Justin Bentley

Marketing Portfolio

             INTERNET MARKETING STRATEGY

* This page includes a short description of the my online marketing strategy during my contract position with Yelp.com


Summary: 

In order for the overall marketing campaign in Atlanta to be as effective as possible, it was necessary to develop and implement an online marketing campaign to complement the other marketing activities.

Strategy:

  • Location Specific Factors: The online marketing campaign was implemented through many different websites; however, my strategy was to concentrate on those sites which attracted a market segments with demographic characteristics similar to those individuals who were active in the Yelp community.
  • Location Specific Factors: The online marketing campaign was implemented through many different websites; however, my strategy was to concentrate on those sites which attracted a market segments with demographic characteristics similar to those individuals who were active in the Yelp community.
  • Design:  I developed several internet marketing derivatives and tools which were designed to provide the viewer with a glimpse of what the website is about, the possible benefits they would gain from using the site, and the social community that existed both online and off-line.  There is also a certain trendy appeal to the website and community, which is another design aspect that was used sparingly.
  • Constructive Feedback: These tools were tested out on a small number of individuals, most of which were stakeholders in one form or another.  The results of the pre-test were opinionated and constructive feedback on the perceived effectiveness of the online marketing tools. The feedback of course aided throughout the entire development process, and increased the marketing tools’ chances of success.
  • Benefit Positioning Approach:  Derivatives and tools were received credibility because the potential audience of interest could pass the message on to their own personal contacts as a recommendation which contained the purpose of providing useful & beneficial information, instead of an easily recognizable promotion which attempted to simply convince the viewer to visit the site.
  • Network Support: Once the online marketing devices were ready to be executed, I included a  large network of personal contacts and individuals currently in Yelp Atlanta community who were willing to make recommendations (ie: spread the word) in the marketing process.
  • Social Proof: Another step I took prior to the large scale implementation of the various online marketing tools was ensuring that each tool had received an ideal amount of recognition, acceptance or engagement from networked contacts in the various online communities in which they were implemented. This step aided the entire online marketing strategy because it took advantage of the psychological influencer known as social proof, which is essentially the acceptance of something because others have accepted it.

      FRAMEWORK OF ONLINE MARKETING

  • Double Check: First and most obvious step, make sure your website has been through a thorough trial and error stage before any online promotion is implemented.  Will a visitor leave because the site is: 
  • difficult to navigate?
  • aesthetically unpleasing? 
  • contains no variables of interest?
  • Engage:   Once that site is ready, get ready to start a pot of coffee for the creative employees at your company so they can engage that audience! 
  • Use Website Analytic services to find out where they are coming from, then figure out how to get others from that site and similar sites to also pay you a visit.
  • Avoid sounding desperate at all costs. 
  • Try to avoid any and all promotional incentives.  Nothing should be flashy, obtrusive, or violating their personal space either (eg. SPAM, annoying full screen pop-ups, and any other annoying tools which usually appeal to the wrong emotion)

 

o      Attain:  Temporarily attain your target audience with a strategy that results in their actual visit to your site. (May seem very basic and sound like it is easy to accomplish, but there are obviously many website who struggle to accomplish this task.)

 

  • Actuate:  Website has to be designed to generate a response, or acquisition of the visitor. If they do visit your site:
  • Will visitors be likely to engage in any type of activity?
  • Are the strongest aspects or products on the website easily visible?
  • What will spark their interest and how?

  • Be Patient:  If successful, the rest arguably takes care of itself, and that virus will probably spread through many different channels of communication.  But this is not  going to happen over night.  We should all learn a little patience with this step, because putting to much force into the process makes the viral aspect lose credibility.

  • Measure and Adjust: Nothing wrong with a two-part step.  Especially when it is this important. 

    • Use analytical tools to generate reports on your visitors(ie: Google Analytics, Compete.com, etc.) 
    • How long are they staying and where? 
    • What parts of the site are being visited the most?  Where are they coming from? Etc. etc... 
    • Then make appropriate adjustments based on that data and repeat the 1st step (double checking.)
    • Do not rely too heavily on the numbers for the online marketing strategy or website development, because they can only get you so far, and will most likely stunt creativity.

                   SOME USEFUL PUBLICATIONS









 

 

 

 

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