Online marketing experts have been left breathless recently by the stunning success of the internet-based campaign against the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) legislation in the US Senate aimed at regulating the internet to prevent the downloading of US intellectual property by overseas websites.

Critics were alarmed at the proposed legislation, warning that it was badly drafted and would lead to government censorship of the internet worldwide and damage online security.

Thus, the Stop SOPA campaign was born, and represented one of the most effective online marketing campaigns of all time, with tech giants such as Google, Reddit and Wikipedia all getting involved in a day of action on 18 January. The search engine censored its own logo, Reddit took itself offline, and Wikipedia blacked out all of its content.

The legislation has since been withdrawn indefinitely, after US legislators were unprepared for the depth of the protests. Here is the key factor that made Stop SOPA such a stunning success:

It had a clear message and a definitive call to action. The campaign drew on the purest aims of any online marketing initiative: make sure the target audience knows what the campaign is about and knows what is required of it. This is as true of campaigns trying to secure new customers as it is of an online protest.

Last Wednesday, all the sites involved made it clear why they disagreed with the proposals and made it possible for users to add their names to the protest, with Google alone managing to gain 4.5 million signatures an online petition alone, and so many emails sent to the Congress that servers fell over and government websites crashed.

When it comes to online marketing campaigns for your company or your website, it will pay to follow the examples of Google, Reddit and Wikipedia, by reaching out to as many potential clients or customers as possible. This can be done by many means, the primary ones being a professionally optimised website, the canny use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and a regularly updated blog. You may not get the tens of millions of responses that the Stop SOPA campaigners managed, but the uplift to your company’s prospects will be noticeable!

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With the New Year upon us, many businesses – especially brand new small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) – may well be looking at the whole concept of online marketing for the first time. Although they may already have an online presence such as a website or a profile on a social network such as Facebook, this is far short of the massive potential for new business and increased profits that the world of internet marketing can offer. Here, then, is a guide to getting the New Year off to a flying start with a basic plan for an initial online marketing campaign:

1. Consider Your Goals. A business owner needs to work out exactly what an online marketing campaign is intended to achieve. These goals are often the same as a traditional marketing campaign’s – generating new leads, increasing your revenue stream and boosting customer service.
2. Draw up a rounded strategy. Planning is essential for the success of any campaign, from the business to the military! Good online marketing companies will discuss what resources and tactics are available, and which fit your business model and will help you to achieve your goals. Make use of them.
3. Learn on the job. Don’t just leave it to the professionals – learn the basics involved in internet marketing yourself, so you are better placed to track the success of the campaign and offer suggestions. One move might be to learn the rudiments of blogging, or social media such as Facebook and Twitter in order to make a personal contribution.
4. Draw up measurable objectives. Without proper benchmarks for success, you won’t know whether your campaign is working, or working to its full potential. A few benchmarks for success, such as a set number of new customers registered online over a period of time, or new followers on your Facebook fan page will help you and your online marketing consultants to tweak the campaign to make it even more effective.
5. Ensure you have a realistic budget. Although resources will never be infinite, sadly, it is worth making a sufficient investment to fund an effective online marketing campaign and to hire a competitively-priced company. There will also be ongoing costs associated with websites, for example, such as keeping content properly updated, upgrading the site’s features as new technology (such as flash animations) comes into play, and routine, day-today site maintenance.

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Online marketing will continue to evolve in 2012 – that is the one thing that all commentators can agree on. The sector is still busily growing, and such a technology-driven sector cannot help but change pretty fast, considering the ongoing innovations in IT and media.

While the general thrust of marketing strategies remains the same as it ever has, internet marketing is different because it marries tried and tested attitudes to marketing and advertising with the frantic world of online technology, and all the constant upgrades and developments that it entails.

This means that next year will inevitably see new online marketing techniques emerge and a new focus on existing methods.

One such technique which has already mushroomed in importance in 2011 is mobile optimised merchandising, thanks to the vast increase in the number of consumers with smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. This trend is only set to continue and accelerate next year, and so the online marketing team that ensure their company’s or clients’ websites are optimised for use by these devices will be able to hit the ground running on New Year’s Day. Another wise move by any online marketing enterprise wishing to take advantage of the mobile devices revolution is to sell clients subscription services where appropriate, whereby customers can subscribe to a regular newsletter, special offers, vouchers – or whatever best suits their business.

We all know that regularly updated site content – especially on blogs – is essential when it comes to maintaining your position in the search rankings, but fewer companies are yet aware of the vast potential for consumer interest in the field of video content, although online marketing experts have been pushing video content for several years now. Next year video content is set to greatly increase its internet marketing potential, as more and more people watch online videos via their tablets or smartphones. When videos combine product information with genuine entertainment, then their power to attract new customers and strengthen relationships with existing ones is incalculable. With social media sites such as Facebook and Google+ making it easier to embed video than ever before, 2012 will really be the year that video goes viral!

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Retail analysts have identified a terrific online marketing opportunity during this year’s Christmas period – a massive internet spending spree by UK consumers over the next 14 days.

Forecasters at IMRG said that Britons are gearing up to spend an incredible £186.4 million online on Christmas Day alone, a 12 per cent increase compared to the same day last year. Consumers will also spend nearly double what they spent in 2010 on Boxing Day, IMRG added, with a predicted haul of £367.8 million.

