Nuvota

Have you ever asked yourself how social media, email, blogging etc. all fits together? How do all these online tools and tactics integrate? If you are like me, you are looking for a simple framework – a high level frame of reference that serves as a compass when deciding how to use the internet as a marketing tool.

The following overview highlights how the different components of a company’s online presence integrate and build on each other:

The three major hubs

There are three online hubs that that are the main pillars of a company’s online presence:

• Product & Services Hub:

This is your traditional website: visitors can select and buy a product or they can find your location, opening hours and contact information. It’s a transactional hub that focuses on selling a product or service.

• Information Hub:

This hub serves as a repository for free information, typically in the form of a blog (which can live on the same website as your Product & Services hub). You provide free advice, insights and how-to guides which relate to your area of expertise. The focus is on building credibility.

• Community Hub:

The Community Hub is where people “hang out” online: connecting with friends, playing games, receiving news snippets, etc. Here the focus is on engaging, entertaining and informing people, all at the same time.

Today Community Hubs are a great way to initially connect with potential customers. (Chris Brogan named them outposts). Once prospects have become fans or followers, they will learn about your company and what you stand for. You are nurturing an initial interest. By sprinkling links to new blog posts, how-to guides and more on a regular basis, you drive people consistently to your information hub. There you have another opportunity to demonstrate your expertise, which can eventually convince your visitors to navigate to your Product & Services hub. All of the nurturing done in the Community and Information Hubs, increases the likelihood of conversion.

This doesn’t happen immediately. It requires consistent, long term nurturing in each hub as well as effective funneling before seeing the ‘monetary’ fruits of your labor.

In addition to these three pillars, there are various one-off marketing tactics that can boost traffic for each hub.

Traffic Boosters

Traffic boosters are any type of activity that drive visitors to any of your hubs. Not limited to traditional marketing tactics, traffic boosters can also include PR and guerrilla tactics. The important characteristic of traffic boosters is that they are not hubs, but behave more like one-off tactics.

Traffic boosters can be used to drive traffic to any of the three hubs. The key is to focus on one hub at a time, versus trying to motivate people to go to all three hubs at once.

This framework is meant to serve as a starting point and a compass for businesses. There are ample opportunities to flesh this framework out further, add additional hubs and find additional connections.

Key is to realize that all your efforts need to be integrated and need to be part of a bigger picture in order for you online marketing activities to be successful.

Questions, comments or suggestions?

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stijnvogels/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0