Online Marketing: Staying Current in 2007

Call this a Guide to iMarketing in 2007.

There are a lot of new technologies out there such as blogging, podcasting, social bookmarking and networking, search engine optimization, internet marketing and web2.0. I have been researching these technologies about 40 hours a week this summer to understand how everything fits together. Now, I want to share what I compiled. It’s a basic laundry list and doesn’t go very in depth, but there are a lot of excellent resources in this guide. If anyone has anything to add, please comment!

I. Website ad planning, placement, and analytics:

A. Conducting market research in your company’s field will provide relevant ways to reach potential clients. Some free market research tools/directories from the leaders in the online industry:

1. Google Trends: Find the top trends in the world – what people are searching for most
2. Ebay Pulse: Find what people are buying or looking to buy
3. Google Groups: Find what people are talking about relevant to your industry
4. Technorati: Find the top company/personal blogs
5. Alexa: See what websites are growing fast in the world
6. WordTracker: Free keyword generator/lookup for your industry

B. Using Google Adwords for relevant advertising for your target audience. Google is the best at matching a target audience to what they are looking for and you pay for clicks to your website, not impressions.

C. Tracking your website traffic and source of visitors, whether organic (by search engine using keywords or by referring sites) or by paid advertisements with Google Analytics. This tool also integrates seamlessly with Google Adwords.

II. Use of social networking sites to build online presence.

A. Facebook: An online networking website now open to companies
B. MySpace: An online networking website open to anyone
C. LinkedIn: A growing online community for companies
D. Delicous: A community bookmarking website
E. Digg: A newspaper where top stories rise to the front page
F. Netscape: A community bookmarking website
G. Twitter: A SMS (cell phone text messaging) news website

III. Using (free) Web2.0 sites to market your company through new media. All of the following are ways to let the community know what you are up to. Building a subscriber base to your blogs, podcasts, press releases, etc. can drive traffic to your website and keep the community informed. Providing RSS feeds also makes your company news accessible to mobile devices.

A. YouTube Videos/Podcasting

1. Essential to marketing in 2007 providing media for mobile devices (cell phones, iPhones, iPods).
2. Provides a free way to promote through audio/video.

B. Blogs

1. Blogs are the fastest growing way to market your company online.
2. They are easy to set up and build dramatic website traffic quickly.
3. Provide current information for readers and content for search engines.
4. They are the easiest way to increase your search engine ranking.

IV. Staying current with webinars, message boards and RSS feeds.

A. Thirty Day Challenge: An online marketing course with cutting-edge, unprecedented ways to market online.
B. Message Boards: Discuss topics in your industry with other companies like yours.
C. Google Reader: Stay current by subscribing to news, company press releases, blogs, podcasts, etc. who provide RSS feeds.
D. 9Rules: Blog Aggregator/Community Message Board/Blog.