It goes without saying that the internet has become more complex as a marketing channel. As such, internet marketing services have also multiplied and become more complex. It used to be that you could throw up a website and bid on a couple keywords in AdWords to be bleeding edge. That age has passed.
Purpose of Internet Marketing
The purpose of Internet Marketing is the same as any marketing strategy: to drive results for your business. Each business is unique, so the success metrics are correspondingly unique. In choosing your online marketing services, the purpose of any campaign usually falls into one of three buckets:
- Return on Investment (ROI)
- Increasing Traffic
- Increase Sales
- Increasing Awareness
Breaking these down further, there are many more specific goals contained within each.
Return on Investment
The idea here is to prove that the marketing spend is providing value in excess of whatever you are spending on the campaign. This is the most desirable and valuable of internet marketing goals.
However, it isn’t as clear cut as it seems. How do you define the “return”?
The return on investment could be based on:
- Revenue – The value of total sales attributed to the campaign
- Gross Profit – Revenue minus the cost of goods sold attributed to the campaign
- Net profit – Gross profit minus other expenses and overhead attributed to the campaign
- Customer Lifetime Value – The total a new customer will spend in their long-term engagement with the company.
Increasing Traffic
Increasing traffic increases the number of people you drive to your website or marketing materials. This approach focuses on the top of the sales funnel.
You can must ask the question, “what kind of traffic do I want to measure?” Here are some common traffic metrics:
- Total Clicks
- Total traffic
- Traffic from target demographic
- Traffic from a target geography
Increasing Conversions
Increasing conversions increases some level of the sales funnel. There are many ways that you can define a conversion. Here are a few examples:
- Sales
- Net new leads
- Number of qualified leads
Increasing Awareness
The most successful companies in the world understand the value of branding and awareness. These campaigns are measured by metrics outside of the sales funnel.
These include:
- Impressions
- Share of voice
- Sentiment
- Brand term search
- Brand recognition or recall
- Mentions over time
Determining the Success of an Online Marketing Campaign
To compare the success of campaigns, take the cost of each campaign and divide it by the goal metric. For example:
Campaign 1 cost: $10,000 / 2,000 clicks = $5 cost per click
Campaign 2 cost: $8,000 / 1,680 clicks = $4.76 cost per click
Choosing an Internet Marketing Service
Once you have determined a goal to measure, select the correct marketing solution to accomplish that goal.
Banner ads are better for increasing awareness, and search advertising is better for increasing conversions and sales. SEO can be used for both branding and lead generation.
Outside of advertising, there are a plethora of internet marketing services that you can utilize to accomplish your business goals. While some channels are “free” in terms of cash spent, they require considerable planning and human resources. For example, SEO might not have as much immediate impact as a paid advertising campaign, but in the long term, being ranked on the first page of organic search results is in essence a free ad. Social media and content marketing is also an excellent way to build brand awareness and loyalty.
Ultimately, a comprehensive digital marketing program should utilize a variety of platforms, channels, and success metrics.
Internet Marketing Channels
There are many platforms and strategies for marketing a business online. Some of which are pay-to-play advertising channels, and others are free organic platforms available to everyone.
PPC
PPC or “pay-per-click” is a form of online advertising that is just like it sounds, you only pay for the placement when a user clicks on the ad. It is an excellent option for targeting users while they are actively searching for a solution or product.
The most popular PPC platform is Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords)
Display Advertising
Image ads are one of the oldest advertising methods on the internet. Online display advertising places images or banners on other websites. It is similar to how traditional print advertisements work, however with online banners, a user can click and directly access your offer.
Social Media
Businesses can utilize social media sites like Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter in two ways.
- Organic Social Media – Utilize the platform to engage in the audience and expand your social reach by getting users that follow you to share your information.
- Paid Social – Businesses can utilize social media advertising to directly market to audiences on the platform.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
One of the most common ways that people find information on the internet is through search engines. SEO is the process of optimizing your website to be easily found and indexed by search engines for your targeted keywords.
