Five Steps to Effective E-Marketing
Adopting the right e-marketing strategy can help a company remain competitive. E-marketing is communicating to customers - whether individuals or other businesses - to encourage a specific behavior, such as using your services or products.
The Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants, whose members work closely with businesses on technology and related issues, outlines five key steps to effective e-marketing.
1. Know Your Business Objectives
The first step in developing an e-marketing plan is outlining your objectives. Consider your current business goals and assess the effectiveness of traditional marketing to meet those objectives. You’ll need to determine whether you want to adopt new marketing objectives — such as targeting a different market segment or promoting a new product line. Then consider how the Internet can help you achieve those objectives. The point is, whether you want to build or expand a Web site, provide electronic news or online services, e-marketing activities should be related to your core business competencies and measured accordingly.
2. Know Your Customer
Using the Internet as a key component of your marketing plan requires that you understand customers’ and potential customers’ needs and interests. How can you use the Internet to strengthen your relationships with current customers and attract new ones? Perhaps it’s by providing specific information online, keeping customers up-to-date on news in their industry, or offering online demos of specific products.
Conducting or purchasing research that provides insight into your target market’s Internet habits can help you to develop a more effective e-marketing plan. Determining how frequently they make purchases on the Internet, what they purchase, and why they do so will enable you to identify potentially profitable customer segments and tailor your message accordingly.
3. Aim for Consistency
When marketing over the Internet, it’s important to relay messages that are consistent with print efforts. If you have worked hard to establish a brand identity, the last thing you want is to undermine it. Be sure the messages you deliver over the Internet are consistent with your overall positioning. Also, if you choose to offer special programs or discounts over the Internet, be sure to tie these in with your company’s traditional product line.
4. Find the Right Partners
Partnering with the right businesses can also boost your e-marketing efforts. For example, businesses with complementary products can be well served by setting up “affiliate” programs. A typical affiliate of Web retailers might consist of one or two noncompetitive retail leaders who can bring brand-name credibility and trust to the smaller, less well-known specialty store. The objective of affiliate programs is to keep customers moving — and shopping — within a community of affiliated businesses.
Affiliate marketing is not limited to retail merchants. If you are a professional who provides public relations and marketing support, you may want to affiliate with an IT consulting firm that offers IT support to implement new marketing initiatives. Putting links on each other’s Web sites may help to drive potential customers to both of you.
Another option to consider is becoming part of an e-commerce network. Such networks typically link news, resources, and suppliers within a specific market or industry niche. Typically, for an annual fee, your company may be incorporated as a link or storefront within a broad-based commerce center. Thus people, who are researching an issue, or information about a particular product or service in your industry, may find a link to your Web site and learn about your business.
5. Develop the Right Infrastructure
When using the Internet to market your business, CPAs say it’s vital to have the right infrastructure in place to support increased customer inquiries and orders. If you are generating online interest in your products or services, you’ll want to ensure that customers receive quick responses through e-mail or phone calls and that you can support effective delivery.
You seek the expertise of CPAs at tax and audit time, of course. But CPAs also promote personal and professional financial security year round. Visit the MACPA Web site at www.michcpa.org to search for a CPA in your geographical area or specific area of expertise.
This article was submitted by the Michigan Association of CPAs
