market leader reliability market share All of these objectives have to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timetabled (SMART). This means that a company has to complete on the one hand its own marketing objectives like the image and benefits and on the other hand it has to satisfy the needs of the customers. Simple Marketing System- Marketing is the sum of all activities that take you to a sales outlet. After that sales takes over Marketing is all about creating a pull, sales is all about push. Instrumental view of online marketing- In spite of the significance of communication like the most important online marketing instrument, online marketing is a lot more than only online communication. Besides the communication policy, the tasks of online marketing are also the sale of products, the distribution policy and the realization of services Social The marketing mix Product Promotion Price Placement Variety Advertisement List price Trade channels Quality Special events Discounts Market share Design Sales representatives Credit period Range of goods Equipment Reputation Customer credits Places of offers Brand name Stock media Packaging Transport Customer service Guarantee Target market marketing is a marketing technique that is concerned with advertising on social media networks. These include networking sites, web logs (blogs), online communities etc. In other words, any place where one can raise insights about a particular business to the prospective clients. You also have to be aware of where you can fish for the customers/clients that are interested in gaining your service. 2
Projected Social Media Spending- (% Social media Optimization, Indicating % of total marketing Budgets) We know that a critical piece of running a business is marketing, but it seems to be the component that most business owners struggle with. Marketing is everything from the advertisement that a consumer sees regarding your product or service that you offer through the entire sales process including the follow-up after the purchase. It's important for businesses to understand the benefits that online marketing provides that other more traditional marketing options don't provide. This can help in making a decision when it comes to planning where to put your marketing dollars; especially if you need them to stretch a bit further in this economy. Marketing online has proven to bring many cost effective benefits that help businesses do their own market research as well as still market effectively even on a shoe string budget. I always suggest a mixture in marketing; both marketing online and off. However, I think once 3
you see the benefits in marketing online it can help you in creating even more successful marketing strategies offline. Digital marketing- Very simply put, digital marketing or E-Marketing refers to the application of marketing principles and techniques via electronic media and more specifically, the Internet. The terms E-Marketing, Internet marketing (I-Marketing) and online marketing are frequently interchanged, and can often be considered synonymous. When Digital marketing implemented correctly, the return on investment (ROI) from E- and I-Marketing can far exceed that of traditional marketing strategies. Advantages: Low barriers to entry (business can start building an online presence with currents tools like basic website ) Digital marketing is international marketing The online world enables to respond rapidly The internet makes research easier The internet world is currently English centric (English language dominance is a great advantage for UK digital businesses Digital marketing removes geographic barriers Web 2.0 marketing gets you closer to your customers than ever before E-Marketing Our services in this field include the design, build and delivery of: HTML email campaigns with trigger based technology Pay per click Interactive video tours Advantages of E-Marketing- Extremely low risk Reduction in costs through automation and use of electronic media Faster response to both marketers and the end user Increased ability to measure and collect data Opens the possibility to a market of one through personalisation Increased interactivity Increased exposure of products and services Boundless universal accessibility I-Marketing I-Marketing services cover social media campaign design, management and delivery. These modern marketing practices encompass all the activities a business conducts via the worldwide web with the aim of attracting new business, retaining current business and developing its brand identity. Online Marketing Tools- 4
B2B Business to Business-Using the Internet for business-to-business (B2B) activities holds the greatest potential for many small businesses. Small business Internet commerce is broadly defined as The sharing of business information, maintaining business relationships, and conducting business transactions by means of Internet-based technology B2C Business to Customer- A B2C Internet marketing consultant besides helping you with your Internet marketing needs, usually work with design experts that can also help you with the design of your web site and design of your marketing advertisements. CAPTCHA Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart- A CAPTCHA differentiates between human and bot by setting some task that is easy for most humans to perform but is more difficult and time-consuming for current bots to complete. CAPTCHAs are often used to stop bots and other automated programs from using blogs to affect search engine rankings, signing up for e-mail accounts to send out spam or take part in on-line polls. CPA Cost per Action- CPA is a method of paying for advertising that allows you to pay for each conversion (sale, lead, download, etc.) as opposed to each time a searcher sees or clicks (as with CPC) on your ads. Cost per Action Advertising is the latest payment model available in online advertising. Initially, online advertisers had to pay for every 1000 thousand impressions of their ads. This was one of the worst payment models with the least effectiveness. CPC Cost per Click- Cost-per-click (CPC), which is also known as pay-per-click (PPC), refers to sponsored ads sold directly by major search engines. These keyword-based ads are usually labeled as sponsored and appear in the first two or three positions of a search results page and/or in a column on the right side of the screen. PPC ad rankings are based on a formula that takes into account the highest bid amounts, the highest number of clicks and the keyword relevancy of the ad to the user s query. A professionally managed PPC campaign will yield the best results and return on investment (ROI). CPL Cost per Lead- CPL is an online advertising pricing model, where the advertiser pays for a set price for each customer that fills out a sign-up or lead form. Cost per lead campaigns are often used by brand marketers and direct response marketers looking to build a newsletter list, reward program or customer acquisition program. CPM Cost per Mille- The cost per thousand advertising impressions metric (CPM) is calculated by dividing the cost of an advertising placement by the number of impressions (expressed in thousands) that it generates. CPM is useful in comparing the relative efficiency of different advertising opportunities or media and in evaluating the costs of overall campaigns. Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM) = Advertising Cost ($) / Impressions Generated (# in Thousands) CPO Cost per Order- Mathematical calculation of the costs incurred in selling an item divided by the number of orders received. It is used to examine the relative profitability of various promotions. The CPO ratio can be used to evaluate a single expense item, such as advertising, if all other expense items are excluded from the calculation. If the CPO exceeds the average sales value of each order, the promotion was not profitable. 5
CR Conversion Rate- In internet marketing, the conversion rate is the proportion of visitors to a website who take action to go beyond a casual content view or website visit, as a result of subtle or direct requests from marketers, advertisers, and content creators. Conversion rate= Number of sales / number of visitors *100. For example, let s say an e-commerce website has 1000 unique visitors to their site, and has 20 of the people buy a product (20 sales), their website sales conversion rate would be 2%. So essentially, this means that 2 out of every 100 visitors to the site make a purchase. CTR Click through rate- CTR is a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular website. You can use CTR to gauge which ads and keywords are successful for you and which need to be improved. The more your keywords and ads relate to each other and to your business, the more likely a user is to click on your ad after searching on your keyword phrase. HTML Hypertext Markup Language- Hypertext is the method by which you move around on the web by clicking on special text called hyperlinks which bring you to the next page. The fact that it is hyper just means it is not linear i.e. you can go to any place on the Internet whenever you want by clicking on links there is no set order to do things in. Markup is what HTML tags do to the text inside them. They mark it as a certain type of text (italicized text, for example). HTML is a Language, as it has code-words and syntax like any other language. ROI Return on Investment- A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio. The return on investment formula: RSS Rich Site Summery or Really Simple Syndication- RSS is an XML-based format and while it can be used in different ways for content distribution, its most widespread usage is in distributing news headlines on the Web. A Web site that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user that can read RSS-distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content can include data such as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, and excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate information. SEO Search Engine Optimization / Optimizer- SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the process of getting traffic from the free, organic, editorial or natural listings on search engines. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing have such results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users. 6
SERP Search Engine Result Page- ERP refers to Search Engine Result Pages. The page that is seen after the user has typed the query and pressed enter is known as "Search Engine Result Page". These pages are designed to give users a user friendly experience for searching. The basic design of the result pages is the same for all the search engines. 7
Different Elements of Search Engine Result Page The Query Box This is the area where the user enters the search query. Search Stats Each Search Engine Result Page displays the total number of web pages present in the search engine index related to the user query and the time taken to fetch the result links. The Result Links these are the results which the search engines presents to the user in response to the query entered on the query box. The result links also known as the result block displays three main information- The title of the result block, the description and a link to the web page. The result block also displays the cached link and the similar pages link which are explained below. The Sponsored Links These are the ads displayed on the top of the main result links and on the right hand side of the page. These are presented to the user with response to the search query entered by the user. Cached Link This link shows the cached version of the web page. Cached version means the last time the search engine bots visited the web page they found it like the one displayed on the cached version. Similar Pages Link This link displays more information related to the search query. Related Search Queries These are some search suggestions displayed under the main result links. Rules for a successful online marketing Rule 1: Planning The strategic planning should have priority to let all departments and employees of a company participate in the planning processes. Short, medium and long term goals have to be defined. Rule 2: Promotion Online activities are well suitable for the promotion, but the internet has to be promoted with classical advertising mediums as well. Rule 3: Hire professional The internet is not as easy as it looks. Therefore professionals are required not only for technical questions, but also professional online marketers. Rule 4: Learn from the competition there is always a company which has already developed a better online strategy than their own. If it is possible one can learn from the mistakes they already made. 8
