Internet Marketing Goals
Offline marketing is vastly different to doing so online. With traditional advertising, a media buyer takes a budget and selects a few channels (print, outdoor, tv, radio, etc) and decides on which are the best match for the demographic of the product or service. After organizing the buy, they present their recommendation and then usually move forward with their selections. And they’re done.
Internet marketing shares a few similarities, like targeting to a suitable demographic, but not a lot. The creative which might work offline doesn’t necessarily translate well to an online audience, or tweaks need to be made to work with the campaign. With online advertising you’re able to track effectiveness and use split testing to optimize for the best possible conversion. And with online markeitng data available in near real-time, you can adjust your campaign to dial up or down, or move your budget to better performing options.
Internet Marketing
Many companies measure the success of online advertising or social media simply by the increase in web traffic versus their usual traffic volume. Defining your goals is the ideal place to start for online advertising, search marketing, online branding, or social media. Some of the goals you might pursue for these are;
Search Engine Rankings – when your SEO strategy is moving in the right direction, you should see your site improve in the search results pages (SERPs) for predetermined phrases that you have chosen to pursue. The end result is an increase in both web traffic and leads.
Online Branding – while this includes an SEO component, an online branding strategy also includes internet marketing and social media. Online branding is not just ranking to have your website become synonymous with certain searched phrases, it also involves advertising online within the right circles to create that top of mind awareness with your brand. Additionally, it also employs social media tactics to develop your online brand essence and assist with online reputation management. Another way to measure is noting an increase in mentions on other websites, hopefully for the better.
Increase Sales – SEO can drive leads to your site, and if you’ve optimized for conversion, those leads should result in an increase in sales. This is a more common metric that is preferred, but not always the right one. If you’re running a pay per click (PPC) campain, then it might make sense, but if you’re campaign is social media or SEO, more suitable metrics might be followers or ranking.
