Page 107 - Marketing the Basics 2nd

product and placeMent 99
but some of the tests in which performance can be measured. If an intermediary is proving to be uncooperative, applying negative sanctions such as reduced margins, delayed delivery of goods and exclusion from marketing programmes should be sufficient to reform the intermediary’s strategic policy. However, if a partner is cooperative but is not up to task, training and support can be offered to prop up their operations. If that proves to be unsuccessful, pruning the marketing channel is likely the best course of action, even if it is also an expensive and time consuming task to sort out new channels.
PLACEMENT ONLINE
When it comes to the Internet, because the only product being distributed is content, the placement strategy du jour is to build visibility in key areas of cyberspace. These include:
SEARCH ENGINES AND LINK BUILDING
Establishing an online presence starts with search engine optimization (SEO). Search engine optimization involves optimizing Web pages to ensure they appear in the top 10 results of search engine indexes for specific keywords. To drive traffic to a website, one must determine the different combination of keywords that people use that match with your products. Choosing keywords that are not associated with your brand could lead to a spike in traffic to a website, however, the effect is temporary as people will adjust their search criteria. Some search engines like Google require that a website have numerous quality incoming links from sites with related content. The more high quality incoming links, the higher the website appears in the search results. Companies can improve their page ranking by engaging in a practice called link building. Link building entails identifying partners to add hyperlinks to the target website on pages with similar content.
SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
Search engine marketing (SEM) entails advertisers purchasing keywords on major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and