If you haven’t jumped into the crazy world of social media yet, or if you just don’t think you’re getting it quite right, it can pay to take a look at your goals.

While the major players have changed slightly, social media marketing is still in a growth stage. As part of an overall marketing strategy, social media can help build on what you’re doing to make your online presence even stronger with greater reach.

This post gives you a summary of 17 things about social media marketing that can help get you on track.

17 Crucial Things You Must Know for Social Media Success

Recent statistics show that more than 14 billion searches are conducted every day.

That’s why it’s not a stretch to see how effective search engine marketing can play a very large role in the amount of traffic coming to your website or blog.

Traffic may come to your site in two different ways through search:

1. Paid search (pay-per-click advertising)
2. Organic search results

While you shouldn’t rely on search traffic alone to build your site traffic, search marketing can be a great tool to include in your online marketing mix.

Here’s a look at both types of search engine marketing – paid and organic – as part of our Back to Basics Friday series:

Website Traffic and Search Engines

Online marketing has really blossomed into something of a behemoth over the past few years. Recognized as perhaps the most cost effective marketing channel on the planet with the greatest reach, everyone wants to jump into the pool. The real problem is many who do so don’t give their online marketing efforts enough thought. Instead, they see the latest fashionable outlet, put a stake in the ground, and wait for customers to beat down the door.

As part of our Back to Basics Friday series, here’s a look at how you might sharpen your online marketing focus to rise to greater heights. Consider it a stepping stone intended only to stimulate thought.

4 Ways to Sharpen Your Online Marketing

As the year draws to a close, most business owners start thinking about how they can grow in the year ahead. One great way to do that is to look at your marketing efforts over the past year to see what worked and what didn’t.

Were your marketing efforts spot on for 2011 or not? Can your results be improved by revisiting the basics of effective marketing? Are you considering rolling out a new product or service in the year ahead?

Here are 10 basic tips that can help get your marketing on track and help you start planning for the year ahead.

10 Things Every Business Owner Should Know about Marketing

Keyword research is an important foundation for a number of marketing channels, not just search engine marketing. Knowing which keywords to target is important for content marketing and social media marketing as well.

Unfortunately, too many marketers and D-I-Yers either overlook keyword research altogether or do an inadequate job of researching keywords.

Planning, writing and publishing content that’s based on inadequate research is a recipe for failure and ‘do-overs.’ This post looks at how effective keyword research can boost your brand’s visibility online.

Keyword Research, Search and Content Marketing

Direct marketing campaigns are still effective – especially when used with other marketing tools as part of an integrated, multi-channel marketing strategy.

There are some basics to getting the most out of a direct marketing campaign. Without them, you’re probably just going to waste time and money, and you run the risk of turning off your prospects.

This post will give you some ideas on the critical elements that must be included in direct marketing campaigns to make them successful.

7 Critical Elements in Direct Marketing Campaigns

Some marketers have given up and abandoned email marketing as a viable tool for building their business, crying, “Email marketing doesn’t work anymore.” Others simply believe that reaching out to prospects by email is tantamount to spam.

Our experience has been that email marketing most certainly does work, and if you follow certain guidelines, you won’t be seen as a spammer.

Here are some basics on using email as part of your online marketing efforts and how you can get started or just get back on track.

Email Marketing Basics

Are you still on the fence about a blog? Maybe you haven’t made up your mind if a blog will be useful to you. Or, maybe you have a blog but it doesn’t seem to be working the way you thought it would. Sometimes, getting back to basics can help.

Blogs can provide greater visibility within your industry, help position you, your company or organization as a thought leader in your field, and generate speaking opportunities.

But, like anything else in the digital marketing arena, blogs have their downsides too.

Here’s a look at the basics of blogs and blogging, why they work and what you’ll want to watch out for if you have a blog or are planning to use one for marketing purposes.

Blogs and Blog Marketing

This post by Jane Genova on IndieReader.com talks about the growth of the market for ebooks and what it may mean for those of us who love the appeal of a well-designed book cover.

As Genova points out, the fact that those who self-publish using one of the larger, no-frills indie publishers tend to end up with a standard cover template doesn’t seem to be slowing sales, as some indie titles with plain vanilla covers still end up on The New York Times and USA bestseller lists.

I’m still a believer that a good book cover attracts attention and that people (at least some, anyway), do judge a book – even an ebook – by its cover.

Jane’s piece goes on to discuss how using some of today’s tools for marketing books online – and those that have yet to be discovered – “could wind up selling more books and having more impact on society than what any cover could have achieved in the past.” Maybe so, but I still have to wholeheartedly agree with Lee Harrison, who opines:

“Book covers are like wrapping paper on a gift or packaging on food. They make a soul giddy in anticipating what treasures lie within. A good cover, like good packaging, makes one eager to unwrap; break in; explore. Covers sell magazines; front pages sell newspapers; packaging sell cake mixes…”

Well said.

Read: Are Books As Sexy Without Their Covers?

What are your thoughts on attractive cover art for ebooks? Do you see it as a valid promotional tool, a dying bit of Americana, or as a total waste of money? I’d love to hear your opinion.

Content marketing has received a lot of attention over the past few years as a particularly effective method for reaching prospects, generating leads and retaining customers.

Content marketing relies on providing information that solves problems and builds trust with prospects and existing customers alike. It’s being used by some of the largest marketing organizations in the world, including P&G, Microsoft and Cisco Systems. It’s also being used (or considered) by small businesses and one-person shops around the globe.

Why? Because a well executed content marketing program can improve lead generation, revenue growth, and customer retention.

But is content marketing right for you? These four questions can help you decide if content marketing might be a good fit:

1. Do you need to educate prospects and clients? Everyone knows how to use a paperclip or a stapler. But few prospects are aware of how to develop a strategy for and execute an effective social media promotion. Content marketing is an outstanding tool for educating prospects on why they need your product or service, understanding what they have to gain, and what they have to lose if they don’t get it right.
2. How long and complex is the buying cycle? If you’re selling custom products or services that solve specific problems with a buying cycle that’s typically 3 to 6 months or longer, content marketing is probably a very good fit for you. However, if your sales cycle is short and transactional, content marketing would hold little value for you because prospects conduct little to no research other than comparing prices, credit and shipping terms.
3. How many people are involved in making the buying decision? If your prospects usually need to move up or across the organization to get buy-in before making a purchase, content marketing is probably a good fit for you. By providing valuable, trustworthy content that’s easily shared with others, you make it easy for prospects to cut through the red tape and move forward easily to close the deal once they’re ready.
4. What is the cost of completing a transaction? The cost of completing a transaction ties in with questions 1 through 3. The lower the cost per transaction, the less likely you’ll need to educate your prospects, the more likely your buying cycle will be short, and the more likely buying decisions won’t be made by committee.

Content marketing is just one tool available to help you succeed. To learn more about it, download our free special report titled, How to Generate Leads and Attract Today’s Prospects. Whenever you’re ready to take the plunge, contact us to find out how we can help with the right marketing tools for your business or non-profit.