Networking and marketing strategies
The types of advertising you can use within the online networks you join are similar to those that you may already be using across the web. These include:- Banner advertising - banners occupy a designated area for rent on web pages, and can include video, audio and interactive capabilities. Banner advertising usually works on 'click-through' - users click on the banner and are linked to the website that is paying for the advert.
- Email campaigns - sending targeted emails to selected customers or potential new customers, sometimes containing special offers, discounts and other promotions.
- Viral marketing - online 'word-of-mouth' or 'tell a friend' campaigns that encourage users to spread the message to their social networks.
- Link building - some social networking sites provide profile pages, blogs or other editable spaces that allow keyword rich links to be added. This can contribute to your search engine optimisation strategy.
- posting links or mentioning a product or service in your status updates
- automatically-generated targeted banner advertising, based on a site's user-demographic data
- creating 'groups' or 'pages' to market a contest or new product, or to increase brand awareness
- offering cheap or free apps, such as games or useful tools, which carry your brand.
Understanding online network users
You may already be using each of the above types of advertising to promote your business online. Remember that networks are collections of people and businesses that have chosen to join that network to gain business contacts and not necessarily to see advertising messages.You must evaluate the level of advertising and promotional material you can push to these members. Also, the kind of advertising you use is also important. A viral ad campaign may be wholly inappropriate within a network of company directors for instance.
You should also check the terms and conditions of any online network that you intend to use, to ensure that any marketing activity that you do is acceptable.
Targeted advertising
Online networks are now becoming a hotbed for advertising space. Businesses have been quick to realise that the captive audience of online networks are ideal for focused marketing messages.Placing advertising within online networks is gathering pace. As with your business' other marketing spend, carefully consider which online networks to use and the marketing message you want to get across. This will ensure a good return on your investment.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace offer a number of different advertising options including pay per click, pay per view, banner ads, Flash ads and classified notices. Advertising can be targeted against a variety of demographic criteria (eg age, marital status, location) relating to network members. Some sites have tools that can be used for research, giving your business valuable customer profile information. This will allow you to make informed decisions about whether a particular social networking site is appropriate to your marketing strategy.
Network marketing dos and don'ts
If you intend to use online networking as part of your marketing mix, there are a number of dos and don'ts you should comply with:Do:
- Thoroughly research the network(s) you want to advertise on. Understand who the participants are, and what marketing messages they are open to.
- Develop metrics to enable you to track and analyse the return you are getting.
- Ensure you are aware of and comply with all the regulations and legislation that now apply to online marketing.
- Spam your fellow network users with messages. With online network marketing, quality is much more favourable than quantity.
- Ever sell or otherwise pass on any personal details about the people or businesses on your target network without their permission.
