Brazil has a well-deserved international reputation for football wizardry, having won five World Cups and innumerable other trophies. Now its domestic clubs are turning to online marketing to boost their profile and revenue.

With over 83 million Brazilians having access to the Web and some teams boasting 25 million fans, it was inevitable perhaps that the clubs would see the immense potential of internet marketing, via websites, Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts, online TV and mobile applications. They are increasingly using them to sell team merchandise, themed online games and to host competitions.

One club, Sao Paulo’s Corinthians, has even created the “Corinthians People’s Republic” online, with its 190,000 fans declared “citizens” with their own currency, virtual “embassy” and ID documents.

Rio’s Flamengo club’s head of marketing Marcus Duarte told the Times of India that “the goal is not to have the largest number of fans on Facebook, but to transform them into consumers.”

“We still have a lot to learn from abroad regarding online marketing, but we are beginning to reach cruise control,” he added.

Another expert suggested that with such things as online memberships, merchandise sales, sales of advertising space on websites and web-TV, clubs can earn around a million Brazilian reais per month.

Arsenal Football Club revealed its new online marketing strategy recently, along with its ambition to become the Premier League’s “Tesco Clubcard” through its fan membership.

The north London club will be placing its CRM system at the heart of the new internet marketing initiative, starting off by making it easier to become a member – with different levels of privilege depending on the level of membership paid for. This will effect access to priority tickets, online access to resources such as the Arsenal video library plus a new raft of special offers and promotions.

Speaking to Marketing Week magazine, Arsenal’s head of marketing Charles Allen said that “we are investing in a CRM system to register interests and passions so we can then send those people on appropriate journeys of affinity and provide access at an appropriate level.”

The main vehicle for the online marketing drive will be social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Currently it boasts 10.5 million Facebook fans and 1.5 Twitter followers. These will now be targeted with various special offers and membership options.

We’re going all the way back to 2007 this week, and the original Edinburgh seminar that gave the internet the well-received 13 Pillars of Internet Marketing.

As you will see from the film, the seminar leaders have identified 13 key principles for effective SEO and online marketing, which they believe can be applied to most businesses seeking to improve their internet advertising and marketing methods. Follow the topics in the seminar video as they cover:

Pillar 1 – Keyword Research

Pillar 2 – Website Design

Pillar 3 – Blog Technology

Pillar 4 – Auto responders

Pillar 5 – Paid Advertising

Pillar 6 – Press Releases

Pillar 7 – Link Building

Pillar 8 – Article Submission

Pillar 9 – Group Interaction

Pillar 10 – Viral Marketing

Pillar 11 – Visitor Analysis

Pillar 12 – Continuous Content

Pillar 13 – The Evolving Web

Facebook fan pages are a key component of online marketing efforts in 2012, having been steadily growing in popularity over the past two years. Consumers like Facebook fan pages because they are an easy way to interact with their favourite brands, and internet marketing professionals love the ease with which a successful fan page can create connections, drive traffic and create conversions. The only problem is that with so many Facebook fan pages now in existence, it can be difficult to find the right one.

Here, then, are four online tools dedicated to helping users locate the right fan pages:

The Page Finder

This index of Facebook fan pages is generated by Facebook users themselves, and as you might expect is massive, with more than a million different pages registered. However, it is easily searchable, thanks to pages being organised by locations and tags, before being sorted in alphabetical and popularity rankings.

Fan Page List

Another site with a good system of sorting options, the Fan Page List also lists top brands to be found on FourSquare and Twitter. When it comes to Facebook, there are a vast number of pages indexed for brands and products, as well as for other categories – such as celebrities, sports stars, bands and much more.

Discover Facebook Pages

Created by Facebook itself, this browser organises fan pages based on the user’s location and categorises them via a range of options, such as Brands and Products, Companies and Organisations, Local Businesses and Places, People, Television, Movies and Music. Pages that Facebook friends particularly like show up when the user is logged into Facebook themselves.

Directory of Facebook Pages

Another Facebook creation, this site is an alphabetised directory of fan pages, people, apps and groups. For this resource it is essential to be logged on to Facebook, otherwise searches come up with lists of users rather than pages.

