Creating Web Marketing Campaigns

6 Critical Elements in Creating Successful Web-Marketing Campaigns
By Jerry Bader

A Definition of Marketing

Marketing can be an extremely frustrating and expensive exercise if we mistakenly view it as merely an advertising function. Any discussion of marketing should be preceded by a definition of exactly what we mean by marketing: marketing is not just sales, or advertising, or promotion, but rather a combination of all these functions plus more.

One comprehensive definition of marketing provided by authors' Boone and Kurtz in their book 'Contemporary Marketing Wired (1998)' published by Dryden Press states: "Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives."

This definition seems to satisfy all the basic requirements of marketing; a recognition of which must made before we can proceed to creating a successful Web-marketing campaign.

Six Critical Elements of Web-Marketing Campaigns

If your marketing efforts fail to deliver the results you want, it could be due to a lack of resources, or more likely the lack of achievable expectations and patience. Marketing is a strategic exercise requiring a commitment to a long-term comprehensive plan, not a short-term fix to create instant sales. Concentrating your resources on stand-alone advertising and promotional efforts without considering the more important conceptual marketing framework is a prescription for disaster.

Ultimately most business managers come to realize that one-time advertising and short-term big-splash ads are a waste of time and money, but the lure of quick-fix shotgun advertising based on old school broadcast and print distribution volume seems to be a business addiction that is hard to kick. Even deep-pocketed corporate advertisers keep plowing money into television advertising that has knowingly become increasingly irrelevant and ineffective.

With the growing realization that the marketplace is not what it used to be, more and more companies both large and small are turning to the Web as an alternative marketing environment capable of reaching a dispersed diaspora of 'Long Tail' (Chris Anderson, "The Long Tail", Wired Magazine) interested prospects with a relevant memorable marketing message.

Realizing that you now have an economically viable multimedia platform that evens the marketing playing field, you must carefully consider how to proceed. If you merely transfer your traditional print advertising and direct marketing mailings to the Internet, you will be left behind.