Common Questions & Myths About Internet Marketing
Question
1. How much should an internet marketing campaign cost? I’ve found some companies that only charge a few hundred per month, while others charge thousands per month…which is more realistic?
Answer
Quality internet marketing campaigns typically cost more than a few hundred dollars per month. If your company was going to hire a marketing manager to develop an online campaign in-house, what would his or her annual salary be? Somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000? If you would be willing to spend that much on one person to manage your web marketing, would you spend that much to hire a team of marketers? When you hire an agency like ProspectMX to manage your internet marketing campaign, you get a team of experienced internet marketers who each have a track record of success. Why not invest the same amount of money you would spend on one salary on a team of professionals who get the job done right.
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The internet marketing company you work with should have experience converting the type of customers your business needs to succeed. There are internet marketing companies with expertise in hotel management systems and agencies with experience in marketing for lawyers. If your business is selling subscriptions to a monthly mail-order club, however, then the internet marketing company you work with should have experience in converting customers for monthly mail order clubs. If your sales team needs an increase in leads generated, then the company you work with better have some updated numbers of leads generated through the campaigns of their clients.
The majority of ProspectMX’s client success stories revolve around online lead generation in real estate, education, and B2B marketplaces, we have also led customers to communications companies, home decor products, and monthly mail order subscriptions.
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Getting traffic is certainly a benefit of a successful internet marketing campaign. But if the only metrics your internet marketing company are monitoring involve increases in traffic - they are likely providing you NO return on investment. If your site is getting more traffic - is it the right traffic? Does your website traffic turn into business for your company?
If the answer to this question is no, then the traffic you are receiving is either irrelevant or lacking in quality. Pointing your website in the right direction may show an increase in traffic, or it may not. But if it shows an increase in conversions, then you are getting more business from your website. And what more could you want from a 24/7 sales machine?
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Advertising agencies and web design firms across the country produce some visually striking web sites. However, few graphic design companies are competent enough in optimizing websites for long-term performance in the search engines for competitive keywords that match your business goals. Even fewer firms invest enough time researching how your customers interact with websites when they are shopping for your products or services.
The ProspectMX internet marketing team has the experience and knowledge necessary to place your company in front of the right prospects on the web - and the expertise in lead generation to turn those prospects into leads and sales in a variety of industries.
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At ProspectMX, one thing we’ve learned is that every internet marketing campaign is unique. For clients who have a harder target market to pinpoint, sometimes an investment in PPC campaigns are necessary to determine what keyword terms convert before putting a website through an SEO campaign to rank for the converting PPC terms.
In other campaigns, social media and SEO are combined in a version of “new age PR” with the intention of building brand awareness as well as increasing site conversions. As campaigns are analyzed, however, three metrics come up time and again - the amount of traffic increased, the amount of leads totaled, and the amount of revenue generated. And for a campaign to be successful, all of these metrics should increase.
Question
6. My web design company said they do SEO - how do I make sure they know what they’re doing?
Answer
Asking for monthly reports that include traffic reports and conversions is one way to keep an eye on your web design company if they do SEO. We also have a list of questions we like to ask clients that have a design-only company manage their SEO, including:
What are the most important techniques to ranking well with SEO?
Do you offer any type of SEO off of my website, like link building?
Do you build links into a website that are on trusted domains or from trusted sites within my industry?
Do you monitor incoming traffic and search rankings for a large variety of keywords, or a few select targets?
Do you share every change and recommendation you make for my site?
If the answer to these questions is more often no than yes, chances are good your design firm is not capable of managing an SEO campaign with the level of sophistication necessary for today’s competitive web marketing climate. A firm that specializes in SEO is probably necessary for you to get results in line with your business goals.
Question
7. Won’t maintaining a blog or participating in social media just distract my employees with no real gain for the company?
Answer
In almost all cases, your customers will not be dealing with members of your marketing department, IT department, or executive management in regular communications and transactions. The reason blogs and social media websites are so powerful is because customers can now interact with businesses in a whole new way.
Management should definitely be involved in blogging and social media, but keeping sales reps and customer service teams away from your new media campaigns could be a mistake. Create a connection between your service people and your customers by allowing your employees to participate in your social media marketing.
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Does your company run only one traditional marketing campaign and never advertise again? Just like marketing offline, online marketing is an ongoing process. The race to the top of the search engines is a marathon. However, once you get to the front of the race, you never know when another competitor is going to make their move, so you will likely need to keep running. In PPC, there are always going to be new keywords that have a high rate of conversion at a low cost per click. And Facebook users are always going to want to find a new video or special contest to share with friends. You may find new and different ways to attract customers to your website, but some form of internet promotion should always be part of your marketing campaigns once you start.
