Best Practices for Online Marketing

Reaching people through online, e-commerce and social media has become an unquestionable requirement of doing business; particularly for smaller brands without the resources to do other types of advertising and promotion. However the online space is becoming increasingly more crowded as well. Gone are the wild frontier days of social media where anything would garner attention. In addition emailers and banner ads are all experiencing declines in user participation. Faced with these facts, brands should not run and hide, rather we see tremendous opportunities when each media is approached with a clear plan of action and a clear point-of-difference to share. Enter the alliance of strategic marketing and design. Marketing charts the course and design creates the vehicles that bring it to life.

When we review a business looking to activate their online presence we first begin by analyzing what the company is currently doing online. We are also interested in their goals as it is crucial to know what you want to get out of online marketing before going into it. Reviewing what’s working and what’s not work in the existing landscape as well as setting the end goals really helps to focus our creative strategies. With a first engagement we try to look immediately to the low hanging fruit for the best opportunities to generate results. Quickly capitalizing on these opportunities can help the team feel a renewed enthusiasm for online marketing.

With the success of our first campaign under our  belts we can begin to focus on larger more complex agendas. Experience has shown that a trial with a sample campaign can help both parties get to know each other more and determine if the relationship overall is a good fit. Even better we can use the results from our initial campaign as a test bed to anticipate the types of goals, results, and metrics we can set moving forward.

Because no two brands are alike, there is no one size fits all solution for online marketing. This is why we focus first on marketing goals before the creative process begins.

MSLK has recently formed a strategic partnership with marketing consultant, Gloria Luna. Gloria is 15-year industry veteran having worked with brands such as Avon, Calvin Klein, L’Oreal and Sally Hansen. Gloria’s experience marketing fashion and beauty brands rounds out our design experience.