Getting people to your website and blog is a great achievement but when they get there, what do you want them to do? Having a call to action is vital. Deciding what this is and then tailoring your efforts to achieve it is what will enable you to get targeted results.

Planning
The most important question when planning your online marketing campaign is:

What do I want to achieve?
At first it may seem obvious – ultimately to achieve higher sales. Getting to that point requires a plan of action. Other steps might be:

• Increase traffic to site
• Increase online audience
• Increase brand recognition
• Gather email contacts
• Engage audience
• Get feedback from audience
• Funnel audience through to sales
• Sell more to current customers
• Sell particular products

Keep it Simple
Don’t give people too many options on each page. It can be annoying and distracting. Once you know what you want to achieve this is easy.

Be direct
Simple active commands that are clear work well:

• Sign up here
• Join here
• Get our newsletter
• Choose a product
• Order Now

Make it obvious
Make your call to action clear and porminent on the page. If its hard to find you may be missing click-through opportunities.

Test
Test every change you make. Making changes can help you to see what works and what does not and then you can focus on the things that give you the best results.

Integrate
If you want your social media to support the efforts on your website then its a good idea to duplicate your call to action on those sites too. Having integrated campaigns can help you achieve your goals much quicker.

The attention economy refers to the population’s attention as a commodity. Its a modern term bought about by the fact that the nature of society is such that there is almost an unlimited amount of information available to us but there is only a limited number of units of information that we can take in at any one time. For online marketing its a very relevant topic – where is the information about our companies? Who is reading it?

Relatively speaking marketing and advertising has never been better value for money. The only way to reach a mass audience 15 years ago was to advertise on TV or the national papers but now you can have a worldwide presence easily via the web. The downside is that because this is possible for very little output then lots of people can do it too. And they do. This means that there is more competition but human beings still only have a limited ability to read and retain the messages that they receive and a limited amount of time in the day in which to receive them. This is what attention economy is about.

What is said about your company is no longer restricted to the information that you put out. Online what is on your website and the advertising you create is not the end of it. There are blogs, social networking sites and forums where people can pass on information about you and their experiences with your service or products.

As consumers become more savy they are more likely to research you online and it pays to keep track of what is being said about you. It gives you the opportunity to redress anything that is incorrect or not in keeping with your company ethos. It also helps you to anticipate opportunities and act upon them. But in order to do this you need to know where best to pinpoint your efforts. This is where attention economy comes in.

Attention economy follows where people are focusing their attention at any one time. This helps marketers to best hone their efforts. Recent research shows that Facebook is latest communication platform for internet users with mobile technology expected to really take off in the next couple of years.

No one can escape the fact that the internet has changed the landscape of journalism. People have moved away from newspapers in large numbers and the industry is rightly concerned. 15 German bloggers and journalists have developed an Internet Manifesto which is designed to highlight to mainstream media organisations that the internet is here to stay and that adaptation to this is the only way forward.

The Manifesto has 17 declarations about “how journalism works today”:

1. The Internet is different.
2. The Internet is a pocket-sized media empire.
3. The Internet is our society is the Internet.
4. The freedom of the Internet is inviolable.
5. The Internet is the victory of information.
6. The Internet changes improves journalism.
7. The net requires networking.
8. Links reward, citations adorn.
9. The Internet is the new venue for political discourse.
10. Today’s freedom of the press means freedom of opinion.
11. More is more – there is no such thing as too much information.
12. Tradition is not a business model.
13. Copyright becomes a civic duty on the Internet.
14. The Internet has many currencies.
15. What’s on the net stays on the net.
16. Quality remains the most important quality.
17. All for all.

The authors of the manifesto say that the internet:

‘..produces different public spheres, different terms of trade and different cultural skills. The media must adapt their work methods to today’s technological reality instead of ignoring or challenging it.  It is their duty to develop the best possible form of journalism based on the available technology. This includes new journalistic products and methods.’

What the manifesto does is highlight the importance of the net and the fact that it is a whole new world which needs to be understood and worked with. It has its own language and rules and emersion into it is the only way to understand it properly.