When seeking a new niche for SEO-based online marketing, it pays to follow a few simple guidelines, in order to avoid the SEO deserts and truly make the most of your monetisation. Here’s three to bear in mind…

1. Avoid the “obvious”. Although a niche may have a lot of traffic volume surrounding its keywords, it may still not be the right one for you. See if it can genuinely be monetised by Google-searching the major keywords and seeing if there is much PPC advertising there. If not, it’s likely to be a sign that it’s a desert when it comes to revenue.
2. See which players are involved with the major keywords. If your Google search shows that it is only large corporate brands that are associated with the keywords, then you will have your work cut out to match resources with them – you will need the services of a top online marketing company with a great site strategy, and you will need to be prepared to make a lot of effort.
3. Check out the competition. If it is not all big brands in the niche, then take some time to see exactly who it is you’ll be competing with. There are various backlinks tools which can tell you exactly who is involved with the top search results associated with the keywords, and what kind of links you will require to compete with them. Again, a good internet marketing company will provide this service and bring a level of expertise to it that maybe you cannot.

With mobile marketing becoming such an important facet of online marketing efforts these days, it is important to remember some of the ‘golden rules’ in this fastest-growing of areas. Here’s five top tips to help anyone planning a mobile internet marketing campaign make the most of it:

1. Make it short, sharp and punchy! Since mobile devices such as smartphones are most likely to be used on the move, and many possible transactions will take place during public transport journeys or waiting in a queue, it makes sense for online marketing campaigns aimed at mobile users to be divided into “bite-size” portions, making it easier for the potential customer to read and digest the content. If a marketing drive drags, the bustling mobile user will lose interest.

2. Ensure the personal touch. Because mobile phones are uniquely personal – they are far more “part” of the person using them regularly than computers or even laptops – they are perfect for tailoring online marketing campaigns across a wide variety of personalised platforms, such as social media giants Facebook and Twitter, SMS and email. A canny marketing strategy realises this and concentrates on being accessible, personal and fun.

3. Include video content where possible. People like watching video clips on their smartphones – and even more so, people like making films on their smartphones. As part of your campaign, encourage potential customers to make their own videos and post them on your website directly from their handsets. In this way, the campaign helps to create its own online “community” or a small-scale social network of its very own, instilling brand loyalty and encouraging participation in further promotional events.

4. Use mobile marketing as part of an integrated campaign. When mobile marketing techniques such as SMS form part of a comprehensive online marketing drive encompassing an optimised website, blog posts, SEO and PPC campaigns, the results can be spectacular. To make the most of this, make sure your site has campaign-specific landing pages for all of your mobile banners.

5. Tie your campaign in with other popular features among mobile users. Owners of smartphones and tablets use them all the time to receive news reports and gossip, weather forecasts, information about local events and sporting updates. Try to bundle some of this content with your own campaign, offering extra mobile content, money off coupons or other incentives. This tactic is especially effective for local businesses seeking to expand their local customer base.

photo credit: Henriksent

Online marketing is a constantly developing field of expertise, with innovations emerging weekly – but no development has been quite significant over the past year than the rise of mobile devices. With more people than ever before owning smartphones and tablets, mobile devices are fast becoming the most important factor among internet marketing experts, who all advise that optimising a website for mobile traffic is the priority for 2012.

Because smartphones and tablets such as the iPhone and iPad have a full browsing ability, unlike the previous generation of mobile phones, they can still navigate a “normal” webpage without too much difficulty. Nevertheless, they still benefit from a more mobile-friendly site – and this is especially true for commercial sites. From an online marketing perspective, increased mobile traffic leads to more sales and conversions, as nowadays an ever-increasing amount of online transactions are being conducted via mobile devices.

Search engine giant Google has confirmed once again that mobile queries reached a peak the week before Christmas last year – the same as in 2010 – which indicates that mobile users are making the most of their devices for the busiest shopping period of the year. With this in mind, retailers need to be offering internet marketing campaigns that target mobile devices and use adverts specially enhanced for these devices. They could even consider separate campaigns for mobile consumption with tweaked messages and offers – such as discounts for customers that place orders or make purchaes via their smartphones or tablets.

A report published last year by tech research company Gartner estimated that mobile traffic will overtake traffic from desktop and laptop computers by 2013 across the globe. With this “deadline” looming, any company or organisation that relies on its online presence should be optimising their sites for mobile traffic, if they have not already done so. The research also showed an underlying trend that is more worrying: many online marketing professionals had not woken up to this sea change in internet behaviour and did not trust users of mobile devices to register with their sites or make online purchases – although all the evidence points the opposite way.

Fortunately, good online marketing companies are perfectly placed to assist clients with the process of mobile traffic optimisation, and can offer both advice and technical expertise.

Make sure that your website is not left behind in the mobile revolution!