Online Web Marketing

By Craig Miyamoto, APR, Fellow PRSA

(This is from the 2005 Third Quarter issue of Public Relations Strategies, a quarterly publication of Miyamoto Strategic Counsel)

Marketing online is no different than traditional marketing; the tools are just a little different. Web marketing uses traditional marketing techniques. You still need to develop and communicate from the customer�s perspective, not yours. You need to communicate with them so that THEY can communicate with others.

In web marketing, the first question to ask oneself will always be, �Who is the audience?� And the logical follow-up question is, �How can we get more of them?�

For example, YC Chocolate (ycchocolate.com), sells sugar-free chocolate. When the company did its market research to find its target audiences, they used traditional web search terms such as �chocolate,� �candy,� �sugar-free,� �diet,� and �diabetic.� Through hit and miss, they found a telling trend. Weblogs (blogs) and bulletin boards about and by diabetics popped up in their results. So they focused on blogs. Using text analysis, they confirmed that �diabetic� was a hot search term. But they also discovered that the word �gluten� was used a lot, because many people seek gluten-free chocolate.

Using their findings, they narrowed their market to a segment that not only would buy their product, but who also would buy gifts to give to other diabetics, which defined another market segment � families and friends of diabetics.

What this discovery did was define where they should be talking about their product. Principle: Put your product or service where your customers go. For example, if you wanted to sell DVDs on swimming lessons, where would you place them? In the DVD section? Or where floaters and kiddie beach toys are located in stores? If your customer has to go to the Yellow Pages to find you, then you�ve failed in reaching and communicating with them first. You need to be at the place where they go when they have a need. To relate this to the sugar-free candy example, diabetics probably don�t walk down the candy aisle at all, so wouldn�t find your sugar-free candy if it�s placed there. Therefore, if marketing online, you wouldn�t want to sell them through candy sites.

Getting back to blogs � Weblogs can be an indicator of trends, and they allow you to �spy� on people in the �blog-o-phere� and view their attitudes, opinions and communications, allowing you to identify the sources they go to. For example, YC Chocolate found Diabetes Health Magazine via blogs. They worked out a deal with the magazine. New subscribers get free chocolate, and reciprocally, those who visit the YC Chocolate website can use a direct link to the magazine. YC has achieved instant credibility by being on the magazine�s website.

What else can you do to maximize your web marketing efforts?

• Find out what the hottest Google click search terms are (Google ad words). According to a recent issue of Inc. magazine, the hottest search term was �DC hair laser removal,� followed by �law lemon Wisconsin� and �benchmark lending.� Who�d have thought it?
• Do competitor analysis, focusing on product search terms, what others are saying about them, presentation, customer service, and product information.
• Create positioning charts to discover emerging patterns, and look for the markets not being served. In other words, use the charts to find a niche to market to.