"No Go" Zones for Web Marketing

by Shari Worthingston

Life is full of bumps in the road, some more devastating than others. Your web marketing program is no different. Beware of these "no go" zones as they can wreak havoc with your lead generation program and decimate the returns on your marketing investment.

1. A dead-end web site
Your corporate web site should be the focal point of your entire marketing program. Today's business buyers usually start, and sometimes even complete, their decisionmaking process online. This means you need a web site that can handle input from all your marketing efforts: search engine marketing, direct mail, trade shows, public relations, even telemarketing. You need a web site rich in content that engages your prospects and actively pulls them along the buying cycle.

2. Ignoring the search engines
The majority of today's business buyers start the information gathering process on one of the web's major search engines. Business purchases typically have a longer sales cycle. With competition as fierce as it is, you need to be where your prospects are, as early in the process as possible.

3. Not targeting your PPC dollars
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on search engines is a dream come true for most marketers. It's pay-for-performance, meaning you only pay when someone clicks to your web site. It's also focused on specific phrases related to customer needs. That's target marketing at its best, and it tends to generate an incredibly attractive return on investment (ROI). But PPC is not the place to try to pump up your numbers to impress the higher ups. Too broad a message will artificially inflate your results with irrelevant people and explode your cost per lead.

4. Wasting your PPC efforts
One of the reasons people advertise on selected search engines is their partnerships with even bigger search engines. Make sure you keep your ads in one of the top three positions as anything lower is usually not cross-promoted on partner sites. Also, clickthroughs significantly drop off after the number three, and sometimes the number two spot.

5. Getting caught in spam filters and firewalls
Irresponsible e-mail advertising means we all have to deal with the challenges of anti-spam software and firewall filters. So be careful how you e-interact with your prospects and customers. Avoid attachments, don't use spam words, and resist the urge to overload your e-mails with HTML.

6. Forgetting lead generation basics
Remember that the list and the message count for virtually all the success of any promotional program, whether online or off. An attractive, creative presentation is lovely, but it should never interfere with the message.

7. Forgetting the back end
What's the point of a great web marketing program if you forget to capture leads as you go? Make sure you've set up all your reply vehicles so there's an incentive for your prospects to provide their contact information.

Shari Worthington is a member of the WPI Venture Forum Board and President of Telesian Technology, a marketing and web development firm focused on the technology and manufacturing markets. She can be reached at sharilee@telesian.com.