Making the most of your online presence
The importance of online marketing cannot be overstated. Whether you’re diverting a crisis by posting a video apology or targeting potential customers through search engine optimization, marketing on the Web is an efficient way to sell your message.

60-Second Articles:

1. The Jet Blue Boo-Boo to Rats to Recalls: What If It Happened to You?
2. Marketing Your Company Online? What Really Works, and What Doesn’t.
3. Death of a Duck: What Does Your Company Really Sell, and How Clear Is That Message?
4. The 60-Second Close: When Your Competitors Are There, and You’re Not

1. The Jet Blue Boo-Boo to Rats to Recalls: What If It Happened to You?

• A public relations crisis may never happen to you, or if it does, it may not be on the same national scale of Jet Blue, Taco Bell or other globally recognizable brands. But if it does, and you’re a dominant player in your local market, then you’ll face much the same consumer outrage.
• The proliferation of citizen journalists, blogs and YouTube videos can turn your crisis into proportions of a national scale in less than a few hours.
• Do you have a plan in place if this were to happen to you? How fast would you be able to get a video apology on your Web site or your blog? How fast could you get it uploaded onto YouTube? The faster you can react with an apology and what you are doing to correct the crisis, the less damage will take place. The key is to make your message visible on traditional media and social media, and make sure you control the damage.

2. Marketing Your Company Online? What Really Works, and What Doesn’t.

• Puzzled by the myriad of ways to market your company online? Don’t know what works best and what doesn’t work at all? Here are some answers to help guide your online marketing efforts, from a recent survey conducted by ad:tech and MarketingSherpa, who asked online marketers what marketing tactics worked best for them in 2006.
• The best performing online marketing tactics to increase awareness and traffic to one’s Web site were paid search ads, customer e-mail lists and search engine optimization, which gets you a top position on Google.
• The worst performing tactics included rented e-mail lists, pop-up and pop-under ads, ads in e-mail newsletters and banner ads.

3. Death of a Duck: What Does Your Company Really Sell, and How Clear Is That Message?

• Thanks to The Duck, a small, once obscure company called Aflac emerged out of oblivion to become a nationally recognized brand. Everyone knew The Duck, and everyone knew the name Aflac.
• Although this sounds like the perfect marketing success story, Aflac executives have realized that celebrity awareness doesn’t always equate to celebrity sales, especially when the comedic adventures of a duck upstage the real message of what the company does and what it sells.
• Is The Duck soon to be duck soup? Not yet, but watch for a de-emphasis of The Duck and more focus on the selling message. Finally, after all of these years, we may get to know what Aflac truly specializes in.

4. The 60-Second Close: When Your Competitors Are There, and You’re Not

• This month’s issue brings to light three important areas that we can help you with. The first is something that you probably think you don’t need because you believe it’s never going to happen to you: a crisis management document about what to do when things go drastically wrong and you’re about to be “plastered” all over the Internet.
• The second is a clear, concise selling message that accurately balances marketing with creativity; the third is a plan to direct your online marketing efforts, especially if paid search ads, e-mail campaigns and search engine optimization are all foreign to you.
• Don’t let your competitors get ahead of you on these three fronts. Give us a call. We’ll show you how to get there … faster than ever.

Best wishes, Jason Mudd, APR Founder and CEO AXIA (866) 999-AXIA