e-Marketing Overview: What It Is, The Tools of the Trade, and Some Thoughts on Planning and Budgeting

By Kate McPherron

What is e-marketing, exactly? For starters, a web site is the key to e-marketing, the focal point of such tactics as the following:

• Search-engine marketing, including search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, and link development.
• E-mail marketing, including creative, distribution, measurement and list management. Note that renting a list is not a good way to go; it’s best to use your own customer list.
• Grassroots outreach, including monitoring, measuring and participating, (e.g., reputation management) through search. Consider that Starbucks still shows “I hate Starbucks” as the third list on a search—they’re not doing anything to drop that high rank/communicate positively.
• Web-site development, including design, content, navigation, functionality, code, and so on. Be sure your code is clean and standards-based so you can also be sure your site is always browsable.

What are some tools of the e-marketing trade? Consider the following “social media” tools:

• Podcasting. Popularized by Adam Curry of MTV, podcasting is encapsulated MP3 and video files that are distributed via RSS (real simple syndication). Podcasting is good for events such as investor-relations meetings or teleconference calls. If you are using it for marketing, consider who will create the content. Podcast is a download vs. streaming media, which requires users to stay connected. As of this writing there is still not much of a model for advertising in podcasts, as well as blogs and RSS. When content is good enough, advertising will come. As for metrics, streaming media is a better way to know whether users are finishing listening and/or viewing. With a podcast, you can know distribution numbers but not how many of your audience stayed for the entire podcast unless they subsequently take a certain action, such as visiting a web site.
• Wiki. Meaning “quick” in Hawaiian, Wiki is consumer- or community-generated web content. The best-known example is Wikipedia, which is like an encyclopedia, or dictionary, or source of popular content, written by everyone. Wiki can be used by companies internally to collaborate and solve problems online. It also can enable customers to co-create with a company, as in development.
• Newsgroups. The old way to blog, and in its oldest form, is a threaded forum or newsgroup. Google purchased dejanews, with its 30,000 niche communities of newsgroups. It’s one way to do free market research about your competitors, market or industry. Sometimes newsgroups make sense, but mostly they are overshadowed by blogs. You must handle them with great care if you want to use them commercially; consider again “I hate Starbucks”—which shows where PR folks wrote on newsgroups and got flamed out.
• Consumer reviews. These are good as a credible, third-party source on a site, and are often used in offline marketing. If you have reviews on your site, you will sell more than if you don’t. Consider, for example, Epinions.com.
• Threaded forums. Live wherever the topic is, threaded forums are more active than newsgroups. As with blogs, threaded forums must be transparent and authentic. Identify and monitor these forums.
• E-mail. E-mail is most effective when using a house list built organically. You can reach out to partners and offer incentives—such as a free digital camera—to sign up for e-mail. Give recipients what they want in content, and the “unsubscribe” rate should be under 1 percent. Ask directly what people want to receive, in terms of format (HTML or not, mail or e-mail) and content (clearance products? tips and tricks?). The first e-mail always has a high read rate. Frequency keeps company and topic top-of-mind; a salesperson can’t keep in touch as often as e-mails can be sent. When the customer is ready, they’ll convert. Note, that for non-HTML-enabled e-mail, you can track who gets the mail but you can’t track who opens it. A benchmark for a good open rate is about 25 to 35 percent, and for a click-through about 7 to 10 percent. Expect even more if the list is highly focused.
• Blogs. Once known as web logs, blogs are like an online diary. Blogs can be a powerful tool if used correctly, as in “Our spin on what’s going on in the ____ world.” You can have multiple blogs with multiple angles, if you can provide the content. Blogs provide high-level, detailed content, and require a long-term commitment to maintain. Blogs have one purpose, the web site has another, and e-mail news has yet another. As with podcasts , blogs can be subscribed to and distributed via RSS as XML. This makes them ideal for press releases, which are then picked up by search engines.
• SEM. Search-engine marketing (SEM) is achieved by optimizing content and code and developing link credibility, for increasing search-engine presence and managing your online reputation. Starbucks is doing this badly: note again that three of the top ten search results on the name are designed to drive customers away with negative associations and that Starbucks is not buying any sponsored links. They are doing nothing about it. Sponsored links are one way to control the message with spin control—you create the message that appears. Sponsored links also can generate leads and sales.
• Article syndication. Article syndication can be phenomenally effective, providing content for your own site, getting content placed elsewhere, and boosting the number of outside links back to your site. Lewis writes an article every month, for DM News. Some of his articles appear on the DM News web site, some in e-mail newsletters, and some in print. Articles generate business and partnerships by breaking down business barriers; that is, if they’ve read it, they already know. It’s important to create content that’s worthwhile. Syndicators such as ArticleCity and others can then pick up the article, giving articles further options for distribution.

How to plan and budget for an effective e-marketing campaign? Here are some essential pointers on planning:

• Assess all relevant internal information, for example, how web-savvy your customers are.
• Conduct the necessary discovery and market research.
• Set objectives, metrics and benchmarks—for example, your top 10 keywords, conversions and inbound link popularity—and prove your efforts are successful.
• Develop strategy and tactics.
• Map out resource requirements.
• Set timelines and budgets.
• Get started.
• Continuously test, monitor, analyze and retest. This approach enables you to start small and scale up your efforts, because you will have realtime feedback to determine what’s working and what’s not.

And finally, here are some common budget ranges for various e-marketing activities:

About the author
Kate McPherron, a technology evangelist, has helped technology and industrial firms to manage and market their products and services for the past 20 years. She can be reached at klm54@cornell.edu.