A lot of self-centered corporate marketing is giving way to customer-centric ways of communicating the value of doing business.  I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of online marketing and have been sharing these ideas through client content marketing strategy. At the same time, more companies are actively seeking expertise with a customer-centric approach to content.

One area of change is search engine optimization and going after the most popular keywords (relevant to products & services) and optimizing to attract customers. The assumption is that the search result will compel users to click and the destination page visit results in a conversion.

Before search, there are many other behaviors to consider that influence the consumer’s confidence in what they find. It’s a lot more complex than needing something, searching, finding & buying with no other influences.

To that end, here’s an approach to better understanding how consumers/buyers move about the web and opportunities for marketers to connect, engage and inspire commerce.

1. Discovering

(Searching, Asking, “Social Surfing”) – How do consumers, especially the audience or customer segments you’re after, find new content? How do they seek information?  To what extent do they search for resources in combination or instead of tapping into knowledge within their social networks?

Getting a handle on your customer’s discovery behaviors is an important step in meeting their information needs. This is a fluid thing, it’s not static and marketers need to maintain their knowledge of these customer preferences.

2. Consuming

(Reading, Watching, Listening) – To what extent do your customers use computers vs tablets or mobile to consume content?  What formats of information do they prefer?  Are there media or content types in favor such as long form text vs. nuggets, or video vs. images or audio?  Which content formats do they respond best to at the varying stages of their relationship with your brand?

The value of knowing information formats and consumption goes far beyond lead generation, since brands and customers communicate for a variety of reasons throughout the life cycle.

3. Creating

(Authoring, Developing, Any Kind of Media) – Are your customers part of the elite minority that create media and content online? How can the brand recognize that effort? How can they empower it and facilitate it towards a mutual end benefit?

Creation of content is also an important consideration for the brand marketer of course, since content marketing provides a solid base for SEO and blends well with social media marketing efforts. Creating content of relevance by understanding consumer interests, pain points and needs is essential. Co-creation with a brands social community can reveal tremendous mutual value.

4. Curating

(Aggregating, Collecting, Mash-up, Repurposing) – If your target audience curates information, where do they collect content? What tools to they use? What topics are they curating and how can your brand become a favorite? What formats are they prone to save, share and mashup?

As with creation, content curation is an opportunity for brands as well. Thought leadership efforts through news curation can be very effective and the sheer volume of new content being published online (5 exabytes of data every 2 days) means there’s opportunity to be a lighthouse of useful signal amongst a growing sea of noise.

5. Engaging

(Commenting, Rating, Reviewing, Promoting, Asking/Answering, Connecting) – How do your customers engage with the content they discover and consume?  Do they interact with it and how? Do they share?  Which social sharing services, buttons and bookmarking services to they prefer?

Understanding consumer engagement preferences will help brand marketers plan and promote content in ways that will inspire interaction and sharing. Engagement is also an invaluable source of feedback for ongoing social content management as well as ideas for content.

Optimize: 5 Essential Customer Touchpoints for Online Marketers

Online marketing will be around for years to come so you should start by making a marketing plan every time you are marketing a new product. Try these useful tips to earn more profit.
 
It can be hard to decide how to keep your website going. Analyze your primary interests and what really makes you tick before deciding which one to focus on. Make sure your approach is something you would enjoy and pleases others as well. Marketing your website will be easier when you have a definite goal.
 
Creating a solid internet marketing plan will enable you to identify your most successful products. Using these profitable products can help you convince consumers to buy other products you market. Advertising accessories for these popular items will likely further your sales. This way, you will spend less on advertising these newer products, because they are riding on the coattails of your already popular items.
 
Design your emails so that they create a sense of urgency to act in your customers. People should be compelled by your email to take action, be it purchasing your new service or product or reading your new blog. This also gives you valuable insight on your email campaign’s effectiveness since you can track each of these actions.
 
One good example of this is offering the websites you are selling to a writer, who can in turn offer them for discounts to their customers. If one partner is willing to reduce the prices of its products or services, both partners are likely to profit from the move.
 
You could add some user polls alongside your specific content to get readers’ views and feedback. This will aid in providing content that is relevant to users, and will help them feel that they are taking part in the site’s direction.
 
When you are starting out your site and are trying to make the best site you can for marketing  a new product on the internet, start small. Search engines are more capable of cataloging sites with fewer subpages, than sites that have large quantities of pages.
 
Good advertising is the key to growing your business fast. Paid advertising is a necessary investment when you first launch your business. Doing so can bring in business that is difficult to find in other ways.
 
A flashy website might look pretty, but try not to make it too distracting. You only have 5 seconds to get a visitors attention. If your site can’t quickly grab your visitor’s attention, they will click away to search elsewhere.
 
If you want to gain PageRank quickly, promote a limited-time offer. You can also “buy” PageRank by getting deal sites and consumer news sites to link to your page. This functions in the same way as loss leaders do.
 
As you know from earlier, knowledge is the key to improving your Internet marketing efforts. Take this knowledge and put it into action by formulating new goals, strategies, and ideas which can be implemented in your marketing efforts. You should keep these things in mind and reap the benefits.

– See more at: http://www.bestgatewaytosuccess.com/blog/118/Try-These-Tips-If-You-Are-Stumped-About-Online-Marketing————#sthash.ogFWORzr.dpuf