What will you do to improve your online marketing performance in 2008? There are so many options, challenges with agency selection plus a moving target when it comes to knowledge/expertise. Without previous campaign performance statistics, it can be a real challenge deciding where to allocate marketing dollars for the web when you’re looking at expanding into new areas of promotion.
Whether your success metrics are branding, traffic, lead generation or sales, the right strategy and mix of tactics can make or break a business that relies on internet channels. What ARE the best upcoming channels? We’d like to know your opinion in this week’s Reader Poll:
What online marketing channels/tactics will you use most in 2008?
- Blogging (29%, 55 Votes)
- Email marketing (16%, 30 Votes)
- Search engine optimization (12%, 23 Votes)
- Pay per click (8%, 16 Votes)
- Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn) (5%, 10 Votes)
- Affiliate marketing (4%, 7 Votes)
- Blogger relations (3%, 6 Votes)
- Viral marketing (3%, 6 Votes)
- Free content (white papers) (3%, 5 Votes)
- Online public relations (3%, 5 Votes)
- Corporate web site (3%, 5 Votes)
- Behavioral targeting (2%, 3 Votes)
- Video marketing (2%, 3 Votes)
- Webinars/Teleconference (2%, 3 Votes)
- User generated content (1%, 2 Votes)
- Social News / Bookmarking (1%, 2 Votes)
- Contextual Advertising (1%, 1 Votes)
- Online communities/forums (1%, 1 Votes)
- Blog advertising (1%, 1 Votes)
- Paid reviews (1%, 1 Votes)
- Online contests, giveaways (1%, 1 Votes)
- IM / Microblogging (Twitter) (1%, 1 Votes)
- Online display ads (1%, 1 Votes)
- Branded microsites (1%, 1 Votes)
- Mobile ads (1%, 1 Votes)
- Widgets (1%, 1 Votes)
- Virtual tradeshows (1%, 1 Votes)
- Virtual worlds (0%, 0 Votes)
- Rich media avatars (0%, 0 Votes)
- Sponsorship / Cross Branding (0%, 0 Votes)
- RSS advertising (0%, 0 Votes)
- eCommerce Feeds/Comparison Shopping (0%, 0 Votes)
- Rich media apps/demos (Flash) (0%, 0 Votes)
- Podcasts (0%, 0 Votes)
- Advergames (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 192
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Blogging is the best way of online marketing for me
Blogging sets the stage for several of these other approaches.
Wow, tough list! How do you choose one??
This was very hard to choose just one, can we do top 5? I will pass on the poll…
Great list!
It would be great to see these options ranked by relative cost ($ $$ $$$ $$$$$ etc…) and or effort.
Keren
I would have liked to have been able to make multiple choices.
Tough list, i think blogging and article writing provides an excellent marking strategy. The content of blogs and article authors is important, no one wants to read rubbish.
Nick
Hi Lee,
I think the important question for 2008 is not so much what tactics you are going to use but who you are going to go after. Then once you identify your audience you can decide on the tactics.
[sigs are not welcome but your comment is!]
Lee,
I agree, blogging is the top tactic. Lots of the rest are tactics that support your blogging efforts, such as video, podcasts, social sites, widgets, user-generated content etc.
Like any Marketing tactic, you gotta back it with sound marketing strategy and focus.
Walt
So what would be proposed as a good marketing tactic for an e-commerce site, like whatsshopping.com, or buy.com?
Blogging is tops. SEO seems to happen naturally for a good blogger, and blogging builds much better social credibility than most of the other tactics combined.
The fact that articles and bloggin go hand in hand keeping fresh quality content is a must.
Mark, I would certainly recommend at least one blog for an ecommerce or shopping site. It can serve as a platform for many of the other online marketing tactics listed in the survey above.
Fresh content!
Has to be blogging. It just makes SEO so much easier. Once you have a blog set-up, a lot of SEO is taken care off, and all you have to worry about is producing good content and some external links. Plus, it lets clients take care of their own websites
What? No love for Multivariate Testing? This should be on almost everyone’s list.
I just started advertising and bloging recently and I have to say it is not as easy as it looks. I sure am glad I found Average Joe Marketer. Check it out at http://www.hanleyshop.com
Blogging but so much more… You’re right about “moving target.”
Email marketing and UGC are top in our plans. SEO is key, since we have a PR5 site with multiple top 10 keywords, and we want to stop marketing that domain. Once we launch our new site, SEO will take a lot of focus as we try to gain history and trust of the new site. That takes us back go blogging to escalate the process. News Releases will also be a focus upon launch.
We’re interested in blog advertising and relations with other bloggers (non-paid). Are there any case studies about the perception of blog advertising and if these people are being “paid” to say something nice about you?
I voted for blogging. I’ve come a long way with how I see blogs and blogging today from two years ago when my sister first told me to start doing it.
I’m seeing a friend of mine get tremendous results in her business just by blogging and nothing else. As some of the other commenters have said, blogging and SEO seem to go hand in hand. Guess my old sis was right! 🙂
In fact, one of the guys I follow quite a bit, James Brausch, maintains that if you don’t have a blog, you’re not serious about your business.
Blogging is definetly my top marketing activity but you have to write content which will inform, interest and/or entertain readers while building brand awareness and loyalty and increasing sales for your business. Readers need to perceive benefits from your blog, they’re not going to spend time on blatant sales blurb. You need a financial return on the time spent writing and publicising your blog. Aim to achieve the balance of satisfying readers desires and wants and reaching and capturing customers for your product or service to realise the full potential of your business blog.
Great contest…
I prefer to blogging, because this is more or less works like a web site. Even we can earn money from blogs.
Thanks,
Uday
I went down the list and started checking “all” the things I planned to use in 2008. To find out, woops, it’s a one question survey! After voting I really agree with the top 3: blogging, email, and seo. PPC is great too.
One avenue I get in to a lot with one of my sites is Sponsorship and Cross Promotion: I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to take care of a few big sponsors than hundreds of little deals that don’t pan out.
Of course its a real tough list to choose from! But my vote is for Blogging! A successful Blog(like this one ) can virtually dictate many other factors on the list! It goes without saying the content needs to be interesting and perspicacious.If I m allowed another vote it would be to SEO..that’s really important when one is launching a new web site/product. All in all the list provides enough thought to mull about the e-trends for 2008!
did this list miss web analytics?
Hi Karen, while critically important, web analytics is not a marketing tactic in the same context as the the items in the survey. Analytics is not a vehicle for communicating directly with potential customers.