Rule 5: Identify target groups The choice of the target group is not necessarily the same in online marketing like in traditional marketing, because wastage can be better avoided through the online channels. Rule 6: Use a simple layout Flash animations, videos or vivid colors are only a suitable layout for some web pages. The pages should not be overloaded because with a stimulus satiation one achieves the opposite and visitors are annoyed. Rule 7: Let communicate The features of the web 2.0 offer a very good possibility to get in touch with a potential customer. Forums, guest books, blogs or newsletters are very useful to make new contacts. Rule 8: Update a web site regularly An actual date on a web page shows a customer that you care about the web site. Time on the internet is very short-term. A user needs the impression that he is reading actual content with new information. Rule 9: Benefit from your name Now a days it is easy to book your own domain. It could be a great advantage to have your own domain name on your business cards or notepaper. It is another advantage if the name is short and concise. Corporate design is nowadays an important factor of success. Rule 10: Plan for the future The internet is changing continuously and with a high velocity. Planning an online campaign is a task where one should consider technological changes and maybe an expansion to global markets. Internet marketing Security- For both companies and consumers that participate in online business, security concerns are very important. 1) Consumers are Security Focused Consumers are becoming increasingly more aware of online security issues. The constant barrage of SPAM and scams have led consumers to be much more protective of their information. This means that your Internet security policy needs to be something you highlight in your online marketing campaign. Any website that obtains identifying information or financial information of users (e-commerce sites, loan sites, application sites, etc) must be secure. You need to have an SSL certificate using the latest technology. Consumers are aware of this and are often alerted to a site that has an out of date or no SSL certificate. 9
Make sure you are using the latest encryption technology and that you make that fact known. You want to secure the data of your website users to protect them and to protect you. You should also make sure you protect their contact information as well as their other sensitive data. A website user's contact information is very valuable. You want to retain that value by never sharing or selling contact information. This is a policy you need to have and need to post on your site. 2) Setting and Publishing Policies It is always good to have safety and security policies established for your website. Very often you can find template policies online that you then modify to meet your needs. As you create your policies, you want to consider including elements that are important to website users and highlight them in the policy. Your marketing team should review your policies and determine which policies are the most important to highlight. This will impact how the policies are posted on your site. You will want to put in bold face font the most important policies to your website visitors. You may even point out your security and safety policies in other areas of your website. One of the goals of online marketing is to establish trust. If you are able to put consumers at ease about safety and security concerns, you will establish trust and they will be much more comfortable using your site. 3) Live Up to Your Promises You must live up to your safety and security promises. You should confirm with your website hosting company and developer that your site is secure and that you are using the latest security technology. You should also never sell, lease or lend your email marketing list to anyone else if you promised not to do so. If you fail to live up to your promises, you will destroy any consumer confidence and loyalty that you established. People take security seriously and so must you. As you put together your online marketing plan, make sure you consider these things. Point out the policies you have in place that can establish trust and loyalty. Establish trust through the right safety and security policies, you will have much more effective online marketing initiatives. 4) Internet security can be defined as the protection of data from theft, loss or unauthorized access, use or modification. Security is an important issue whatever use your business makes of the internet. There are plenty of ways to protect your business from internet security threats 1. Get anti-virus software and update it frequently because new viruses appear all the time. 10
2. Save shared files in RTF or ASCII format. If you want to share data on a network server, and you want your computing experience to remain perfectly virus-free, save all files in RTF or ASCII format. 3. Back up everything. Back up your work files and system configuration files regularly. Store these backups in a safe place, separate from your hard drive. 4. Scan attachments before reading them. While it is impossible to get a virus simply by reading an email message, it is very possible to get one through an attachment. 5. In general, you should be very wary about inserting floppy disks from unknown sources into your disk drive, especially if the disks have been shared by several other people. Sometimes you have no choice. In those cases, the second thing you should do (after putting the disk in your drive) is to scan the disk with anti-virus software. 6. Download with care. To be safe, download all files into a special folder on your hard drive. Then be sure to scan those files before you open them. Conclusion- We can implement SEO techniques for online Advertising of our college website & getting the more & more student. Online marketing is not only important for companies to increase turnover, it is nowadays necessary to stay competitive to survive. Companies which do not implement online marketing in their classical marketing activities have a strong competitive disadvantage in today s environment. References- 1. http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com 2. Lazer, W., Kelley, E.J. (1973). Social Marketing: Perspectives and Viewpoints. 3. Homewood: Richard D. Irwin. 4. http://www.internetmarketingjournal.org/ 5. http://www.analectic.org/ 6. Kleindl, B A 2002, Strategic electronic marketing: managing e-business, 2nd edition, Thomson. 7. South-Western, Cleveland, USA. 8. http://www.allbusiness.com 9. http://www.wewanttraffic.com 10. http://www.internetseer.com 11