My agency, Nancy Marshall Communications, puts out an e-newsletter every other week with useful information on Web marketing, Internet marketing and public relations.  It’s called The NMC Report.  I’d love to have you go to my Web site and sign up for it!

I’m going to give you a sneak peek of an article that will be coming out in tomorrow’s edition. It’s by Anna McDermott who is one of my agency’s account executives and an expert on social media.

Internet Marketing: What Really Works

by Anna McDermott, Nancy Marshall Communications

In the last issue of the NMC Report, I focused on how to use SEO and social media to market your company’s products or services online. Those are obviously both important and useful marketing tools, but there is more to the world of Internet marketing. Another favorite Internet marketing strategy is the use of email marketing.

Email marketing allows you to reach customers, current, past or potential, or media outlets and provide them with information they can process when it’s convenient for them. It also offers a great platform for combining many elements of Internet marketing in one place.

For example, if you want people to know about a special or sale, you send an email with the details – When, Where, Why, etc - and then link to your Website for more information, have a link to a online video that shows the product off, or to an article in a newspaper or magazine that illustrates why they might need or want your product. Encourage people to sign up to follow you on Twitter or friend you on Facebook. Email marketing can be like one-stop shopping for all things online.

The key to email marketing is to provide useful or valuable information. If people don’t like what you’re sending them, they can easily delete it.

As with all marketing, brand consistency is crucial to Internet marketing. It’s much easier online to confuse your customers, in part, because it happens so quickly. One late-night mis-tweet, and you can lose credibility. Also, when tweeting or using Facebook, many companies use multiple people with various writing styles and this can lead to inconsistencies in the message. In order maintain brand consistency, establish some ground rules before you get started.

• Depending on the audience you’re targeting, discuss appropriate use of colloquialisms and acronyms (OMG, LOL).
• Don’t Facebook or tweet angry. You should respond to negative posts or tweets, but remember to safeguard your brand and be professional and helpful. Make it better, not worse.
• Set a goal or purpose for your involvement with social media. If everyone is one the same page, it will help eliminate off-brand remarks.
• Don’t lie. If you make an honest mistake, fix it, but misleading people will wreak havoc on your brand.
• Don’t use “blackhat” techniques on your Website in order to rank higher in search results. Keyword stuffing, invisible text, etc, is lowbrow and Google won’t stand for it. You shouldn’t either.

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