It is a symbiotic organism. Because of social media, marketers cannot ignore their audience because their audience mould what happens just as much as they do.

It can be fascinating, and rewarding as well as challenging but it does not sit well with those who are unwilling or frightened of change. For this reason many seek professional help with this online marketing, at least until they have an understanding of the medium themselves.

As reported by Propero, the microblogging site Twitter has shown a huge increase in popularity in the last year. Social media of all sorts is becoming an increasingly popular way for companies to find out about their customers, develop a relationship with them and market their brand and product to them. However some experts think that Twitter’s value is limited and believe that its popularity will reach a natural peak and then crash.

According to a poll by Ragan Communications and PollStream, 54% of professional communicators think that Twitter will reach a plateau and then decline. 28% report that their companies are using microblogging at the moment as part of their marketing communications. The companies who do tweet say they have felt the following benefits:

-increasing employee engagement
-improving customer service
-Improving reputation with customers
-boosting website traffic

Bob Hirschfed, senior public information officer for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is representative of those who do not think that Twitter can be part of a sustainable online marketing campaign:

‘[It’s a fad] because everybody’s doing it,’ he said. ‘Ashton Kutcher and CNN have a steady supply of fans who want to know what they do. People like us, people with a job to do, every so often we do something of interest to the general public [but] we don’t have that steady supply of stuff that the public is interested in.’

Fad or not, Twitter is proving very successful for some businesses, the point being that the internet is a very fast-paced and adaptive medium and knowing this does not preclude a company for joining in whilst its running strong. The point is that it may peak and fall but that is irrelevant. Some more traditional companies are not interested in keep up with the times. However, for most it can do no harm.

Apart from the objection to it being a fad, professional communicators gave other reasons for companies non-presence on Twitter:

-Fearful managers reluctant to join in
-Lack of staff/time
-Belief that it won’t help the company

The general advice is to proceed with caution. As with anything there are pros and cons to social networking. Decide on the aim that you want a Twitter campaign to fulfil. Start slowly and monitor your results and then readjust as necessary.

A recent study by eMarketer predicted that Twitter users will increase from their present number of 12.1 million to 18.1 million by 2010. It remains to be seen what proportion of these will be company Twitterers.

Social networking sites are becoming more and more popular across the world.  Using this to your advantage can help your business to achieve its marketing targets.There are many advantages to this medium but there are also areas of caution which need to be addressed before you introduce your business to the world of online social networking.

ADVANTAGES

Easy to use
Social networking sites are designed to be easy to use, so they are. Using them as part of your marketing strategy does not need you or your staff to master complicated programmes or ideas.

Good Value
Social networking sites are free which is one of the main reasons they are so popular amongst marketers during the current economic climate. Your only costs are staffing ones.

Quickly Adaptive
Social networking sites allow you to respond to the moods and needs of your audience. Because they are instant they can help  you to develop a responsive relationship between you and your clients and potential clients.

Full of Viral Potential
The viral possibilities of the internet mean that something related on a social network site can be news across the world within minutes.

DISADVANTAGES

Full of Viral Potential
This can be negative too. If you make a mistake, or are perceived to have done, then the news can spread far and wide within minutes. This will be very difficult to remedy and will be wholly counterproductive to any positive global marketing goals you may have achieved.

Labour Intensive
Depending on how you set up a social networking campaign, it can be labour intensive particularly if your intention is to respond personally to messages from the public. Its important to plan what you want to achieve and how you want to do it.  Starting small and working out from there depending on your response means that you will never dissappoint.

The Law of Reciprocity
This law indicates that to develop a successful and satisfying relationship you need give and take. Social networking rests on this premise so it is important that you set up with your audience exactly what you are planning to ‘give.’ For example, if you send a Tweet on Twitter you may get an instant message back. The respondent may expect one back quickly and may feel disappointed if they do not get one. If your plan is to only send promotional updates then make this clear. Then you will be living up to expectations rather than creating disappointments.

Being Adaptive
With social networking you have to be adaptive. This is essential because its still a very new media and there are new sites and changes developing all the time. You need to keep abreast of the latest information and trends. Standing still and just repeating more of the same will waste your valuable time if your audience has moved on.