Online networking and PR

Developing good relationships with potential customers, suppliers, industry contacts and the press raises your profile, generates sales leads and creates a 'buzz' around your business. But handling public relations (PR) and networking online can be quite different from doing them in more traditional ways.

Online networking and online PR key issues

It takes time to build relationships and reputation. Online PR and networking both benefit from a slow-burning, indirect approach. For example, a powerful benefit of online networking is the improvement in your website's search engine ranking as your network produces links from other sites. People will only do this if you are a valuable contact with something to offer their customers.

Online networking works best if you contribute regularly and help other members of the network rather than just pushing your own agenda. Similarly, an online PR campaign to publicise a new product launch is more likely to succeed if you have built relationships with online publications and news outlets.

Yet there is a vast range of different networks and communities, publications and social media - it can be very easy to spread yourself too thin. Concentrate on a small number of online networks where you can get actively involved and focus your PR on groups of customers who are interested in what you have to offer. A little market research will save you a lot of wasted effort.

Online networks

The online network you choose depends what you want to get out of your networking. For many businesses, the main goal is to generate sales leads and some online networks are focused on referrals.

But you can also use online networking to find suppliers, share knowledge, carry out market research and for mutual support. Your trade association probably has an online forum or organises online events; business support websites and dedicated business networking sites are where you're likely to find other entrepreneurs, business customers and potential suppliers. Potential customers are also likely to gather on sites related to your product or service: if you sell bicycles, for example, you'll find them in the forums of cycling websites.

You can also make informal online networks work for you. Email is a good way to keep in touch with existing contacts; online social networking can produce business benefits as well. You could even create your own online community on your website by providing a customer forum which you can use to build relationships, encourage repeat visits and conduct informal market research.

Online public relations

Online PR often mimics traditional PR and many business owners issue online press releases and contribute articles to online publications. But the web makes it easier and gives you more options. For example, you can post comments on other people's articles with a discreet signature identifying your business and web address. You can also publish your own blog on your own website.

Social media - online communities such as Facebook - add another dimension to online PR. You can generate publicity and website traffic through social media marketing. You can encourage people to recommend pages of your website to sites like Digg and Reddit, for example, or write amusing or interesting blog entries that community members themselves choose to spread.

Online Advertising

Online advertising can promote your brand, boost traffic to your website and generate sales - it should be an important part of your Internet marketing strategy. Unlike traditional advertising, advertising on the internet can deliver visitors immediately - through a simple click on your ad with easily measurable results.

Deciding where to advertise online

You can plan your Internet advertising as you would traditional press advertising, by looking for websites that have the right audience. This could include online publications or price comparison sites that cater to your target market, for example.

You should also run a search with key words and phrases your customers are likely to use. Provided that the websites that come up aren't competitors, they may well be good places to advertise. A quick check will tell you whether each site has the right image and offers the web advertising opportunities you are looking for.

Or you could buy advertising from a 'content network' that automatically displays your ads on websites that are likely to have the right audience. You have less control over where your online advertising appears, but it can be effective nevertheless.

Pay per click advertising and other online advertising options

There are other alternatives, too. Pay per click advertising (PPC) is ideal for putting your product in front of people who are ready to buy. You only pay for people who actually click on your ad to come to your site. This enables you to track visitor journeys while monitoring the effectiveness of your search engine keywords.

You can also pay for website advertising according to the number of times the ad is displayed. So the more people who visit the web page on which your advert is featured, the more you pay. Often referred to as CPM ('cost per mille' or 'cost per thousand displays'), this is good for brand exposure.

You can even pay for your online advertising on a cost per action (CPA) basis, where you only pay for the number of viewers who actually buy your product as the result of an ad. This kind of payment scheme requires a close relationship with the website where your ad is published, and is typically part of an affiliate marketing relationship.

Web advertising design

You are likely to have different online advertising options. For example, you might be able to buy different ad sizes in different places or choose which pages of a website to advertise on.

Prices will vary according to the size, location and style of your advert (you might include animation, for example), but the most expensive may not be the most effective. A banner ad on the home page might get the most exposure, but an ad on the page most relevant to your product might deliver more people to your site.

Tips for Building Online Community with Online Events

Online communities are an important place for business professionals to connect with others, consume cutting edge information and expose themselves to different people, ideas and content. In Integrating Online Events into Your Community Development, BrightTALK’s Chief Marketing Officer, Jan McDaniel, discusses why online events are important to building and tracking a thriving online community.

Here are the ten top tips from this event:

1. Create an online community to stay connected through the long B2B buying process.

2. Build a community based on your audience segmentation and customer insight.

3. Give your B2B audience targeted, valuable and relevant information about processes, techniques, technology, products and services, and new approaches to problem solving.

4. Provide product and solution information as well as thought leadership to balance your program.

5. Increase time and interaction with your brand to build mindshare and influence. One way to do this is to integrate your online events in to your website.

6. Collect customer insight. Find out what is resonating with your audience, what messaging is working and how engaged your viewers are with different content.

7. Gather an advanced level of data informed by user demographics, activity, preferences and interest.

8. Amplify your voice, regardless of your company size, by building a community with your partners and by syndicating your content.

9. Involve yourself with media companies’ communities by appealing to their editorial content and developing co- marketing arrangements to access their audience base.

10. Capture audio from on-site events and re-use prepared content in your community channel. This provides a longer shelf life for your content and creates demand generation opportunities for event sponsors.

View the webcast: http://academy.brighttalk.com/best-practices/2010/2/9/integrating-online-events-into-your-community-development.html

What tips would you add?


Source: Kathryn Kilner @BrightTALK

Market segmentation and your target market

Trying to satisfy a wide range of different needs is rarely effective. Splitting your customers into different groups of similar people will enable you to market your products or services specifically to the ones that will be most profitable to you.

Identifying market segments

Start to identify the different segments among your existing customers by looking for groups with similar characteristics. Consumers are often segmented by age, gender or income. Business customers can be broken down into different industries or by size. In practice, location is often a key factor, whether you are targeting local customers or looking for export opportunities.

Segmenting your market should enable you to identify the similarities between your different customer groups - and the differences. You will be able to more clearly understand what aspects of your offer appeal to each of the groups and adapt your product or service to more closely match their requirements.

This might mean modifying your product - or working on delivery, service, reliability or some other need that is important to that market segment. It might also mean adjusting the way you market your offer - so you might change your pricing policy or use distribution channels that reach your target customers more effectively. You should also adapt your promotional messages to the different customer segments.

Choosing and evaluating different market segments

Knowledge is everything when it comes to identifying which groups of customers you should be targeting. Market research will help you understand more about the needs, tastes and spending habits of different groups of potential customers. This should tell you about the customer segments most likely to buy into your offer and the kind of marketing and sales activities they will respond to.

A SWOT analysis will help you assess your strengths and weaknesses as a business and spot the opportunities and threats that are looming in your market. It will help you evaluate if you're in a position to carry out a strong marketing and sales campaign with your target groups of customers. Significantly, it will also enable you to see how you measure up against the competition.

Understanding what your rivals are up to is critical. How are they working with your target group/s? Would you do better or worse? Where are the gaps - in their offer and in their marketing? Are groups of customers being ignored by rivals? Could you target these profitably?

This combination of market research, SWOT analysis and benchmarking should give you a detailed picture of your marketplace and your own potential. This in turn will tell you where you should be directing your marketing activities and how. Only when you are armed with this knowledge can you confidently tailor your message to different segments of your market and have persuasive conversations with your potential customers.