The Role of the Web in Business Marketing Strategy

Introduction

The rapid advance in web technology challenges business managers to stay current, but most recognize that the internet is a critical element of marketing strategy. There is an overwhelming service offering within the three broad marketing categories of internet technology: websites, search engine optimization and social media. Poor understanding of web technology and difficulty selecting internet marketing strategies appropriate for the specific business objective, lead to mediocre return on investment and lost opportunity for revenue growth.

The Website

What are the critical elements of your corporate website? In many cases, the website is outdated and ineffective. Websites developed several years ago offered basic information, typically to existing customers or prospects familiar with the business. Today, prospective buyers utilize the internet as a primary method of researching the purchase decision. To quantify the critical elements of today’s website, a survey of 200 purchasing managers was conducted*. The goal was to rank the importance of website elements. The most important website elements, starting with the most important, were found to be: Service Description, Industries Served, Success Stories/Case Studies and Professional Web Site Design and Layout.

Search Engine Optimization

In the mid 1990s companies began developing website content with the purpose of being found by internet users. Since then, search engines began offering Pay Per Click (PPC) services, allowing business to buy key words and phrases commonly being searched by prospective customers. Although, PPC is still a proven method of driving web traffic, search engine optimization is increasingly more important. By creating content that your prospective customers want to read, you provide a valued service and drive traffic to your website free of charge.

Social Media

The least understood aspect of internet marketing strategy is social media. Even so, market research** indicates that since 2009 small businesses have started participating in social media, 65% have Facebook accounts, 64% have Twitter accounts and 19% have Wordpress (blogging platform) accounts. Facebook accounts are commonly set up incorrectly, causing the account to be deleted by Facebook. By following the required standards, companies can build a community of loyal customers and potentially tap into the Facebook user base, which numbers over 500 million. Blogs can draw web traffic to your company without paying search engines, such as Google, for clicks. Publishing content on the web is easier than ever before, as blogging platforms are free and easy to use. Twitter offers an easy way to monitor conversations about your company or issues you care about. In the same way, your company can send out 140 character messages that are relevant to your prospective customers.

Conclusion

Internet marketing offers significant opportunity to grow revenues. Although, appropriate technical resources should be hired to develop internet marketing campaigns, senior management involvement is critical. Effectively developing each category of internet marketing strategy requires: fundamental understanding of the business, an ear for stories and experiences that resonate with your customers and people skills to assemble a team that can effectively manage such a complex undertaking. Staying informed about changes in the dynamic area of internet marketing is critical. If senior management can’t do it, ensure that some responsible party is closely monitoring the company’s internet marketing, to recommend changes and identify better practices.

Social Media Advice for Executives

You're busy. You know there's something big happening in Social Media, but you wonder: Is Social Media for You? At the end of this blog, you will have current info. Then, I will leave you with two simple questions that will help you make this decision.

Overview

First, I want to bust common myths surrounding social media. Then, I will briefly describe the relationship social media growth has to a revolutionary management technique, which top-performing, world-class corporations across the globe have recently solidified into a sustainable competitive advantage; namely, that of Data Analytics (in a nutshell, data analytics relies on data to drive decision making, rather than intuition).


The Worst Case Scenario

The CEO of Best Buy was notified via panicked phone call at 4 AM that some 5,000 of his Twitter followers had received a strange tweet from his profile: “I’VE BEEN HAVING A LOT OF GREAT SEX LATELY, AND HERE’S WHY.” Read about Best Buy's response.


Is it Worth the Pain?

Obviously, the thought of this sort of "nightmare scenario" alone, could discourage business executives from participating in the social media realm (by the way, security breaches are an anomaly). Additional negative perceptions regarding social media include: consumption of valuable time, inevitable clash with corporate culture, difficulty with identification of desired outcome or the simple mindset that "it's all a fad". I want to impress the contrary upon you, that in fact, social media is customizable to your needs, highly-relevant to being informed, and even critical to long-term business success.


Who am I to Say?

I am particularly qualified to comment on this topic because I am both a professional in the banking industry, and a close affiliate of industry leaders in social media/marketing/web, I am increasingly familiar with people in their 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's effectively harnessing the power of social media to drive various business initiatives (e.g. sales leads, networking, market insight and hiring).


When Will Social Media Stop Changing Overnight?

The concept of social media itself is dynamic. Consider the absurd case of early internet pioneer Josh Harris, who used his new-found wealth to film every aspect of his daily life (for some reason this visionary executive thought society at large was soon to follow, missing the mark to put it lightly). Even in broader society today, the use of Facebook is going through a maturation stage. People don't use the ubiquitous social platform in the same way they did a couple years ago. For example, you don't accept everybody as a friend; or, you may be increasingly sharing more or less info online. This advice applies to everybody, especially corporate executives: Start slow, share information at a level YOU are comfortable with. It almost need not be said, but remember internet publications are virtually permanent.


Where are Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In (and the others) leading us?

