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ROI management, conversion management – Get it Right Author: Juha Knecht Internet marketing: the key for online success If you have a website or an e-commerce store on the Internet, you need an Internet marketing plan to reach potential customers locally or around the world. It is important that you rank on major search engines such as Google as 70% of global search is conducted on Google alone with the remaining 15% on Yahoo, 10% on Bing and the rest on regional search engines. It is very important to spread you money when planning your Internet marketing campaign as the ROI on every dollar you spend is essential. As ROI management is not an easy task, it is advisable to hire a professional consultant for manage it. Typically for an online marketing campaign 20 % ROI is considered good but with careful planning and a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy you can achieve up to 200-500 % marketing ROI. Small to medium sized e-commerce stores spread their marketing plan between organic SEO and PPC, which is commonly referred to as Pay per Click. PPC gives immediate results in minutes of starting a campaign while organic SEO is slower. It is said that PPC is good for immediate results and organic SEO is your future. Normally companies start by allocating 50% resources to PPC and 50% to organic SEO, and in time you can ramp up your organic SEO budget. As one survey conducted by SES suggests, organic ranking gets the most clicks. It also depends on what product you are selling. If you have a fixed product, meaning fixed keywords, it’s wiser to invest in organic SEO than in PPC. Whereas if you have a product which changes often then PPC could be the logical answer. It’s worth investing in creating a brand name. Professional SEO & web marketing companies can do an Online business management and marketing audit for you, which allows you to gauge how your online marketing campaigns are performing. Based on the result, they can advise you to fine-tune your campaign and keywords to better your marketing ROI. Many companies tend to avoid SEO consultant expenditure, however the professionals know best how search engines change their algorithms, and additionally they can keep you up to date on new trends and techniques. Internet marketing picks up in 2011 When the Internet was invented in the early 1970’s, it was used to exchange information between researchers and scientists in universities. Mass commercial usage started in the early 1990’s in the US, at which time there were only a few

ROI management, conversion management – Get it Right

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If you have a website or an e-commerce store on the Internet, you need an Internet marketing plan to reach potential customers locally or around the world. It is important that you rank on major search engines such as Google as 70% of global search is conducted on Google alone with the remaining 15% on Yahoo, 10% on Bing and the rest on regional search engines.

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Page 1: ROI management, conversion management – Get it Right

ROI management, conversion management – Get it Right

Author: Juha Knecht

Internet marketing: the key for online success

If you have a website or an e-commerce store on the Internet, you need an Internet marketing plan to reach potential customers locally or around the world. It is important that you rank on major search engines such as Google as 70% of global search is conducted on Google alone with the remaining 15% on Yahoo, 10% on Bing and the rest on regional search engines.

It is very important to spread you money when planning your Internet marketing campaign as the ROI on every dollar you spend is essential. As ROI management is not an easy task, it is advisable to hire a professional consultant for manage it. Typically for an online marketing campaign 20 % ROI is considered good but with careful planning and a comprehensive Internet marketing strategy you can achieve up to 200-500 % marketing ROI.

Small to medium sized e-commerce stores spread their marketing plan between organic SEO and PPC, which is commonly referred to as Pay per Click. PPC gives immediate results in minutes of starting a campaign while organic SEO is slower. It is said that PPC is good for immediate results and organic SEO is your future. Normally companies start by allocating 50% resources to PPC and 50% to organic SEO, and in time you can ramp up your organic SEO budget. As one survey conducted by SES suggests, organic ranking gets the most clicks.

It also depends on what product you are selling. If you have a fixed product, meaning fixed keywords, it’s wiser to invest in organic SEO than in PPC. Whereas if you have a product which changes often then PPC could be the logical answer. It’s worth investing in creating a brand name.

Professional SEO & web marketing companies can do an Online business management and marketing audit for you, which allows you to gauge how your online marketing campaigns are performing. Based on the result, they can advise you to fine-tune your campaign and keywords to better your marketing ROI. Many companies tend to avoid SEO consultant expenditure, however the professionals know best how search engines change their algorithms, and additionally they can keep you up to date on new trends and techniques.

Internet marketing picks up in 2011

When the Internet was invented in the early 1970’s, it was used to exchange information between researchers and scientists in universities. Mass commercial usage started in the early 1990’s in the US, at which time there were only a few websites running. Most of the people didn’t know how it would change the way they do business. With Microsoft introducing Windows 98, desktop PCs became commonplace in offices and homes and sending emails was the most common usage as it was fast, making fax machines obsolete.

With e-commerce becoming increasingly popular, it has changed the way we do business. Online stores help us sell products worldwide. After the September 11th, 2001 attack people in the US became frightened to go out and do their holiday shoppings, so many of them bought gifts for their friends and loved ones on the Internet. Shopping online also helped to them save money as online stores pass part of the margin to customers due to their saving on running brick & mortar stores in different cities with all inventory & shipping being centralized.

Since 2005, there has been a steady increase in online shopping. Last year there was a 30% rise in online shopping with people buying a variety of products from shoes to electronics. Economists have noted that sales in walk-in stores have dropped while there is a considerable rise in online

Page 2: ROI management, conversion management – Get it Right

purchases. It looks like the power of the Internet has taken over conventional business practices.

Selling online requires companies to have their website found by search engines, as people search with search engines for what they want to buy. After scanning the few top result pages, people normally decide where to buy from. The key thing is for your website to rank on the first few pages of a search engine to be visible and get more traffic. Typical order conversion rates are 4-7% of your website traffic. It is advisable to hire an Internet marketing company to help you with ROI management & traffic conversion management. They can also help you to identify website related problems as well as programming problems.

Seeing this tremendous growth, one can predict that in the next few decades buying from walk-in stores would be less often, which will allow people to save time that can be used for leisure.

How important is it for small businesses to be found on search engines?

Advertising has changed with the invention of the Internet. Earlier, print media was the most popular way to reach people in any specific geographic area after which came the radio and television. All had been explored by big corporations to increase brand presence worldwide. Advertising on the television is an expensive affair and earlier advertising results were difficult to scale.

Now with the Internet and the use of personal computers and mobile phones, marketing has gone digital and has taken a new shape. You can reach your audience in a few minutes after kicking off your online marketing campaign. The good news is that even with a budget of €100 a month you can create an online presence. It is very important for small businesses to have a basic website which helps them to be found by search engines. People search the Internet for the nearest pizza place or hairdresser. As an example, imagine I am new to Helsinki and am looking to find an agency that can help me find an affordable apartment to rent. The first bet for me would be to search the Internet and call the companies I find to see if they can help me. There are several hundred real estate companies in Helsinki who can help me, but I will call the first few companies that I can find through my online search.

Companies not listed on search engines would lose a potential opportunity or new customer. In today’s competitive world you cannot afford to lose new customers. Google, Yahoo & Bing are major search engines which people use. As Google tops the list in Finland, it is said that if you are not found on Google, something is wrong with your business.

To be found by a search engine you need a good informative website and a SEO company that can help your website be indexed & ranked by the search engine. If you have a €50 000 budget each month, it is important you consult a SEO company who can help you identify which to spend more on, PPC or organic search. C onversion management is important as your money should not only generate traffic but also convert that traffic into customers as well. ROI management helps you identify how an online campaign is doing so you can forecast each quarter of sales in advance.

Several marketing managers are not equipped with digital marketing knowledge and don’t have any expenditure on online marketing. It is not a bad time to start looking into how you can get more potential customers on the Internet.