Rand’s article raises some valid points about the SEO industry. Now that other forms of advertising and sales channels have slipped up a bit due to their high costs or lower ROI, online marketing – including SEO, is taking more of the marketing budget pie in a lot of corporate environments. Internal marketing departments and external marketing agencies are having to prove their worth more, now that budgets are getting stretched and squeezed to their fullest. If a channel isn’t accountable for spending vs. sales then the likelihood that it will survive this downturn is unlikely.

Also, SEO is coming out of the shadows. As myths get debunked and education is expanded to business owners and marketers, true SEO is gaining ground as a viable marketing initiative. Of course there are still gamers, hacks and snake oil salesmen out there and until our industry grows up a lot more and sets some standards the fight will rage on between white hat and black hat SEO.

On the other side of the fence Ms. Callow discusses the benefits of search marketing or PPC advertising. Which is one arena where we have seen tremendous growth in the last several months. Of course a majority of this growth can be attributed to the holiday season, as we handle pay per click advertising for several online retailers. However it is not just retailers looking to leverage this channel over traditional advertising – many of our b2b customers have been asking about it as well. I believe Ms. Callow nails the reasoning for this perfectly in her article.

Often marketers are attracted to PPC advertising due to its inherent benefits such as advanced targeting, accountability and cost effectiveness. With PPC advertising you can start or stop ads at any time, run them only when you know people will be looking for your product or service, target by geographic region (down to the city level) and attract customers using their nomenclature at the exact instance of their interest and query. With advanced web analytics you can track click to conversion metrics to further account for each dollar spent vs. each dollar generated.

There is also a “safe” factor to PPC advertising. Marketers know that they can invest a minimal amount upfront and give it a test run. If they feel it is not working for them they can stop all ads and outgoing costs instantly or they can retool ads and spend more time doing keyword research to find better converting terms. Right now these are especially attractive features.

Don’t Stop at SEO and PPC Advertising

The only thing both of these articles are missing is any mention of other online marketing initiatives, like permission based email marketing. Email marketing is still a tremendous way to market on a very cost effective platform. It literally costs pennies, and in most cases fractions of pennies, to leverage an internal customer or lead list that may be gathering dust and turn it into a powerful customer relationship management channel and sales tool.

So if you are not already involved in online marketing, you better get your move on! You are already losing ground, market share and revenue to your competitors if you are not actively working the online channel. In all market conditions it is a powerful marketing tool, but especially during an economic downturn.

Pick an email vendor to send the campaigns.

One of the worst ways try to send mass emails is through your desktop email client. Many businesses simply copy and paste contacts from their address book into a BCC email and send it out. With this method you run the risk of many people marking the email as spam. This reflects badly on your domain with ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and they could blacklist your domain for these practices.

Use a reputable email vendor such as Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact or Newsberry to handle ISP relations and help ensure delivery. These companies also offer very good reporting after your campaign has been sent to let you know how many people opened your offer or clicked on a link inside the email – something you can not do with a BCC email.

Choose your content and subject line carefully.

Even if you use an email vendor your message could still be flagged as spam by the ISP or recipient, so you want to choose your content wisely and write a compelling subject line that will clear spam filters and get recipients to open your message. It is not a bad idea to work with a copywriter that has experience in this area. Be sure to avoid the top 100 words you shouldn’t use in email subject lines if you plan to do this yourself. Couple specials or promotions with messaging on your website or in your store. Get creative with your messaging and use this special time of the year to push more sales (people love sales!) for things like After Christmas Specials and New Year Blowouts.

Choose a compelling design.

While all of the email vendors listed above have pre-built templates you can use, they remain pretty generic. Just slapping your logo into one of them can reflect badly on your brand identity. If possible work with someone who has experience with email marketing design and building templates that will work in all email desktop clients.

Choose your delivery time and day.

Different industries have different best practices for delivery times and days of the week. Many retailers have their best success by delivering in the afternoon and some do very well with Friday or weekend email blasts. Corporations with a b2b focus usually fare better with a morning delivery Tuesday through Thursday.

Scrub, rinse and repeat.

After your email campaign goes out you can review the report you get from the email vendor to see your open rate, bounce rate, and click through rate. Remove the bounced email addresses from your list, review your content and subject line, make needed adjustments to the message and prepare a new campaign.

Send out email marketing campaigns on a schedule that makes sense for your business. If you are just sending an email newsletter, once a month is probably good. If your store offers weekly specials then send once a week. Any more than once a week you run a serious risk of turning customers off to your message and business. This also increases the risk that you will get marked as spam or have people unsubscribe from your offerings.

By following these few simple guidelines you can maximize your return on investment with cost effective email marketing campaigns and have a stellar holiday season!