You see, even when I was “just” building and maintaining websites, I always viewed my product as nothing more or less than a marketing piece.  No different than a radio ad, a postcard, or a followup phone call to a hot lead, right?

Now, granted, the websites I was producing happened to be marketing pieces that also:

• had a huge range of content (from product info to company backgrounds; news releases to employment listings; etc)
• were communicating to a variety of audiences at the same time
• oh, yeah, and visitors could go wherever they wanted and ignore content or messaging in which they didn’t want to engage
• and, of course, everybody in the company had a say in their own part of this little marketing piece
• and, if you had some content that might be useful to somebody somehow somewhere, it should go “on the website” as well.

So, while it’s clear that a website is not your “average” marketing collateral, the complexity of the online situation always led me to believe very strongly that if you were serious about marketing, you had to be serious about focusing your marketing on your online strategy like a laser beam.  Too bad most of my clients, at the time, saw it as more of an albatross around their necks than a wellspring of marketing results.  How times have changed!

I’ve tried a number of analogies to help explain how Dinkum defines “fully integrated” internet marketing and the value of our approach to your organization.  Here’s the latest attempt, inspired by my weekend working outside in the yard.  I hope you’ll give me some comments and feedback, or other analogies to consider:

Internet marketing that is fully integrated in your business and marketing activities is like a beautiful tree:

1. Unless you spend a huge amount of money transplanting a tree from across town, you start with something that is pretty small.
2. Each season, it grows a few feet – from something modest to something pretty awesome.
3. At the beginning, a tree is busy growing its root system, adding some height, making sure the foundation is strong.
4. As it matures, a healthy tree adds more and more branches and leaves.  Its trunk gets stronger, blossoms attract more attention each spring, the canopy provides shade during parched summer days, and people gather around it for special events and parties.

A beautiful, strong tree that has been well tended and taken  care of  is something majestic to behold.  In my analogy, here’s how it translates:

• The trunk is your website, strong and growing over time.  Focused on its core job.
• The roots are the foundation of your outreach: SEO, quality incoming links, relevance and trust on the internet that nurture your website.
• The  branches are your outeach, moving in new directions as opportunities arise, such as Twitter, Facebook, email marketing, and PR.
• The leaves are your audience, your followers.  Hear them rustling in the wind when you shake a branch?

Can’t you just picture a little Twitter bird sitting on your tree’s branches?!  

Jacob Smith is a Senior Project Manager and Web Strategist with Dinkum Interactive and has led over 150 high-level consulting and website development projects over the last 10 years. He is active in both the internet and cultural communities, and served on the board of Philly Car Share, a nonprofit and one of the largest car sharing organization in the United States until helping engineer its sale to Enterprise Holdings in the summer of 2011. Originally from Southern California, Jacob and his wife, Meghan, now live in Center City Philadelphia with their young sons Rory and Duncan.

To offer some background, a strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal and focuses on how the goal will be achieved. Tactics, on the other hand, focuses on the specifics of what will be done to pursue the strategy and achieve the goal. For example, a small business has a goal of increasing profitability by making online sales (strategy) by offering a discount to subscribers of a weekly email newsletter (tactic). Therefore, a strategy should be developed first.

Asking questions like: Who Am I? What Are My Goals? And Who Are My Customers? is a good place to start when building a strategy. With an understanding of the basics, additional questions can be answered to make business planning easier, like How Do My Customers Consume Media? What Channels Do They Use? How Do I Determine a Media Mix? Needless to say, automatically jumping on tools like Twitter is not be a good idea.

Let’s start simply by answering a few questions:

1. Who Are the Decision Makers for Your Product? (industry, job titles, company size, geography, age, gender, average income, etc.)
2. What Are the Decision Makers Media Habits? Ask current customers. Do surveys. Speak to media vendors. Prospect on websites like LinkedIn and ask questions.
3. Keep in Mind Other Factors, like budget, seasonality and promotions.

After the research is done, it’s time to develop a strategy.  In this case, the strategy is a general statement of how you’re going to reach your target audience with enough frequency, reach, impact, and engagement.  Maybe it’s internet advertising; social networking, radio, out-of-home , or direct mail.   At Dinkum, we recommend a media mix strategy to reach audiences consuming multiple media for optimal impact.  The strategy answers not just what to use, but when, where, and why (rationale).

After developing a strategy, tactics must be considered. As a review, tactics answer the “how.” The use of online advertising is a strategy, but Google pay-per-click, Yahoo display ads, or e-newsletter sponsorships are tactics.  Using Out-of-Home Media is a strategy, but billboard, transit, movie theatre ads, are tactics.

Once tactics have been developed, measurement must be considered. To adequately assess the company’s marketing plan, measurement criteria must be developed.  For each tactic, how will it be measured?  What is in place to measure your social media?  There are programs on the Internet that can help.  How are you tracking your leads? Are you scoring them? How are you creating relationships with your leads?

While there is much more to planning a successful online marketing plan than above, the basics do not change. Since most companies have limited resources, it’s often a good choice to partner with an online marketing company, who regularly assist businesses in overcoming the learning curve to maximize the return on their investment.

No matter what a company chooses to do, it’s wise to have a plan in place before the Facebook page goes up, employees start tweeting or the newspaper ads are placed.  Have a strategy, then plan the tactics.

Paul Mosenson

Keywords: Online Marketing, Online Marketing Company, Online Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing Tactics