Part of this is down to a huge online marketing push by many retailers, who have been heavily promoting sales and special offers and letting customers know that pre-Christmas stocks are running out fast in their internet advertising campaigns, making sure that pre-orders and sales come in earlier than the previous year.

The company’s chief marketing and communications officer David Smith said: “Although shopping on Christmas Day might not appear to quite be in the Christmas spirit, it is worth considering that many of these sales could actually be associated with popular gifts people have received, such as downloadable content for MP3 players and Kindles.”

Mr Smith noted that last Christmas Day had already seen a 26 per cent increase in online spending, making the idea of a 12 per cent increase this year even more impressive.

The IMRG report underlines the importance of having an effective online marketing strategy in place that takes into account not only the run-up to Christmas, but the Christmas holidays themselves. At this time, new gifts – especially technology such as media players and computers – often create their own demand for accessories, software, peripherals, DVDs and CDs.

Portable devices such as smartphones and iPads are going to be very popular gift choices this Christmas, only adding to the importance of these mobile devices in the world of online marketing. Recently, search giant Google published research which showed that more mobile devices were being used to make Christmas gift enquiries than ever before, with the technology being used for more than half of all searches for store locations, special offers and last-minute gift ideas, compared to desktops and traditional laptop computers.

Given this growing trend, it is imperative that online marketing professionals make it a priority to emphasise mobile devices in their campaigns, especially those hoping to capitalise on this year’s Christmas season.

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An annual American online marketing event produced a list of its keynote speakers this week, all of whom are experts in various arenas of the internet marketing and online advertising sector in the USA.

Online Marketing Summit takes place between 6 February and 10 February 2012 in San Diego, and promises to be “the industry’s premier digital marketing event” of next year, with presentations and seminars from some of online marketing’s top “thought leaders,” according to its organisers.

Keynote speakers who have been confirmed for the event include IBM systems & technology group head Mary Hall, Caterpillar eBusiness platform manager Kevin Espinosa, AOL Huffington Post Media Group director Simon Heseltine, General Motors social media manager Charlotte Blank, SAP senior director of search marketing Crispin Sheridan, San Diego Union-Tribune interactivity vice-president Mike Hodges, PEMCO vice-president and chief marketing officer Rod Brooks, Silverpop director of product strategy Bryan Brown, HP.com director of worldwide search Paul Vallez, Salesforce director of search, display and social advertising Lauren Vaccarello, plus social media speaker and author Mari Smith.

They will be part of an event that aims to create an “educational environment” to help US online marketing professionals to learn from each other, discuss best practice and innovation in the sector, and to take part in a spot of networking as well. Organisers boast that over 12,000 people have attended its events – and benefited from them too – over the years.

For the first time next year, the summit will offer visitors the chance to browse online marketing technologies, agencies and consultancies on its brand new Expo show floor, with a large variety of corporate sponsors.

The summit’s founder and chairman Aaron Kahlow said that “Online Marketing Summit is the event to attend to hear from the leading companies on the most important topics – the proven practitioners who will share their successes from the front lines of online marketing.”

“It’s a great time to come together in sunny San Diego to explore the wide range of tools and solutions available and to empower a global community as we work to learn and share best practices in digital marketing.”

With such a wealth of resources to draw upon, it’s likely this event will be very helpful for America’s online marketing professionals. It would be good to see the UK sector following its lead and staging more events of this kind for its own companies.

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With out Christmas List to Santa safely in the post, let’s take a look ahead to 2012, with a couple of New Year’s resolutions aimed at ensuring online marketing success over the next 12 months:

Improving your online marketing profile via social media has to be a big component of the New Year – if not the biggest. Get those fan pages up and running on Facebook and your account ready to roll on Twitter, along with messages urging customers to “Like” or “Follow” your brand.

Try to look up customers who were once frequent sights on your email listings but who have gone quiet in 2011. Many may be pleased to hear from you and as long as you are not seen to be pestering them, re-engagement efforts can improve your internet marketing successes.

As with all New Year’s resolutions, too many will cause you to lose your focus and willpower – so just bear these in mind for now, and OMD will keep suggesting other routes to online marketing success during the Christmas period – and beyond!

photo credit: Pink Ayla

The ever-increasing importance of mobile devices in online marketing was hammered home this week after a new survey revealed that 33 per cent of smartphone users had ordered a product with their device – and another 26 per cent had ordered a product or service online using a mobile app.

The research, carried out by EPiServer, showed that e-commerce via mobile devices is becoming a key part of UK retail, with online marketing efforts increasingly geared towards such shopping habits. With 59 per cent of British consumers now owning some form of smartphone and 18 per cent owning tablet devices, this is a sensible move.

However, the survey also discovered that some online marketing professionals are not making their sites mobile-friendly enough, with 32 per cent of smartphone users finding websites hard to navigate. Another 35 per cent said that they gave up on sites that were too difficult to find one’s way around.

But only 20 per cent of online marketing workers surveyed said that their site was optimised for mobile devices, and only 18 per cent had a specific mobile app. The good news is that 76 per cent said that they had a mobile strategy in place with 26 per cent due to launch a site optimised for smartphones and tablets in the next year.