Friday, August 10, 2012

What is Web Marketing ?


When people ask me what I do, I say web marketing. To most people, this does not mean much. So friends, family and customers, here is my attempt to explain what I do in life, assuming that spending so much time in front of a computer can be considered a life ;-D

I use the expression “Web Marketing” to describe the use of the web for the promotion of products and services. The mission of Web marketing is to increase revenue by acquiring additional customers and by increasing sales to existing ones. It is done by the careful selection of investments in the components of the web marketing mix.

Web marketing mix

In traditional marketing, the marketing mix is the optimal use of the 4 Ps. Likewise, the web marketing mix is the optimal use of the various web tools and techniques. The components of the mix are:

  • Website;
  • Search engine optimization (SEO);
  • Web advertising;
  • Social media (blog, Facebook, Twitter, G+, YouTube, etc);
  • E-newsletters.

The central  component of web marketing is a good website – I will define what I mean by “good” further down this post. However, no matter how great your website is, it is worthless without visitors. This is where the other components contribute the most.

What is a good website ?

The factors that contribute to the quality of a website fall in 2 categories:

  • Factors that attract visitors
  • Factors that convert visitors into customers

To attract visitors, a good website must be designed and built to support traffic generation tools and techniques. The main ones are search engine optimization (SEO) and web advertising (for example Google AdWords). Depending on your situation, social media, e-newsletters and traditional advertising can also be used to generate visitors to your website.

To convert visitors into customers, a good website will have the following characteristics:

  • Easy to use;
  • A look and feel that is in line with the image of the brand;
  • Persuasive;
  • Trustworthiness. 

Great content is another characteristic of a good website and is useful to attract and to convert visitors.

Conclusion

Web marketing is an extension of traditional marketing, not a replacement. Success on the web depends on the judicious balance of investments in the website and in the various components to attract qualified visitors. A great website with few visitors is worthless. Similarly, bringing many visitors to a poor website is not only a waste of resources, it can damage the brand.

Further reading :



17 comments:

Harry said...

You might want to add that web marketing is a lot more complicated than what many may think. After all, if it wasn't, then there wouldn't be much use for the local adelaide seo companies, now would there?

Jonathan Ladd said...

There’s a need for web designing in terms of online competition. I can say that a success of a campaign also depends on the design of the page.

Victoria Cory said...

I see you are one of those types of web marketers who still value the need for a solid advertising arm in the marketing process. I've seen the bigger names declare that older forms of marketing is dead, and that online marketing has fully replaced it.

Unknown said...

Victoria, marketing has no single silver bullet. It depends.

Xander Lawson said...

Marc has a point. A lot of things have to come together perfectly with this one. Everything from the client to the market and the website design companies have to click if the online marketing campaign is to have any chance of success.

Gilbert Samsons said...
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Anonymous said...
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Kyle Brandon said...

As I can see it, using web marketing is a slow but sure marketing plan. Who doesn't use the web anyways? At first, it might be hard, there are millions of sites that offer the same products that you have. Then you'll seek strategic marketing styles to gain more visits and customers. That's when you expound your value of web marketing.

Unknown said...

Kyle, I don't think we can say that web marketing is a slow process especially now that millions or perhaps even billions of people are using internet. First of, isn't the main reason why marketers devised a marketing strategy which involves the net is because they saw that more likely they will be able to reach out to those people and by that they come up with something to advertise their products online. Now, the way they are going to present it uniquely so that they establish distinctiveness towards others will now depend on the business owners. Actually, I've seen an ad online in which they provided a electronic brand book examples, which was quite catchy cause that is the first time I ever saw a flip through ad online. As you can see, it'll always depend on how creative these businessmen are when it comes to marketing their own products or services.

Unknown said...

Even my cisco instructor said that web marketing helps them with the business to consumer part.

David Odell said...

Basic information that every Calgary web design company should take note of. It is also what clientele should look into when asking for their web sites to be designed.

Yolanda Parker said...

Most people understand it when one say online marketing. Some people think it's selling products on line. Quite surprising that with the information with the click of a hand, few peopled find this job difficult to understand.

Raphy Galvs said...

Web marketing is what most of the companies are doing right now. It's about using the online portals to help them in publicizing their products and services, in which could be seen by the public.

SEO Web Marketing for Attorneys said...
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Gaile Mannerheim said...

I think you can add one more point here: the point of concise, quick loading material. A lot of sites fail because they're too cluttered with online material, like a video panel, a contest app panel, or a slideshow, when modern systems can make them more compact and forgiving on load speeds.

Gary White said...

Web marketing has become a bit more complex now than six months ago. Nowadays, there is even greater emphasis on providing quality customer support through social media, in order to maintain interaction and to keep the web marketing venture relevant and alive.

Kevin Brown said...

Persuasiveness and trustworthiness are the two most important points I think that need to be on top of any online marketing campaign these days. You can't get a lot of customers for, say, a furniture business if you have a reputation of broken chairs and tables. You have to earn their trust.

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