A carefully thought of web marketing project that targets carefully selected sites in a planned manner can be relatively easy to manage at low costs. Moreover, it can yield visits and sales quicker than Search Engine Optimization and marketing on social media. In the space of a single day, you can put together an internet marketing campaign after researching the audience you wish to target.

Here are five steps that you need to take to come up with an actionable web-marketing project that will generate sales for you.

1. Create a buyer profile – 

You need to know who your customers are. It is only when you define your target audience will you be able to come up with a marketing plan to target them. Once you know who they are, you will also know where to find them. You will be able to craft a Unique Selling Proposition specifically for this audience.

In order to create a customer profile to generate leads and sales, you need to assign them attributes by asking the following questions.

• What is the gender of my customers?

• Is the target customer an officegoer, businessperson, or works from home?

• How much does the target customer earn each year?

• What kind of neighborhood does he live in?

• How often does he shop online?

• What kind of car does he drive?

• How much time does he spend on social media?

• What are the educational qualifications of my target customer?

• Will the target customer buy my product or service for use or gifting?

Answers to these questions will let you flesh out in detail the nature and attributes of your perfect customer. These answers may also give rise to more questions. Overall, you will be in a position to craft your message. Content creation will become easier.

2. Choose Your Targets

The most fruitful methodology that will yield the maximum hits is to post ads on multiple sites. The sites, of course, are ones that your target audiences are more likely to visit. Time your message placement such that your visibility is the highest and you can hope for a fair amount of the target’s mind share, and eventually wallet share.

When choosing a website, blog, social media page, or newsletter to place an ad, consider the following things –

1. The number of visitors to the page that will carry the ad.

2. Search engine rank for that particular page for keywords that matter to you.

3. The quality of content, and quality of ads accepted by that online entity.

4. The number of ads present on that page; too many ads indicate competition that may take away eyeballs from your ad.

5. If the page hosts an ad that gels with what you sell; then there exist up selling and cross-selling opportunities.

6. If the ads on the page hold no relevance to your product or service, then they are probably irrelevant to the content too. Such ads are ignored.

Pay-per-click is always an option for an online marketing campaign. Google Adwords continues to be the big daddy of all PPC platforms. Google generates traffic, which allows Adwords to offer competitive rates for keywords. You can use PPC to create a complementary ad distribution plan. Set daily ceilings on spendings. Monitor progress till you arrive at ad copy and keyword choice that give you the best clickthrough rates.

Track conversions because these are a crucial metric to be monitored. Your definition of a conversion may vary with the aim of your marketing campaign. Sales, leads, sign-ups are all valid conversions depending upon your marketing objectives. Therefore, if you achieve an e-book download or a sale for every twenty clicks, then your conversion rate is 5%. This may be an acceptable conversion rate in your niche, or it may not.

3. Establish a budget

Once you get an idea of the costs involved in placing ads on various websites and of the PPC campaigns for a given length and for your selected keywords, then you are in a position to apportion a budget for the project. You also have the option of making budgeting the first step and then preparing a marketing plan around it. If costs are a consideration, then you may have to identify marketing targets most likely to be achieved within the budget.

Even otherwise, you will need to structure the budget such that the most promising sites and keywords are promoted. Track performances and tweak budget allotments till you arrive at a satisfactory mix.

You can save some money by exploring exchange and barter options. Newsletters and blogs may agree to place your ad on their pages for an exchange of their ad on your website.

4. Write ad copy

The trick in succeeding with online marketing is to devote your energies to one, or at the most, two products in your database that you know will click with your target audience. The content you create has to go beyond detailing the specifics of the product or the service. It has to appeal to the reader at an emotional level. Only then can you hope to nudge the reader into making a purchase decision. If you are selling shoes, then you are selling more than just footwear. You are selling style, rugged comfort, and the latest in footwear technology…depending, of course, on the type of shoes. If you are selling books, then you are sharing knowledge, extending an opportunity for relaxation, or offering a product that makes its value apparent across more than one generation.

Address the reader with “You”, “Yours”, and similar pronouns in the second person. Avoid talking in terms of “me” and “mine”, unless you are reviewing a product. Use words and phrases that allow you to connect with the audience. Make a list of such words and use them judiciously in order to evoke the most favorable imagery possible.

The ad copy should contain your most powerful keywords and the call to action should be pithy and powerful. Use the active voice. Tweak ad messages to address local and seasonal trends, such as holidays, sports finales, school reopening, etc. The images should be appropriate and with an alt tag.

Direct traffic to coupons. Find out which coupons are yielding the most sales.

5. Monitoring Your Ads

Track ad performance closely. This is the only way to find out the ads that are working and promoting them while downgrading those that are just guzzling money. Use analytics offered by the PPC provider as well as third-party statistics to gain insight into the origin of traffic, keywords that are driving traffic, and ads that are pushing conversions.

Check out DFP Small Business, a free ad management service by Google. It will enable you to track ad performance in a systematic manner. Along the way, you will also learn tricks to track and tweak ads. If you are running ads on Twitter or Facebook, then these platforms have their own powerful analytics tools that you must use.

Pay particular attention to ad performance in the first fortnight. Keep an eye open for any trends. If you see any positive trends, then see what you can do to ensure that the trend continues. Do what you can to replicate success. The more you can put processes on auto mode, the easier it will become to come up with a best practices procedure that gives you the best chance of repeated success with online marketing.

In a month, you will settle down to a routine of monitoring ads with a frequency that works best for you. Be alert to crests and troughs. Do not let go of any chance to take advantage of topical and seasonal opportunities.

Conclusion

An online marketing campaign does not have to cost you an inordinate amount of money or time. Implement these five ideas and see through the process. This tested procedure has yielded results. It will work for your business too.