Online Marketing

Key Channels

Nicholas sums online marketing into four key areas: affiliate, content, email, and search marketing. “Affiliates are a major channel that a lot of businesses are using in their go-to-market online,” he explains. By aligning with affiliates who have the skills and resources to tap into new markets (particularly overseas), businesses can sometimes be better off paying them a commission to sell and market a product, than for the business to launch a complete online marketing strategy internally. “Often affiliates are in a better position to do that marketing at a lower cost than you can, because they’re specialists in a particular market,” adds Nicholas. But warns that you’ll need to choose your affiliates carefully.

“Content marketing is a way of using your content to draw attention to yourself, establish credibility and expertise and have people come to you,” he says, which is akin to Rom’s recommendation for getting quality content on your website.

Online publicity is an example of content marketing, but what you can do differently with an online publicity campaign than with a traditional media campaign is, rather than relying on a magazine editor to publish your press release you can issue an online press release and expect to be talking directly to your customers. “For example, by sending consumers a press release via email, I can talk directly to them, attract their attention and bring them to a landing page and establish a conversation with them. It might not convert them immediately, but you might be able to start a conversation, which is where email marketing becomes very powerful,” says Nicholas.

Content marketing can also involve adopting an online ‘publishing’ strategy involving social media environments. Blogging is a good example, and is something Geelen has found particularly beneficial for his business. “Blogging gives people an understanding of who we are because the blogs are our words and we’re talking about issues we’re dealing with. It enables people to get a feel for our personalities before they come in,” he explains. “We can see the blogs are being read as we can track that through analytics. So really, it’s bringing more attention to the website and it’s making it more dynamic, and we’re just providing more information.”

“Your strategy in this instance is you’re building presence for yourself online, not just trumpeting out a press release,” explains Nicholas.

Sending a direct marketing message via email can be quick and effective, but only if done correctly. Deciding who to send the message to is crucial, and while Nicholas says you can buy both Australian and international distribution lists, it’s much more effective to take a “rifle shot” approach and target your message to people who will actually be interested in your product or service.

Paula O’Connell, CEO of email marketing company Returnity, agrees: “It’s all about targeting. The value in the message is the relevancy, so you must target the individual with the relevant content.” Having a good customer relationship management system will help make this task a lot easier for you.

Email marketing shouldn’t be used as a standalone, stresses O’Connell, but the channel does have some advantages. “Email is far more accountable because you can actually do much more sophisticated tracking in email marketing, and obviously it’s quicker, so it’s much easier for you to test what’s working online.

“In traditional direct mail, it costs a lot to get a mail pack in the post, then test, get your results back, and then roll out another campaign. In email, it’s much more cost-effective and more time-efficient. And we recommend you test every component you possibly can.”

While email marketing is something businesses can do themselves, O’Connell says an email marketing service provider will have expertise on content, spam, and deliverability. A service provider will also have the technology to track your email campaign and be able to regularly report on the number of opened emails, through to the click-through rate, giving businesses a much more measurable return on investment.

You also need to be aware of the Spam Act, which restricts businesses to only communicate with individuals via email who have given them permission to do so, but there are some things businesses can do to boost the numbers on their distribution list without breaking the law. “Fun, interesting viral campaigns are probably the top tip,” advises O’Connell. “So to grow your database, and again it’s another reason why you’d outsource, you’d put functionality in the email, so they can recommend it to a friend in a spam-compliant environment.”