The First Four Key Steps to Creating a Killer Internet Marketing Strategy
Certified Internet marketer and music business blogger Ronald Grant returns this week, continuing his guest article on Internet marketing strategy fundamentals for new and growing entrepreneurs.
In Part 1 last week, he discussed the key to any Internet marketing strategy: knowing your purpose and keeping the business in mind.
Ronald gets down to brass tacks here. Take very careful notes.
You ready for this? Good. Here are the first four tips that will point you in the right direction.
Marketing, promotions, and publicity are practices that, from now on, will be viral, so if you’re going to be a marketing professional in the field of music and entertainment, that means you’ve got to adjust.
With tools like YouTube, Vimeo, Tumblr, Viddler, QR (quick response) codes, and the increasing popularity of mobile sites, both companies AND consumers have been given more power than they’ve ever had before.
That means that you now have to not only convey a strategic message to your audience, you also have to give them a platform to comment, share, edit, and share some more – not an easy task in the least, but it’s a requirement in today’s service-based sharing economy. Know this and take advantage.
Do NOT try to do or be everything: choose your tools wisely and master them.
This is a standard problem you’ll eventually run into. It’s so easy to get caught up in trying to be everything to everybody.
The unfortunate truth is our economy is becoming more niche everyday, and if you try to be that one-stop shop (especially in the entertainment industry), you might not be around very long.
This idea applies greatly to online promotion. Granted, your strategy had to be varied and multi-tiered with a wide array of tools for you to be successful, but you’ll need to hone in on what you do well and be the best at it – that means being a master at a specified number of tools and avoiding the one-stop shop mentality.
Whether that includes specific websites, blogs, social networking tools, video-sharing platforms, SEO and SEM measurement tools or what have you, be sure that you become excellent at exploiting just a few of them to make your Internet marketing strategy even more effective and successful.
There’s nothing wrong with a little shameless self promotion.
You can thank Twitter and all of its subsidiaries for this ideal. Twitter is a tool that puts the power of online marketing and promotion in the hands of just about everyone.
With the right timing, wording, and even use of hash tags, anyone can become a Twitter celebrity overnight, and it goes way beyond just the standard Twitter platform with tools such as TweetDeck, Twitpic, Twitter Grader, Public Twitter Lists, and TwitLonger.
All of these tools are put in place for you to promote your artist, label, or company. And no, there’s nothing wrong with being just a little shameless with it, as long as you remain respectful.
Create a schedule of when you promote new material. Reply to tweets from others. Send direct messages. Use pictures to create a more user-friendly experience. All in all: do what you can to make people interested and have no shame in your game, but do it in the right way.
Be strategic with the information that you give and receive.
Hopefully it’s now common knowledge that you have to be careful where you get information. With it being so easily accessible these days, it can be easy to get caught up in the hype of info that may turn out to be less sure than it seemed.
"Demand whole and sustainable news, not news that is based on sensationalized content and placed next to advertising." - Unknown
However, this rule also applies to your information distribution over the Internet.
Let’s just assume that you DO have good, timely and useful information for the masses. How then, are you going to get it to them in the timeliest manner so they can use it in the most effective ways?
Also, what will you do to ensure that you are receiving the best information for your company?
Just know from Jump Street that you can’t use everything. That means you have to choose strategically what you will share and not share, and what you will take and not take.
When we talk about the music industry, whether it’s from a reputable online music magazine/blog, or the smallest independent chart tracking what fans are listening to around the country, be sure that your role in the flow of information remains tailored to your needs first and foremost.
That’s right: look out for No. 1.
The Wrap it Up Box
Speaking of No. 1, here’s your homework today: revisit and evaluate your Internet marketing strategy according to the four points I’ve covered here.
· Niche yourself with one or a small handful of skills. In the wise words of Doctor Memet Oz, “People pleas[ing] leads to heart disease.” No one stop shop for you.
· Promote yourself, but don’t pester (that’s narcissistic)
· Double-check your information sources (in both consumption and distribution)
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