I started brainstorming today about different internet marketing ploys for a small business. I do not have any real marketing background... so I am just starting from scratch on ideas here. Everything from search engine optimization to banner ads to publishing white papers and blogs on topics to become the expert on a topic... the full gamut.

If anyone has experience in internet marketing tactics that could relate to a small/medium business... or if anyone has good suggestions for resources to help me filter out the BS in reading websites/books... I'm all ears.

3/15/2007 9:20:18 AM

if you go to barnes and noble and stand around you can get an internship doing internet marketing and running your own business

3/15/2007 9:25:24 AM

What's the business?

3/15/2007 9:49:03 AM

^^ or target, or the mall, or home depot

3/15/2007 10:27:54 AM

product makes a big difference to the marketing style.

3/15/2007 10:36:00 AM

^ Exactly what I was going to say. What are you trying to market?

3/15/2007 11:35:12 AM

sorry I actually meant to include that in my post...

Essentially the business is for interpreting and/or translation services. In short - we are going to start offering new unique services and a lot of expertise material through the web.

Basically... (the long version) here is the situation as well as I would like to describe it

I have been working with my company on writing up different potential business models and projects for offering new services through the internet... we have some unique ideas that nobody else is offering in the market and we can easily implement them and corner a large section of the pie before anyone else does. We also have a lot of expertise material (just lots of knowledge for people in all parts of the world in every possible language) that we can offer up for free to freelancers and others in the industry. With that said, we would definitely like to share the knowledge and become a hub of information to help boost our image as 'the' professional expert in our field.

This company is bursting at the seams to explode in growth without any real push to the internet aspect. Hell... most of the companies in this industry just sort of grow to a point and plateau quickly due to lack of innovation or ability to reach new markets. The real big players are so big that their ability to implement new ideas or change things is blocked by their inability to get out of their own way (similar to many big companies). We have our attack plan for non-internet sales/marketing, etc, etc for our typical/classic service offerings. Execution has begun in that respect and is working just fine... but very little is being done in terms of a push towards internet marketing because we don't really do much via the internet other than offer up information about who we are and work to optimize our rank in search engines (hell we don't even work much on that). Before I joined the company, there was an extreme lack of technological knowledge input... since then everything has been pointing in that direction by the COO spearheading efficiency in systems and technological jumps to leapfrog competition.

The good news for me is that the money is available to invest in these new projects, no question about it. I am also the technical guru here sitting here managing things... so this business venture is very promising for my personal growth if I can spearhead the project and lead everyone who works on it... ultimately heading the department overseeing the new services. Unfortunately - we have no marketing expertise in our company and we would of course prefer to put our money into the implementations and staff for maintaining the new systems instead of hiring marketing staff. Plus... I love researching things on my own and handling it myself.

Ultimately... if we can break the mold for the work flows and systems in this market by offering up the services we intend to via the internet... and get the word out to both individuals and businesses alike through proper marketing... I will wind up the head of a new department here really quickly... and if future growth occurs and parts of the company split... well... basically I am just trying to position myself as best as possible and I love doing this kind of stuff anyway

So yeah that was way too many words - but that explains why I even pose the question. I do have a lot of knowledge and experience in building web based applications and utilizing internet channels for sharing information within a company or via company websites... but as far as "actual" marketing?? None really. I know the technologies - just not the best ways to use them from a marketing aspect.

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 12:12 PM. Reason : edit]

3/15/2007 12:12:28 PM

first, you need to map out your target audience....you have to know who you're marketing to in order to effectively reach them.

3/15/2007 12:14:30 PM

^ already done for each section of the business... specifically in terms of the online services I want to offer

An example:

I have one particular service that will be targeted towards businesses only. This particular service takes away more than 90% of the work and time the customer would generally spend working with a company such as us. It makes the whole process feel more like a purchase of any other service online where you find what you want, you click purchase, and in a short period of time you get your results. It will allow companies who do not exactly want to devote staff time to communicating and working so much on these types of projects to essentially push some buttons - hand off their overhead to us - and in a short time get top notch quality results.

I guess my difficulty is that I do have multiple target audiences so I am trying to determine the best medium by which to hit businesses and individual customers alike for each particular service. Some services operate for both targets... some do not. Items such as the knowledgebase simply require me determining the best method of presenting the materials... whether or not to make it interactive or just a location for reading... etc etc.

3/15/2007 12:23:26 PM

can you describe the profile of a customer that would purchase your service on the internet? my advice would be to start targeting specific profiles of potential customers. for example, companies that want to translate their website. or advertising/media companies that want to translate content for their customers in brochures and mailers.

then build pages of your site that cater to those groups showing your unique value proposition (for example: we translate a basic 7-page website in 1 week for $XXX) and show some case studies or customer testimonials. play with google adwords. have something on your website that prompts action: either buy it now, or give us your name and ph# so we can contact you

3/15/2007 12:24:41 PM

^ thanks for the tips

I am definitely pushing to get some testimonials from our more widely known clients. Our website is also going to undergo an entire redevelopment stage by the end of 2007... so actual website design changes and service offerings will not begin until sometime in Q4.

On that note... someone here asked me why don't we have a live chat system on our page where our staff can all have a window resting until they are paged for a response by a visitor to the website. Our website statistics have been growing exponentially (because the site used to ... suck ... it still isn't fantastic) but there is not a lot of action available to potential customers. I'm not so sure a live chat is the best idea since we would like to push our business markets more than our individual... but that is an example of one of those internet channels that I am unsure of using.

One example of a target business customer for our online services would be a tagline or brand name development agency... specifically one working for the medical industry. We have a process by which we can test any taglines or names given to us in any given number of markets in the world for negative connotations, possible slang meanings, etc, etc. Sometimes companies would like the words translated to the best possible match... sometimes they have a brand name in a language that they want to use globally with no translation... they send it to us and we give them the information to make that decision themselves. This process is usually painful or lengthy if you have a medication that is to be sold in 20 or more languages. It is even more difficult if you do not use a development agency (who then uses us) to get from start to finish.

We can provide an easy submit and deliver system that ties into our internal production tools to give an insanely fast turn around time with very little overhead on anyone's part.

Sorry - I am feeling very wordy today... I have my business and research hat on... I have not done anything related to IT all day. Usually I get right to the point.. haha

3/15/2007 12:44:27 PM

sounds like you're excited enough about it

good luck, hope it works out

3/15/2007 3:01:01 PM

^ thanks

I've been psyched to work on many of the things I do here... this place has been like my personal playground in terms of technology experiments for the sake of my own education and I am always involved in the high level business decisions now... I prefer business strategy above all else.

By the end of this year - the COO and I fully intend to tear me away from the IT grunt work and hire someone else for me to train in my current role. Ultimately, my only hands on IT work will likely be with the firewalls or whenever I just feel the need to do something versus delegating it. The rest of my time will be spent on business development or operating one of the departments, pending the outcome of future projects. I have a very stable platform that can scale quickly if needed... now I just need someone else to run it so I can work on the business

3/15/2007 3:48:21 PM