Email Marketing
One of the most direct ways to connect to past customers or people interested in your services is through email marketing. Regular email newsletters can keep customers engaged and loyal to your brand. Businesses also can utilize email automation software to market to leads with directed “drip” campaigns.
Video Marketing
Online video platforms like YouTube are a combination of search engines and social media platforms. As such, businesses can use online video to organically engage audiences on the platform, or directly advertise to viewers of other videos.
E-Commerce
The internet allows you to sell directly to your customers from anywhere in the world. Businesses can open their own store online or open up shop on an existing marketplace like Amazon or Ebay. The big stores like Amazon contain so many products, that businesses often use SEO techniques specific to the store to be found in such a crowded marketplace (Amazon SEO).
Content Marketing
A lot of people do more reading online than from the printed page nowadays. Businesses can market themselves by creating content for their website or by writing articles for online publications.
Obility’s Internet Marketing Expertise
Obility is a marketing agency that can lead enterprises through the online marketing services jungle. We focus exclusively on B2B enterprises and use a data-driven approach to expand sales funnels and grow your business. Here are some of the internet marketing services we offer that can help B2B businesses market themselves online.
Competitive Analysis
An integral part of digital marketing is competitive intelligence and gap analysis. Obility gets to know your industry and your competitors in search to make the best recommendations and find new opportunities for
. We not only find what your competitors are doing well, but also gaps in their strategy for you to exploit.
Online Marketing Strategy
Obility isn’t myopic in their digital marketing. We specialize in SEM and SEO, but we are also B2B experts that know how internet marketing fits into broader integrated marketing campaigns. Most of all, we understand how to create an online strategy around B2B sales cycles and focus on what metrics matter most to your enterprise. Whether you want net new names for email marketing, marketing qualified leads, closed sales, or leads from specific accounts, Obility knows how to strategize and optimize internet marketing campaigns for results that matter to you.
Analytics Analysis
There isn’t a lack of information from online campaigns, in fact there is too much data. Every ad platform, analytics tools, marketing automation tool, and CRM produces a wealth of data for internet marketers. Obility is able to take all those data sources, make them play nice, and combine their data into actionable reports.
PPC Management
Obility’s bread and butter has always been PPC management. Managing PPC campaigns can sound deceptively simple, but internal teams, and non-B2B agencies will find it extremely difficult to manage at scale. Obility is a marketing agency that is exceptional at creating campaigns that scale at an enterprise level. However, we go a step further and optimize based on longer sales cycles, reporting on the full sales funnel.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Management
The bulk on internet users use organic search results to find the information and solutions that they are looking for. SEO is an essential part of improving the performance of a website. Ranking on the first page of SERPS isn’t always easy and requires up to date knowledge about search engine algorithms. Obility’s SEO Managers are nerds about Google, and they know the best, safest ways to get B2B companies to rank above their competitors. We are also able to offer high quality link building services that will increase domain authority and brand visibility.
Paid Social Management
Social media represents a great opportunity for B2B enterprises. Obility’s social media advertising experts know how to utilize social media marketing to convert qualified B2B leads. Our Facebook and Linkedin managers often know the platforms better than Facebook and Linkedin employees.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversions are the actions that you want visitors to take on your website. To maximize your website’s potential, you need visibility into where and how people are converting. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of continually improving the performance of your online campaigns using data and analytics. Obility specializes in diving deep into data to identify and test opportunities for conversion optimization.
Retargeting
Once a prospect qualifies themselves by clicking on an ad or an organic search listing, you can use retargeting to market to them differently than other audiences. Obility uses retargeting to market campaigns to the visitors that have already visited your site to keep them moving down the sales funnel.
Partnerships to Solve Problems
Obility focuses on what we do great. However, we are excellent collaborators with internal marketing teams and other specialist agencies. Obility augments your team and can coordinate with outside resources to solve difficult problems and break through bottlenecks. We can provide B2B companies referrals to the best solution for the following services:
- Website Design and Development
- Reviews/Reputation Management
- Blogging
- Call Tracking
- Website Redesigns
- User Experience or Usability
- Web Hosting
- Ecommerce or Amazon SEO
- App Development
- Local SEO