Growing up I have always loved Kung Fu movies. When Bruce Lee came onto the scene with insurmountable odds, he always leveled the playing field with his Kung Fu. Kung Fu takes strategy, longevity, and precision if one is to prevail.
All too often, we see companies with either partial or no strategy when it comes to the online marketing of their business. In this article I will unwrap what it takes to go from a grasshopper to the Kung Fu Master of Online Marketing and reach your online “Zen.”
White Belt – Research
First rule of the Art of War: “Know thy enemy” and research is where it all starts. We begin our research with a market demand analysis. After interviewing clients to gain a better understanding of what their business is and the goals they are trying to accomplish, we look to research what key words or phrases are the most relevant as well as what a client’s competition is doing. After a thorough analysis, we meet with the client to discuss a more comprehensive strategy.
Yellow Belt – Website Design
Harvard conducted a study concerning online consumer behavior. The study concluded that consumers infer a product’s quality based upon the perceived image of the business’s website. (e.g. if the site is difficult to navigate or confusing, a consumer can infer that the company is difficult to work with).
Website design is more than cool looking graphics and fancy features. A Website should be designed with a conversion path and goal in mind. Each element of the site (color, layout, content, etc) needs to be carefully thought-out so it won’t defeat the purpose of the site.
Brown Belt – Search Marketing
Search Marketing can be defined as the strategy to drive traffic to your newly designed Website. Since every business has different customers, this will vary from client to client.
You can choose to pay for visitors to come to your site (PPC) on Google and other Search Engines. You can also choose to optimize your site for long-term growth through search engine optimization (SEO) . Or you can implement a local search strategy if your clients only come from (or you only serve) a local area. Sixty three percent (63%) of all searches are deemed local intent.
In any case, your strategy will need to be measured for performance and continuously optimized to get the most profit in the shortest amount of time.
Black Belt – Testing and Optimization
You are a Master of your online marketing when you continuously test and optimize . Between the internet and consumer preferences, testing and optimization should never stop. Remember going to the eye doctor? In order to find the lens that will give you immediate optimal vision, you have to go through a seemingly endless supply of lenses.
Testing each component of a strategy is the only way to dominate your online marketing presence and that includes everything from PPC ads to website layout to the number of fields you use on a “Contact Us” form.
Continual optimization has been known to lead to dramatic increases in ROI.
Master These Belts for Online Success
These levels represent the four main components of a successful online marketing strategy. To reach your online “Zen” you must master all of the levels. Whether you seek to become a master at marketing your online business at the black belt level or want to search for more enlightenment, Xcellimark can guide you through all or some of the levels of Internet Marketing Kung Fu.