The five web marketing laws

"The Five Web Marketing Laws" might be still mutable, growing and changing but at present, they are perfect for us.

Contents:

The Web Marketing Laws

1. The Law of the Dead End Street

A. Setting up the Marketing Plan

B. A Content Really Compelling

2. The Law of Giving and Selling

A. Free Quality Stuff

B. A Case Study

3. The Law of Trust

A. Building the Brand Name

4. The Law of Pull and Push

A. How to Get Visitor's e-Mail Address

5. The Law of the Niche

A. The Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

B. A Case Study: Adrenalyn's USP

Five Web Marketing Laws

1. The Law of the Dead-End Street

2. The Law of Giving and Selling

3. The Law of Trust

4. The Law of Pull and Push

5. The Law of the Niche

1. The Law of the Dead End Street

Did you build your company's site without the least thought to a viable marketing plan? It sounds like building a storefront on a dead-end street. If you want any shoppers, you must give them a reason to come. So, before you build your company's site, set up your marketing plan and

A. Setting up a Marketing Plan

Your Marketing Plan might look like this.

1. AD on Yellow Pages Online (including Look Listings, Look Smart)

2. Banner ads for two months to boost Brand Recognition.

3. Search engine positioning on GoEureka, HotBot, Netscape, AOL Search, Google in the first quarter, to include Infoseek, Lycos and AltaVista in the second quarter.

4. Start collecting e-mail addresses (insert a form)

5. Reciprocal links with our industry organization and a paid listing in their directory.

6. A newsworthy contest in the third quarter, for which we'll try to get full media coverage through press releases and calls from a PR agency

7. A company newsletter that carries industry news rather than just company drivel, to begin in the fourth quarter (insert another form)

8. A lot of "Free Stuff" in the company website in order to collect heaps of e-mail address and make your site newsworthy.

Then

a. Decide which of these activities to carry out in-house and which to outsource,

b. Attach a dollar value to each, and provide for them in your marketing budget.

B. Content Really Compelling

What compelling content can you put on your site that will make someone bookmark and return? For instance, if you offer a public service, you suddenly become newsworthy. Trade journals and magazines begin to mention you, and traffic follows. Give visitors a reason to come, and they will.

Also, an excellent content is primary when you ask for a reciprocal link. You can say " Link to us because we provide the right Valentine 's Day Gift Baskets", because we are linked to other 200 sites, because we spend $450/month for yellow pages and other $200/month for a good ranking position in 8 different search engines.

For more exhaustive information about copywriting a good body text see: Body Taxt Area Optimisation

2. The Law of Giving and Selling

A. Free Quality Stuff

An important element of web culture is "Free Quality Stuff." The Law of Giving and Selling says: attract visitors to your site by giving away something free, and then try to sell something additional to those who visit.

B. Case Study: Adrenalyn Web Marketing

When we launched our web marketing site we considered a goal of attracting most of the business in the Sydney area (Australia) and some around the state. Our most likely customers were identified in small to medium size businesses. All willing to know how to market their business on the web, we reckoned.

Then we identified the free stuff in about 50 articles and books links, all regarding web marketing and web design. "Some of those articles are linked to major sites and might bring visitors", we reasoned. We looked for an industry organisation that could accept reciprocal links and a paid listing in their directory, and some big charity organisation site with a name very well known. Last but not least, we built the email list and we put a simple form in the home page in order to get more subscribers for our biweekly free newsletter.

Therefore, here's the simple strategy:

1. Attract people to your site by giving away lots of free information.

2. Let people know about your products and services.

Learn this rhythm of giving something away, and selling something. The strategy works. But to sell, you need to master a third law.

3. The Law of Trust

A. Building the Brand Name

Assuming your products or services are priced competitively and are of good quality, your most significant sales barrier is trust. Trust is the essential lubricant of web business; without trust, business grinds to a halt.

If you're a small business and you can't afford an expensive advertising campaign, you can build trust by means of your website in multiple ways.

1. Anchor your business in time and space by giving a full address and phone number

2. Show photos of the premises, of yourself and your staff

3. Sell well-known brand name products

4. Display clear shipping and return policies

5. Join nationally-respected organizations

6. Offer guarantees

7. You build trust with a customer-friendly navigation system and intuitive interface,

8. And an SSL secure server for credit card transactions (e-commerce).

9. You gain credibility by having a professionally designed site, rather than something your teenage son cooked up on the weekends.

Once you've established trust, sales result. You also build trust by repeated contact with your visitors. We describe this in a fourth law.

4. The Law of Pull and Push

The Fourth Law of Web Marketing is: pull people to your site by your attractive content, and then push quality information to them regularly via e-mail. An e-mail delivers a refreshing cask of information, and an invitation to return to your website to see the newest thing you have to offer.

Most businesses can't survive on one-time sales only. The cost of customer acquisition is too high for just a single sale. They need to draw satisfied customers back again and again for repeat sales. The Law of Pull and Push accomplishes this vital task.

Getting an invitation to send e-mail to your visitors is a key point of this strategy. Include a form that will collect their e-mail address.

A. How to Obtain Visitor's e-mail Address

To convince your visitor to give you his e-mail address, however, you need to promise two things:

1. that you'll e-mail him something of value

2. that you won't sell or rent his address to another company

This gives you a precise idea of the need for a clear privacy policy. But once the visitor has given you permission to e-mail additional information, you have wonderful marketing leverage.

Look at this article of Ralf F. Wilson ("How to Develop an E-Mail Newsletter" http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/newsletter.htm). In particular he wrote:

"Beware. It takes real commitment and self-discipline to send out the newsletter regularly. But a regular newsletter will give a tremendous boost to your business, and will build your trust level with customers as well as bring them back to your site again and again. All of a sudden your company has top-of-mind position. Do this month after month and your brand recognition will grow. If you're not a writer, you can send out monthly specials, or news blurbs you garner (with permission) from other sites. Whatever you do, do it with excellence. Anything less than that will cause your business to lose the confidence you've already gained."

5. The Law of the Niche

Let me state it this way: small businesses succeed by finding niches that are either unfilled or only partially filled, and filling them with excellence.

For example, Sialon Ceramics Pty Ltd saw an unfilled niche in selling gas sensors that allow continuous monitoring of gases responsible for pollution. Instead of trying to bite off more than they could chew (by selling the whole range of chemical sensors equipment for all purposes) they looked for a single slice of the market.

And they now want succeed with another niche product: a surface sensitive equipment to be used for investigation of materials at elevated temperatures.Well, such a proposition must be clearly stated in a sentence or two of your Business Plan, and defined in the so called USP.

A. Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

This is the key of savvy niche marketing. It defines what makes your business unique from every other competitor in your field. It spells out the precise niche you seek to fill, and how you aim to fill it.

B. A Case Study: Adrenalyn's USP

What's the well-thought-out concept (our USP) for this Web Marketing Site? We provide an excellent step by step customer service by setting up a powerful Search Engine Optimization and by building a consistent Link Popularity. We also set up your Pay Per Performance marketing by choosing carefully the best keywords for your business and we check the statistical and economic response for every customer to the solicitation of the market.

Every service would be carefully customized according to all different parameters involved, and a free information centre with every available information, article and book about our discipline will be built up. We will offer a link to Web Marketing books, articles, and in a second stage, we'll host an e-mail discussion list (Web Marketing Forum). Price for standard services and defined clientele will be clearly shown.

If you spell out your precise USP with real excellence, the chances are good that you could carve out a profitable business. With a USP you can succeed.

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