Online marketing has made the job of identifying, contacting and staying in touch with leads a simple and easier process. Unfortunately, it has led some to believe in a “do it once, benefit forever” marketing mentality.
While some of your efforts in online marketing can be classified as “evergreen” (non-changing information giving you benefit for years to come), the day-to-day effort of building customer and prospect relationships requires some diligence.
Just as gathering a big pile of lumber, nails and other components on your factory floor requires more effort to turn it into a house, the building blocks of an online marketing campaign require ongoing effort to turn it into a working strategy.
Components of an online marketing campaign:
- Website
- Blog
- Social Networking
- Static Content
- Dynamic (Fresh) Content
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Analytics
- Press Releases
- News Feeds
- Marketing
- Web Design
- Craigslist
- Online Listings Sites
We’ll work our way through this list in later posts, but this time I’d like to draw our attention to the first item – the website.
I know from experience that some of you still don’t have a website. But there’s a better than even chance that if you don’t yet have one, you are probably not bothering to read this blog …or this ezine for that matter.
I’ve drawn this analogy before, but your website is like the foundation of one of our homes. It isn’t optional. Without it, your marketing efforts, both online and offline are structurally defective and it danger of collapse.
If your website hasn’t been updated, it is much like the home that was set and forgotten. Deferred maintenance is now taking it’s toll and it won’t be long before parts of it are endangered from internal rot and invasion by enemies from without.
The technology to make updating your website an easier and less costly task are readily available. Your web design team should know how to make it possible for you to update parts of your website yourself. If they don’t, we do. So give up the dependency of that old school adversarial relationship and give us a call.
By the way, we just scratched at items 4 & 5 on the list as well.
By all indications, 2011 could be a very good year for manufactured housing if we are willing to do what it takes. In an Industry Voices post last week, Thayer Long of MHI aid out some objectives for 2011. Giving them the support they need to see those objectives through could be the start of something big.
But don’t neglect the basics. Make sure your marketing foundation (your website) is up to the job at hand. If it’s not feeding you leads and providing a way of keeping in friendly contact with those leads from the very beginning of the sales process through to the post-sale customer service, sit down with a professional and bring it up to par.
2011 is just around the corner. Where will you be?