Every company needs to do some form of marketing. Marketing is getting the word out about your company and bringing in customers. Customers can be anyone outside of your company that you work with, e.g. someone buying your product or another company that you provide a service to. This breaks marketing into two areas: Business to Business and Business to Customer, also known as B2B and B2C. So unless you have a business that doesn’t need any customers, you need marketing!

There are several different types of marketing and each company will have its preferred methods based upon the company type and past proven success. Marketing is not a science and so a lot of it is done through trial and error to find out what works best.

Internet

Now we’re in the 21^st century, most companies have an online presence. The internet is a wonderful place for people to do research on products and companies to find exactly what they are looking for. If you provide an item someone is searching for, then you want to be found. This is usually done through search engines like Google.

To show up on Google, you can optimize your site so that Google likes you and displays your listing high up, or you can pay. The paid slots appear at the top of the results page and on the right hand side. For more information on SEO and SEM (Organic and Paid search), see our other white papers.

Online advertising usually refers to banner ads on websites. These are ads that are placed on other websites to try to draw traffic to your website. Common sense says you place the ad on sites that will generate customers from the market segment you are looking for. Segmentation can be done in many ways and really depends on your consumer demographics (typical customer age, gender, interests, location etc.)

Alongside the internet, comes email marketing. This is a very interesting area for marketers and comes with a myriad of complexities. The basic idea is that you email people and if they like your email, they will visit your site and hopefully purchase your product. This is called lead generation or using an outside mailing list. You can also email customers who have already visited your site and/or purchased in the past. This is called an in-house mailing list and falls under CRM or Customer Relationship Management. For more information on email marketing, see the white paper that outlines it in greater detail.

Print

In the last 10 years, the success and popularity of the internet has exploded. This has lead to a decline in the use of print media. It is still a vital part of some companies and may be appropriate for you. Print marketing comes in a variety of forms, including but not limited to the following media: magazines, catalogs, brochures, flyers, postcards and letters.

The ideal form of media depends on the message you are trying to convey and the desired response. Keep in mind how you will deliver the media – will people pick it up when they visit your office or another location, will you send it in the mail, will it be included in another publication? Articles in magazines tend to focus on the reader of the specific magazine. Postcards are usually mailed to a categorized list.

Print vs. Internet

Print marketing usually requires you to pay in advance and before you know the results of the campaign. This is one downside to print vs. internet. Many marketing campaigns on the internet can be run on a cost per action basis, allowing you to alter the message and withdraw it at any time. Internet marketing is more ‘real-time’ and allows you to see and analyze results faster than through print. This also provides you with the opportunity to make changes to the campaign whilst it is running. Print campaigns usually run through and then you analyze the results and to try anything differently requires a new campaign.

Internet marketing is very fast paced and with new technologies continually being released, it can be hard to stay on top of everything that is available.

Here is a short glossary of some marketing terms to help you on your way:

Contact Tessares for customized marketing help, research, and implementation.

Every website out there can benefit from enhancements to SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. If you don’t know what it is, don’t worry, you aren’t too late! Search Engine Optimization simply means making the right changes to your website so that it can be found in the results on search engines like Google.

In most simple terms, SEO is about good content and links. Search engines, like Google, are intent on providing their users with valid content on a specific search. Therefore, Google sends spiders out to your site to check the content you have on your site, and they links that are out in the web. When there are links pointing to your site, it is validation that you are an expert on the specific subject, making your site an even stronger candidate for a search term.

Of course this is just a very simplified explanation of SEO. Just like most concepts, the intricacies of this marketing strategy can get technical. Below is a short guide to beginning your journey down the SEO path.

1. Choose your keywords and keyword phrases carefully. These are the keywords and phrases that you want to target for your website. There are many great resources out there that will give you insight into word popularity and competition. In fact, one great free resource is Google! Simply type in the phrase you are looking to use and see how many results are there.
2. Don’t just use single word terms. For example, if your website is about “shoes”, it will be very difficult to compete on the word. Instead look to using keyword phrases that better describe your content. This could be something like “designer boots” or “platform shoes.” The important thing is to find a term that you can compete on that offers enough traffic.
3. Build your page appropriately. The title of your pages should reflect your target terms and the content on your page. Use the <title></title> section of all of your pages, and don’t fill them with meaningless words like “Home” or “FAQ” which won’t help searchers find your site.
4. Utilize the meta description and keywords in the code of your page. If you have built your website, make sure to use these in the header of your pages. If someone else has built the site, ask them to populate this information. The description should support the keyword phrases and content of your site. The keywords are additional keywords to help describe your site. Anything that can be used to reinforce the content on your site will help you in the rankings.
5. Make sure there are links to all of your pages. A site map on your site listing all of your pages allows the Google spiders to access all pages on your site. The Google spiders like to dig and crawl, so the more internal linking (linking to other pages within your own site) you have, the more the spiders can crawl.
6. There are no quick and easy tricks for Search Engine Optimization. It requires thought, building, and some work to implement. If there is a seemingly good offer that promises quick results, it is probably too good to be true!

For SEO expertise contact Tessares.

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