Prepaid Marketing for Online Success

Having a coherent web strategy starts with some introspection and asking yourself some simple questions which many marketers fail to do so. Seth Godin puts these down as the following.

• What are you trying to accomplish?
  Being clear of what you are trying to accomplish is critical, If you don’t know where you want to get to – you are never going to get there. It all boils down to SMART objectives and clarity of thought and purpose.

• Can it be measured?
  So you know where you are trying to get to; that’s a good start but do you know how to measure where you are getting to. Targets and achievements both need to be measurable.

• What is the cost of bringing one customer, one time, to your website?
  Once again, it is all about being able to measure and monitor. You need to be able to define as closely as possible what it costs to bring a single customer to your website. So basically, analyse what the cost of single customer acquisition is? This will allow you to question whether that is a cost you are willing to pay and whether it is actually worth getting that customer to your site.

• What is the cost of having that consumer return?
  Been there once, now how do we get there again. This really follows on from the earlier question – if you know what it costs you to get a customer, it is just as important to know what it costs to have that customer return as zillions of marketing Guru’s and guides will tell you that retaining a customer and getting them to come back and developing loyalty is by far a cheaper and more beneficial route to success. New customer acquisition is necessary but customer retention is vital too.

• If this works, can we scale it?
  No point developing a strategy which is not scalable due to the lack of resources – technological, financial or people. Build a strategy which allows you to expand its scale and benefit, not only from the knowledge of what works and what doesn’t but also from the benefits of economies of scale.

Simple questions which are the first step in ensuring that you build a coherent web strategy.