There are a number of ways to have an effective Internet marketing/PR strategy and help the environment. Here are some suggestions for you.
* Save your share of paper by building and keeping updated a great website rather than printing brochures or other direct mail items. In a recent study, branded web sites were one of the top items that consumers trusted while advertising (a la the 'corporate speak' brochure) was one of the lowest. In today's competitive online market your website is a valuable piece of real estate.
* Online press releases have now passed trade magazines as the place to go for business workers to get information about products and services. So send out online press releases that are written as news articles about your website and your offers. This will get your message out directly to the new engines (without havinwholesale pearlwholesale necklaceg to go through a reporter or editor), attract visitors, and increase the number of links to your website, which will raise your ranking in the search engines.
* Utilize Social Media to extend your messaging. Social Media includes social search, social bookmarking and social media marketing. Social News sites include: Digg, Netscape and Reddit. Social Bookmarking sites include: Del.icio.us, Furl and Google Bookmarks. To become more 'recognized' in the social media community, a profile of the organization needs to be created and made popular. Then social media actions such as bookmarking become more beneficial as you are known and trusted. ("Social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives with each other. Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. Popular social mediums include blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, and vlogs." - Wikipedia)
* Use email by sending out a regular online newsletter. It keeps your message in front of prospects and customers for minimal cost vs. postal mail plus the paper saved. It is vital to build an email list so that you have a targeted audience to market to. Email using best practices is one of the most effective Internet marketing tools.
* Start a blog or blogs to raise search visibility, create page one search results over a period of time and make the author an opinion leader. Blog readership jumped exponentially in the last year according to the study by the Pew Internet and American Life study.
* Syndicate your content via RSS feeds (RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication; is a web feed format used to publish frequently updated digital content such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts) so that you get exposure in other places on the Web. This also increases the number of links to your website. Educational news articles that keep your message in front of prospects and customers for minimal cost vs. postal mail. Other RSS feeds could include: optimized press releases, articles, price changes, white papers, technical briefings, updates, etc--all of which are published online.
* The best form of advertising is 'recommendations from consumers' i.e. word of mouth. The shift in media consumption and the proliferation of consumer generated content led to Time Magazine nominating YOU--the producers of this content (referring to consumer generated content) as their Person of the Year. This can be as simple as getting testimonials from your customers and using them in your marketing materials. Branded web sites, email and online consumer comments are also top ways of reaching your target audience.
As a bonus, just think of the money you will save on printing and mailing costs by applying this green friendly Internet marketing/PR strategy.
