5 Elements of Successful Online Marketing: Atlanta-based company Mette Media outlines tips and tools for creating an effective marketing campaign.

For the past few years, I have been moving our clients out of print and into online marketing. Atlanta has many advertising and marketing opportunities available, You simply have to know which resources will drive the needed results. But even more important is to make certain that your messaging will be effective once in front of the right audience.

Up until about three years ago, I had been in the print advertising industry for the previous ten years. I ran a magazine publishing company where our advertisers were doctors, real estate professionals, home-improvement companies, high-end retail and the like in the suburbs of Atlanta. Over the last three years I created Mette Media to bring these same local companies into online advertising. I have worked with more than 1000 local companies and met with at least five times that amount during my advertising career, and there is one phrase that consistently resonates with me:

Advertising Doesn’t Work!

In the early days, it made me so mad. I thought, “How can people make such an idiotic general statement about one of the oldest industries in the world?” I have since learned that for the most part, these people are simply misspeaking. What they really were trying to say is, “I ran a print ad and it didn’t work.” Those are two entirely different statements.

Now when I hear someone say, “Advertising doesn’t work,” I first try to clarify if they are actually expressing the latter (the ad itself simply didn’t work). If so, I ask them if they would like to know some of the most common reasons an ad or campaign does not work. Regardless of their answer, I pull out my soapbox and begin to preach like a small-town Baptist minister in the heat of July.

In this blog-post series, I will discuss five key components that are necessary for making an online marketing campaign successful (actually they are equally important in off-line marketing as well).

• What Is a USP and Why Does Your Product Need It?
  Our product must have a unique selling proposition (USP) that will set it apart from your competition if you are going to put together a good online marketing campaign.
• Make a Plan and Set Objectives
  Does your online marketing campaign have clear-cut objectives with timely goals set? What do you want to accomplish through online marketing?
• A Good Ad or Landing Page
  The ad needs to communicate your USP and have a clear next step or call to action.
• How To Target The Right Prospects with the Right Message
  Make certain you have defined your core clients and developed a message that speaks to them directly.
• The One-Yard Line
  So many marketing efforts fail after all the hard work has been done. In this post we will feature a real life story where we changed one word in the phone conversations and the ROI of the entire campaign went from Negative to more than 100%.

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