Introduction
If your business, organization, or association needs to reach people who use computers or mobile devices for shopping, browsing the Internet, or interacting with others, you need web marketing. And if you need web marketing, you need this book.
Here are some reasons why.
Successful web marketing requires you to place and maintain your messages on multiple Internet mediums because your prospects and customers use those same Internet mediums to help them look for products and services. You don’t have to be a technical expert to reap the rewards of web marketing, but you do need to understand how people behave when they fire up their Internet browser, e-mail program, or mobile device; that way, your marketing messages are always top-of-mind when customers are ready to make a purchase.
Because people search for products and services online, you need a web presence that can be found easily via search engines. People are more likely to do business with companies that stand out among the competition, so you need online advertising and pay per click (PPC) to attract interest.
The millions of folks who interact socially online act as an influence to others who share their interests and preferences. Thus, your marketing messages need to find their way to social media networks, blogs, podcasts, and viral communities. You need to be able to communicate with your prospects and customers when you have timely information, which means using effective e-mail marketing, really simple syndication (RSS), and mobile messaging.
To keep track of which marketing strategies get you closer to your goals, you need analytics and tracking. The rapid adoption of mobile devices with web capabilities means that your marketing messages need to be available to folks with a smartphone or tablet so they can find your offers anytime and almost anywhere.
The breadth of topics covered in this book, combined with easy-to-follow tips, make this book perfect for your business, organization, or association. Keep this book on a nearby bookshelf or on your desk so you can reference it often. That way, you can allow the combined experience of these five seasoned authors — all experts in their own niche of web marketing — to guide your plans and decisions to more successful outcomes.
About This Book
You’re busy. After all, you’re trying to market a business (or are just getting started), right? With that in mind, this book is for time- and value-conscious people who are in charge of marketing a small-to-medium–sized business, organization, or association. If that sounds like you, you’ve been using or exploring web-marketing tactics. And if you haven’t, you’re in the right place.
No matter what your level of experience, you’ll find this task-oriented reference book as your guide to the entire web-marketing process step by step. This book is also a great resource for you if you’re searching for a career in web marketing or a web marketing–related field.
What’s in This Book
This book is really eight minibooks, each covering a topic related to web marketing. Each minibook covers a topic in its entirety, so each is a concise — yet comprehensive — path to learn about the web marketing topics you need to know about.
The content in each minibook and each chapter stands alone, so you don’t have to read all the minibooks — or even all the chapters — in order. You can use this book like an entire series of books on the subject of web marketing. Scan through the table of contents to find a single topic to refresh your memory or to get a few ideas before beginning a task, or you can read an entire chapter or a series of chapters to gain understanding and gather ideas for executing one or more parts of an entire web-marketing campaign. When a topic is mentioned that isn’t covered in depth in that chapter, you’ll find a cross-reference to another minibook and chapter where you can find the details.
The following sections offer a quick overview of what each minibook contains.
Book I: Web Presence
The “Build it, and they will come!” days of the Internet are long gone. With literally billions of web pages online, according to Google, competition for customers online is fierce. Most successful business owners have turned to using multiple outlets to promote their products and services through the Internet. And many have outsourced teams of helpers to implement integrated, Internet marketing campaigns. How can you compete?
This minibook introduces you to the Internet marketing process of today: a step-by-step sequence to follow for using the Internet to its fullest potential for your business. Whether your business has reached a growth plateau or is just starting, simply locate where you are in the process and plug in!
Best of all, you don’t need to be a web designer or a programmer to put this section to immediate use for your business. Focus on understanding “the process” so you can find the right helpers to help establish — and explode — your online presence. This minibook shows you how.
Book II: Search Engine Optimization
Building a web site is pointless if no one can find it, and three-quarters of everything that happens on the Internet starts with a hit on a search engine. Big takeaway: Ignore search engines, and you might as well turn away three of every four customers who ask for help.
The good news? A high ranking in organic, unpaid search results can drive thousands or even tens of thousands of customers to your site. The bad news? You can’t bribe or buy your way to the top. You have to get there by building a site that’s attractive to search engines and customers alike.
