5 steps to remove the stress from online marketing

Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.As our business grows, there is one thing that continuously keeps on surprising us: how many marketers have forgotten about the basics when venturing into online marketing. The impact of this has the potential of being pretty dramatic, going from missed opportunities, to damage to brand and reputation. 

We see two reasons for this movement away from what we call "common sense": a lot of marketers are dealing with extremely reduced resources, and a lot of them are trying to do 87 things at the same time, being overwhelmed by the constant input of data from the outside world, management, and sales people.

The thing is, there is no better time to get back to basics, knowing that there is no magic to online marketing. If you do what you used to do, which I hope will look something like the process outlined below, you will be OK. Because ultimately, it is still about trying to get people to establish specific behavior, only now you are aiming to get found, whereas before you were reaching out. This change in approach doesn't change the underlying process though.

So, without further ado, here is the process we use when we put together a campaign, regardless of it being online or off line. It's the way we make sure that what we put together meets the goals that have been set:

1. Identify a set of clear goals: Whether it's a specific number of new customers, an increase in customer retention rate, a set number of leads a month...doesn't really matter. What does matter is all of your stakeholders (the CEO, Sales...) are in agreement on what the goals are, and that it's Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time bound (I know you have heard this before). Sometimes one campaign on your plan will address multiple goals: the need to generate x number of leads in a new market, and to increase brand recognition in that same market. The key is to make sure that these goals do not conflict with each other.
2. Quantify the goal: what metrics will you use to evaluate progress against your goal? What are your key milestones along the way to reaching that goal? If, for example, your goal is to get 10,000 new visitors for you recently launched UK web site, you know you won't get there in the first week. So you need to build a plan that will help you get there over a specific amount of time, and you evaluate progress based on milestones that were built in the plan, such as "after 2 weeks, I need to have 1,500 new visitors to my site". If you miss the milestones, you either need to re-think your approach, or re-evaluate your milestones. It's also important that when you set the goal and quantify it, you put in place the mechanism to track and evaluate your results. Otherwise these goals don't mean anything.
3. Infrastructure: it's brilliant to have SMART goals, but the question then becomes "what needs to happen for me to achieve these goals?" This is where you look at your budget for example, and, where you might have to argue for more (with your plan, tied back to goal, in hand). You might find out that you just don't have the staff to pull this off, or that there are legal issues with what you are being asked to accomplish (very real in the pharmaceutical industry), or that no one knows anything about the Chinese market in your company. This is the stage where you figure out what you have, what you are missing, and what you are going to do about that. And before you go back and ask for more budget, it's a good idea to try and think creatively on how you will accomplish your goal without needing more budget. If it can't be done without, it's a good idea to argue more budget with a plan, including those core metrics and ROI, in hand.
4. Plan: a marketing plan is made up out of tactics that fit your goal, your metrics and your resources. You should be using more then one tactic, and measure results by tactic, so you can recalibrate your media mix based on what you find. Remember, there is no such thing as a "one channel" marketing plan, and the art lies in finding the right balance between your different channels such as your web site, social media, direct mail, public relations, blogging, email marketing...At the end of this exercise, you should have a marketing plan, tied back to goal, using the key metrics and infrastructure identified.
5. Optimize: this is where the real fun begins: you are implementing your plan, tracking the results, and making changes based on those results. Our rule of thumb is that everything should be given a second chance before making a final decision to pull it. If a breakfast briefing didn't pull the right attendees the first time, it might be time to change the invitation list, or the location of the event. Either way, every line item on your plan should be evaluated against those key metrics from step 2, and adapted if need be. 

I was once told about the "stove and the fridge" during a training session in a distant past. The logic is still there though: you put on the stove what works, chasing incremental revenue, and stick in the fridge what doesn't work.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.