This is a broad question; however, I am singularly focused on this context: The data relevant to driving your business initiative. In 2009, humans created (e.g. publishing social media) more data than in all of previous history combined. In the universe parallel to social media growth are management analysts at top-performing Fortune 500 companies refining enterprise scale information systems to allow data, rather than intuition, to prescribe future actions. The spectrum (from right to left) I need you to visualize is based on the amount of data available and the sophistication of the business need:

Far left - Example 1: A wedding planner looking for sales leads (on the left of the spectrum).

In the middle - Example 2: A middle-market business manager aggregating sales leads from a variety of channels to determine which marketing efforts are a waste of money and which are producing return on investment.

Far right - Example 3: A world-class, international corporation implements a work-in-process database to rigorously determine how the work production of individual employees affects each client, measured based on rates of: Sale conversion, Satisfaction with the value proposition and Retention.

Somewhere on this spectrum is your executive responsibility/business need. Social Media has relevance to examples #1 and #2, while example #3 describes a proprietary enterprise scale information system (beyond the scope of this topic). In the short-term, I recommend basic participation in social media. In the mid-term, you will need to understand your company's data strategy, with respect to your departmental responsibility.


Is Social Media for You?

#1 Is it important that you be the first to know when changes affect your industry or affect your customers, so that you can stay ahead of competition?

#2 Do you have any useful info for others in your industry or for your customers, which will foster a deeper relationship?

Perhaps, you're already convinced that Social Media is a growing force; if so, the next logical consideration is: Who's responsible? If anybody in the organization should be tuned in, it's executive level decision makers. To ignore this societal trend, would be akin to Henry Ford ignoring the advent of the Second Industrial Revolution and delegating "production" to junior management!

If you answered yes to either of question #1 or #2 above, social media will be a powerful venue to accomplish these objectives. I propose you start by following me on Twitter. Need more info on Twitter? Link to Jeremiah's article (he's an expert on disruptive technology this is timeless advice on Twitter for professionals.) Follow my blogs and my tweets; I will do my best to send you timely, concise industry updates that affect business managers -Thanks for reading!

Make Strategy the Driver, not the Unused Map Under the Seat

Did you make a New Year's resolution? Okay - enough on personal embetterment (to borrow a phrase coined by the recent ex-pres). What does your company need to change? If no change is needed, you and your generals must already rule the universe, I suggest you focus on Meditation.

Assuming self actualization is less important (at this moment) than business success, read on... The following is technique proven to yield successful execution of business strategy.

Let's assume you've developed a great strategy (no small feat - its what you're doing and why). Let's further assume your employees then didn't accomplish their respective responsibilities, thus resulting in failed strategic execution. Sounds typical. And frustrating. Not to mention expensive and unacceptable due to lost opportunity.

1- State Your Mission

Mission is a loosely-used term. Don't confuse this with your "Mission Statement" (typically a lengthy, un-utilized collection of words). Instead, define a mission (or intent) for your employees to accomplish that will make YOU (assuming you are the business owner/CEO) happy. As an example, perhaps 20% sales growth would be exciting.

2 -Re-State Your Mission

Context is critical. Think of this step as an executive-level exercise in remembering why your company exists (hint: customers). You may need to refine your Mission upon further consideration of the context. If the identified mission is important, it has to be in sync with the company's ultimate purpose. Another way of putting it, is this, "Our customers will accept a 20% price increase because we offer world class service" (see how the company's ultimate purpose dictates all missions). CAUTION - Missions should flow upward and support higher level objectives, as opposed to shaping higher level objectives. That's not to say top level missions can't change but it should be done with intention.

3 - Define Performance Metrics

How will your employees know they've been successful? Their input is important here. If they understand their mission (i.e. what they will do) and why its important (how it will support the executive level mission) the organization is aligned for success.

4 - Define Tactics

Convert your strategy (executive level plan) into tactics (employee level plan). Specific responsibilities are parceled out. Failure to accomplish the broad strategy will be directly traceable to unattained performance metrics, which in turn will point to ineffective tactics of those front line employees (who are highly engaged with critical operations or customers).

5 - Set limits and boundaries and debrief

Your employees will set their own boundaries if you don't ("Gee, I think I will start leaving work at 5 as long as I get here by 7"); employees may set loose or restrictive boundaries on themselves with the worst case being that said boundaries are not focused on accomplishment of their missions. By setting initial boundaries and occasionally holding a debrief session to gain better business insight, your strategy has a dynamic element, which seeks to take advantage of new information gained and develop best practices. Boundaries may need to be redefined to allow a different level of flexibility. Debriefing is concerned as much with maintaining high psychological health of the employee as it is an opportunity for information gathering.


Conclusion

The technique described above was utilized in Caesar's military operations; the general form of this technique is so timeless its utilized today to maintain the largest operation on the face of the earth - the US Military (not to mention virtually all corporations with an element of strategic sophistication). Although, this technique is highly effective for execution of strategic initiatives, the top level executive must be ultimately responsible for the strategy and ensuring that the employees feel empowered to engage the customer and impact the business.