Online Marketing – toolbox of approaches

I thought it might be useful to try and gather together a ‘toolbox’ of online marketing approaches and techniques. As we know, online marketing typically doesn’t exist in isolation and what’s actually right for you will depend on your business and requirements. Nonetheless, such a list might help marketers relatively new to the medium see what’s out there.

Below are some initial suggestions broken into 3 basic categories:
1. Acquisition – getting the right people to your site
2. Conversion – getting them to do what you want them to (register, subscriber, buy etc.)
3. Retention – getting them to come back, stay loyal, spend more etc.

Please make your own suggestions in reply to this post and I can update the master list.

1. ACQUISITION

1.1 Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – including Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to get higher ‘organic’, free, search result rankings as well as paid-for links (Pay-per-click ‘PPC’) and trusted feeds

1.2 Affiliate Marketing – third party sites link to you and you pay a commission on resulting conversions. Could also include aggregators and shopping comparison sites (e.g. Kelkoo)

1.3. E-mail Marketing – e-mails to opt-in list or advertising in other sites’ newsletters. Also includes free newsletters you might offer to acquire new users, co-registration agreements with other sites, ‘e-courses’ you might offer by e-mail.

1.4 Online Advertising – everything from text ads in newsletters, through sponsorships, microsites, banner ads, rich media etc.

1.5 Viral Marketing – users spread your message for you to help you acquire new customers, usually by passing on an e-mail.

1.6 Online PR – everything from online press release distribution to building a presence in a relevant online community i.e. getting talked about and noticed to drive acquisition.

1.7 Content Feeds - where you get your content / products / services featured on other sites, typically as part of an automated content feed. For example, feeds to news aggregators like Moreover, Google News, Newsnow

2. CONVERSION

2.1 User Experience and Usability – improving the navigation, buying processes, search, product imagery and so on to increase conversions. Usability testing is a common approach to finding out why users may not be converting as efficiently as you’d like.

2.2. Web Analytics – Analysing the data generating by users interacting with your site to improve its commercial performance. Web Analytics can tell you what is happening on your site in order for you to improve conversions (among other things).

2.3 Real Time Optimisation – You dynamically serve the content which you know drives most conversions. This may vary by time of day, product/service offered, customer segment etc. Not necessarily the same as personalisation although there is overlap. Real Time Optimisation also requires analytics to work.

2.4 Merchandising / Offers / Promotions etc. – this could also include more automated pricing and offer techniques such as the use of shopping bots to offer the best deal to drive conversions.

2.5 Personalisation – matching your content/product/service to a user (or user segment) in order to increase the relevance of your proposition and drive higher conversion rates.

2.6 E-mail Marketing – using e-mail to increase conversions. Could be newsletters, tips, special offers, promotions etc.

2.7 Customer Service – interacting with customers to drive conversions e.g. though real time chat, knowledge bases, telephone support etc.

3. RETENTION

3.1 E-mail Marketing – using e-mail to maintain a dialogue and relationship with customers in order to encourage repeat business

3.2 Customer Service – offering special premium online services to customers to maintain competitive advantage and retain customers (e.g. special tracking or delivery services, faster servicing, more choice, personalised offerings, online account management etc.)

3.3 Loyalty rewards – As part of a broader CRM (Customer Relationship Management) strategy, this might include special rewards for your most valuable customers e.g. preferential rates, discounted re-purchase or renewals offers, bespoke services etc.

I’m sure that there are plenty that are missing in the above so do please let us know!

Ashley