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Gevril and Haurex Italia dinner during Baselworld in March 2011 with Larry Brauner standing in the background.
Baselworld 2012 is right around the corner!
May
24
The use of the word holistic is a bit problematic, although it did catch your attention.Holistic emphasizes the importance of the whole and the interdependence of the parts. But is not each whole a part of a greater whole?
Web marketing is one part of the marketing function, as is offline marketing. The marketing function is one part of the business enterprise, as are finance, HR and MIS. And so on.
Therefore it seems that holism is relative and depends entirely upon one’s perspective.
Nevertheless, I emphasize the importance of web marketing as a whole and the interdependence of its parts which can include all of the following:
- needs assessment and planning
- competitive intelligence
- market segmentation and targeting
- positioning
- keyword research
- on-page and off-page SEO
- multimedia content development
- content management
- legal review
- web site design and programming
- search engine marketing
- database management and e-mail marketing
- social media policy and training
- social media optimization
- social networking community moderation
- reputation monitoring
- marketing analytics
- tracking of key performance indicators
That’s quite an impressive list, and it’s not necessarily complete.
As a whole, web marketing requires the expertise of generalists who have some knowledge of each of the many interdependent parts. Generalists can see the forest through the trees.
Each of the parts requires the services of specialists who possess a great depth of experience in their individual areas of specialty.
Being a generalist but having good experience in several key areas allows me to effectively wear more than one web marketing hat.
I stated in Web Developers Don’t Know Social Media that web developers know “how to build a website and how to create a web page that interacts effectively with visitors,” but that they “are neither experienced Internet marketers nor skilled copywriters.”
It’s equally true that copywriters know how to write effective copy, but they don’t know how to assess the competition nor how to compute marketing metrics.
Web marketing is a team effort. The team cannot succeed without its captain nor the captain without his or her team.
Choose a wise captain, and let your captain assemble your web marketing team.
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Tags: Marketing, SEO, target, Web Marketing
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Well Larry ,
Again you have done it in style. When I read the word holistic I thought it should have had something to do with religion or like that, but it was totally different when I read the complete post. I also ought to know that how marketting is important in increasing your business. You do not get everything when you make a nice layout on a website.
You need to have lots of visitors and also those who are really intertested in your products and are tempted to purchase them.
Also that it is not the work of a single person but needs combined efforts to make a sucessfull campaign.
Keep it up.
Thanks,
Homebased
Hello,
What’s your take on all the advertising channels and the impact and place within the Web Marketing strategy?
Best regards,
Gianluigi Cuccureddu
I wonder, are you referring to offline and to online PPC channels? If so, then if they’re effective, keep using them.
Traditional advertising can be used to build image or generate a direct response. Again, I would not give up anything that’s working.
Thanks — good things to keep in mind when gathering “the team”.
Hi Larry,
I appreciate the bullet list of key components of web marketing … and the reminder to have the big picture or holistic view. I sense the invitation to have generalists and specialists as part of our team.
Also, I appreciate the inclusion of areas that traditional web developers lack. I would add to the list, similar to lacking copyrighting skills, there seems little attention to me in “conversion” of traffic into sales.
Super post! Thanks!
Phil Johncock
Phil,
You make a good point about conversion, however that is defined for one’s campaign.
The design must be conducive to conversion and the keywords that are purchased or optimized for must include phrases that searchers use when they ready to take action.
Depending on the type of campaign, that action might be to buy, to donate, or to subscribe.
Larry, would love to hear more about how you do database management. Do you mainly do this through your Ning sites? Or do you utilize some type of autoresponder?
Steve,
Without a non-disclosure agreement, all I can say is yes, I use an autoresponder, yes I use Ning, and I also use Microsoft Excel.
Microsoft Access and SQL databases offer greater functionality, but I don’t need them for my personal list building.
Hi Larry! Thanks for the list. With everything necessary to market a business, it’s a wonder we can make any money at all especially when every aspect needs a specific talent. Deb
Hi Larry,
Thanks for the link to my site for market segmentation. And thanks for this solid information.
Many people starting an Internet business have no idea the breadth of knowledge and skills needed to be successful. Your suggestions to hire a captain and a team to assist is a great one.
So many Internet gurus push their coaching programs, but all they do is tell you what to do, not how to do it. Plus most people need help, not just advice.
That’s one reason I was so impressed with you. You actually did work for me that I didn’t know how to do for myself.
Thanks for that good work.
Warmly,
Linda P. Morton
@Larry: Whenever I read the word Holistic it reminds me of Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently and his holistic detective agency, not as good as the famous h2g2 series but good nevertheless.
I would like to point out that offline contacts and press releases (not web distribution) can kick in a viral effect many times specially if one can get a good brand or celebrity associated with it.
I just want to say thank you for being one of my top EC droppers for the month of May. Thank you so much.
For the benefit of readers, EntreCard is one of the ways I reach out to other bloggers.
A fine article on web marketing. The views and concepts are excellent. Especially, the hints for successful web marketing are really helpful. I really liked it. Thanks for the tips.
Definitely this article provided me with deeper knowledge on holistic web marketing. Many thanks to the author for increasing my knowledge base.