And that’s the art of search engine optimization (SEO). Don’t get rattled by the term: SEO isn’t a black art. It’s nothing but a series of steps and little things you do to move up in the rankings. This minibook walks you through the steps, getting you started on your way up the search result rankings.
Book III: Web Analytics
Web marketing is unique: You can track the performance of every ad, page, and product; measure the return generated by your marketing efforts; and quickly adjust your site and advertising to get the best result.
To do all that, though, you need web analytics. This minibook starts with the general principles of traffic reporting and analytics — and the difference between the two. Then it demonstrates setting up traffic reporting and analyzing the data you collect.
Book IV: Online Advertising and Pay Per Click
Pay-per-click advertising can be a very complex — yet simple — medium to conquer. The concept itself is simple. You post an ad, someone clicks it, and you pay a fee for every time someone clicks. Where it gets complex is in the management of those ads, keywords, and budgeting. This minibook helps walk you through the most necessary concepts that you need to know to have a successful pay per click account.
Pay per click is a great way to get a spot for your website on the front page of search results and to get in front of people who are specifically looking for what you have to offer. If you’re working on organic search engine rankings but just aren’t there yet, pay per click is just one of the resources you should consider using for getting your message to an interested audience.
Book V: E-Mail Marketing
Every successful marketing strategy entails cutting through the clutter, and few places are more cluttered than the average consumer’s e-mail Inbox.
E-mail marketing represents an opportunity to experience both the thrill of increased customer loyalty and steady repeat business as well as the agony of bounced e-mail, unsubscribe requests, and spam complaints. Whether you find thrill or agony in your e-mail marketing strategy depends on your ability to effectively deliver valuable and purposeful e-mails to prospects and customers who need your information.
This minibook combines time-tested marketing strategies with consumer preferences and best practices to help you develop and deliver professional-looking e-mails that your prospects and customers look forward to receiving. Additionally, this minibook shows you how to turn your prospects into loyal customers who make more frequent purchases.
Book VI: Blogging and Podcasting
Everyone’s talking about blogging, to the point where it’s hard to know what’s truth and what’s myth. When you look past the hype, though, you can see that blogging is a powerful business tool.
Using a blog helps you reach new customers, connect with influencers, tell the story behind your product or service, and build your site’s SEO potential.
This minibook explains what blogs are and why they matter, how to set up a blog, principles for writing blog posts, and how to reach out to other bloggers to build traffic.
Book VII: Social Media Marketing
Social media is a buzzphrase that’s used to describe a wide array of conversational tools in use on the Internet, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+. These tools help web users connect, converse, and make better use of the resources they find online.
Social media is also a business opportunity. You can reach customers, find new audiences, and talk to existing ones in more ways than ever.
This minibook explains social media; separates truth from fiction; and then demonstrates specific business strategies for major social media outlets.
Book VIII: Mobile Marketing
The mobile phone is no longer simply a phone: It’s evolved into a smartphone with access to the web, newspapers, maps, a camera, radio content, video — and yes, it’s still a phone, too. Tablets, such as the iPad, are also breaking new ground for connecting consumers with your marketing.
In this minibook, you find the information you need to integrate mobile marketing successfully into your marketing plans. You find what mobile marketing is, the mobile marketing ecosystem, best practices, the myriad paths that make up the mobile channel, and a plethora of applications you can use to communicate, deliver, and exchange value with your audience. After you read this minibook, you’ll have a strong grasp of the practice of mobile marketing and will be ready to engage your audience.
Icons Used in This Book
The Tip icon marks tips (duh!) and shortcuts that you can use to make web marketing easier.
Remember icons mark the information that’s especially important to know. To siphon off the most important information in each chapter, just skim through the paragraphs marked with these icons.
The Technical Stuff icon marks information of a highly technical nature that you can normally skip.
The Warning icon tells you to watch out! It marks important information that may save you headaches.
Information highlighted with this icon points out how a technique or tool works in the real world. We might recount something from our experiences or share something we’ve seen or heard. Nothing speaks louder than history, so don’t skip these nuggets of web marketing in action.
Where to Go from Here
For even more web marketing information, check out this book’s cheat sheet at www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/webmarketingaio. We’ll occasionally have updates to this book as well, which you can find at www.dummies.com/go/webmarketingaioupdates.
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