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Company: Beatsuite.com Music Library
Project: Online Marketing Campaign
Dates: Jan 2007 to Jan 2008
How did the project start?
After the launch of Beatsuite.com Music Library we needed to get traffic and visitors to make money, we originally had ZERO. Since we had a very limited budget we had to be very clever, resourceful and operate outside of the normal rules of marketing/thinking.
What options did you consider?
The initial idea was to use every available tool to reach our potential online target audience. Since they were worldwide and varied from SME to Large Multinationals we had quite a job on our hands. The campaign was to include but not be limited to monthly newsletters, blogs, podcasts, news releases, press releases, music content download releases, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engine Marketing, Pay Per Click Campaigns, Affiliate marketing, Forum Marketing, Video Marketing and link/banner exchanges and sponsorship. We literally brainstormed every possible way of gaining exposure to potential customers without any cost. Initially through inexperience we spent our original budget on magazine advertising – which was a complete waste. After that the activities had to be free or fairly cheap. We looked at employing Ad Agencies (could not afford one!), SEO consultants and other things. Finally we decided that all should be done in house. We would commission content from our graphics teams and use that along with our music and text copy to create varying forms of online marketing content (bombs) to hit our targets (various market sectors).
What help and expertise did you receive?
We consulted private companies that were more skilled than us in this area – companies such as NE Web, Aelius, Enigma Interactive. That helped us to gain new skills and knowledge about the Internet as a whole and how to manipulate it. We also trawled forums, printed articles and created very thick research notes on almost every facet of online marketing and used all the usual top web marketing resources.
Did you face any challenges or learn any lessons?
Basically though we learnt slowly and through experience. Do it yourself and learn from yourself. Other peoples knowledge is limited to their experiences and skill. In order to succeed you must gain knowledge and use it better than your adversaries. In order to be successful in online marketing you simply need know how the Internet works – or ask google.
What are the outcomes and how has it improved your business?
In short we have increased traffic from 300K hits per month to over 1.6 million per month. Our sales have trebled and we are now a profitable entity. Our user sign ups have trebled. Rankings wise we now have top 10 results for all of our keywords if not top 5 for many of them. The downside is that managing the campaign can be tough and hard to stick to timetables.
What are your plans for the future?
Continued and expanded online marketing to strengthen and fortify existing saturation and exposure in the market place. As the internet expands so must our online activities, we must find the new places of interest and find out how to infiltrate them with our content.
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