So, how do you develop an online marketing strategy?

First you need to do an appraisal and gather information about your company, competitors, customers and other industry players. You need a clear picture of what you're up against. This includes identifying your target market/clients and carrying out a SWOT analysis.

S - Strengths What are strengths of your business?

W - Weaknesses What are weaknesses in your business?

O - Opportunities What opportunities are available to your business?

T - Threats What threats is your business facing?

Next, define specifically what are challenges and problems that you need to overcome. From this answer question, "What will it take to overcome your main marketing challenges and problems?"

Once you've developed your objectives, then choose strategies to support these objectives. Your strategies could include:

Improve communication

Educating potential clients

Sharing information

Increase awareness of your products/services or company.

Then select most effective marketing tactics to bring your strategies to life. These tactics then need to be turned into an action plan.

Wendy Hearn Internet Marketing Coach

She works with people who want to dramatically improve the results of their website and internet business. You'll get individual personal attention that's with you every step of the way

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A London nightclub news website – provide daily what’s on tonight SMS Textback Service

A London nightclub news website wanted to provide their members with ability to find out what bars and nightclubs were open on any given day, without having to browse website as well as convince bars and nightclubs to advertise on website

Using reverse billing and textback, website provided its users with ability to find out this information. Users would text a particular keyword in their mobile handset and then send this message to a defined short code (i.e. 83999). A set amount was then immediately deducted from users phone either pay-as-you-go or from their monthly contract. The user would then receive an instant SMS message with all of particular nightclubs that were open that evening.

By using this type of advertising website was able to increase its sales for advertisers on its site by 40% in first quarter alone.

2cast4 – SMS artist textback service for casting/booking application

2cast4, an application service software provider for agents in media and advertising industries working in film, television and photography, wanted to provide casting agents a fast and efficient way to communicate with their artists in order to find out if they were available for castings.

By using a combination of Web and SMS technology, 2cast4 leads industry in casting solutions. Casting agents enter all of casting job details into a database and then query database for artist matches based on set criteria. Then those short-listed can be sent an instant SMS message. The casting agent only enters message once, but it is personalised and sent to all of relevant artists. Upon receipt of SMS text message, artist simply replies to text with either yes or no. The message is then routed back to database and updates records immediately. This solution provided casting agents with time/cost-saving efficiency while ensuring accurate records.

A digital media company – Multimedia via SMS and WAP

A London-based digital media company wanted to provide their users with ability to choose from several different media and by sending a text message to a given short code (i.e. 83999), an automatic WAP service message was sent back to user for them to download file (i.e. MID, MP3, 3GP).

Using a web interface, digital media company was able to upload their media files straight to a web server, while also storing file information in a database. All SMS requests, WAP service messages and downloads were tracked by database, as were user information like mobile number, mobile network, mobile handset, WAP IP address, file requested, file downloaded, and date. Through use of this tracking system digital media company was able to compile important user marketing information.

Conclusion

Mobile marketing is a new addition to media mix, with great opportunities for direct interaction with customers and cost-effective data collection. Leading brands have adopted this medium and number of companies actively using mobile marketing in their marketing strategies is growing rapidly.

Selecting a supplier that understands medium as well your requirements is key to success - we hope that this overview will help you to make most out of this exciting media channel. For further information and case studies from your industry, please see www.unilabplus.com, www.i-multimarket.co.uk or contact Stefanos Cunning at Unilabplus Ltd London office.