Online Marketing Mix Enhances Site Strategy

An online marketing mix is a strategy that determines what kind of choices to make for building a website presence.

Marketing mix is a concept with a long history in business. It usually includes four Ps:

1. Product (or service)
2. Place
3. Price
4. Promotion

The 4 P’s of online marketing work just as well. But the online mix has some unique twists to the traditional model. Does a website have a place? How do you price it if most websites are free?

Product

The first part of this one is easy. The most common online product is a website. Other examples include social media accounts and video channels such as YouTube.

From a marketing perspective, which really means a customer perspective, what benefits should it provide that make it worthwhile for the customer to visit and come back again?

A list of other questions comes to mind:

• What is the name of the site? Is that domain name available for purchase?
• Does the domain name include a relevant keyword that will boost its presence in search engines?
• If not,  are the promotional budget and organic campaign tactics strong enough to build it as a unique brand, i.e., Amazon.com?
• What is the design concept?
• What features and functions will it offer?
• How much competition will it face?
• What resources are required to build, maintain and grow it?

These are all potential benefits or actions that lead to potential benefits.

A website doesn’t have a fixed and unchangeable nature like a can of Coke. The Coca Cola company can’t alter a can of Coke after it has been produced. An online publisher can change a website after its initial launch or just about anytime he or she pleases. Online products are remarkably dynamic, interactive and trackable.

Therein lies one of the great advantages of online publishing. The ability to use analytics to track site visitors will allow the publisher to make continuous improvements that benefit the business in the long run. Site usability is fluid.

Place

Place is a little more tricky in an online marketing mix. In traditional marketing, place includes the physical location of the business. It’s not quite the same with a website, which is an intangible.

But both have geographical appeal. Think of online place as a location with the potential to reach certain geographic audiences. The online product may target a U.S. audience — or an English speaking audience that includes U.S., Canadian and British visitors.

The place is therefore the city, state, region or country it targets, not the origin of the product. If the website targets a community, the place is much more narrowly defined.

Where and how the publisher promotes the site will have an impact on its geographic footprint. But again, analytics will show whether the actual audience matches the promotional effort or whether that effort needs adjusting.

Price

Price shows up several ways in an online marketing mix, starting with whether or not the website itself is free to access.

Sites with high-value content that other sites can’t easily duplicate have a chance to charge for access. Sites with advertising or that sell products are almost always free.

Somes sites are hybrid versions of the above two options. They may offer free access to a limited number of articles on a daily or monthly basis and payment for more frequent access.

What if the company sells the same product or service online as it does in an offline environment? The price question goes to whether the product should get a discount online and IF the online cost of the transaction is lower than offline.

Newspapers are a great example of that concept. Newspaper publishers must pay for newsprint, printing presses and circulation costs. They do not have those expenses with the online version of their products.

Price also comes into play for another set of clients — advertisers.

Sites that publish original content usually get the bulk of their revenue from advertisers. So pricing ads on the site becomes an important consideration.

Promotion

For pure Web brands, promotion begins with online tactics such as search engine optimization, paid advertising, content marketing, social media, email marketing and other means of reaching an audience.

Sites with large budgets also consider using offline promotional channels such as print, broadcast and outdoor.

The ads in those environments may have website promotion as the primary goal of the campaign. Or they may mention the site as a secondary goal, such as an auto dealer touting a new car sale with a simple reference to the website address somewhere in the ad.

Competition again is a factor. Some tactics are so crowded that it is difficult if not impossible to get the message heard.

As an example, try to get ranked No. 1 in Google for the keyword “vacation deals” or “cheap flights” or any number of other hotly competitive phrases.

The online marketing mix concept is one of many useful ways of developing an online marketing strategy.