Do you think it is wise to set long-term strategic objectives when it comes to Internet marketing? DrewryNewsNetwork believes every online marketer needs to do so. It's necessary for the long-term success of companies to have objectives set in place. How else will companies survive without them?
The founder of DrewryNewsNetwork had no idea how to get started such as acquiring a domain name, web hosting, nor how to install a blog or website only dedicated web hosting package. There was no long-term vision; only thought in the moment of getting online one way or another. While the founder sat stuck on stupid like a sitting duck in 2005 and had no long-term strategic objectives nor Internet marketing experience, it didn't deter the CEO from playing the game of patience and learning along the way about the value of long-term strategic planning and building a business from the ground floor up. Upon gaining experience as an intermediate Internet marketer today, the founder of this site believes it's wise for companies to set long-term strategic objectives. This way, they can work diligently in designated teams toward achieving these objectives and a predicted time frame.
Strategic Objectives Companies Should Focus On
1. Creating fresh quality content daily for the company blog or website - Some companies today still don't understand the importance of producing fresh content daily and posting fresh content throughout the day in the form of text, image, streaming web video, or all three combined. It's good for SEO and a fact streaming web video added to context in a blog post or web page immediately gains attention and drives traffic faster than context blogs and web pages without image or video. Companies that employ long-term strategic objectives of using creative content marketing gain a quiet advantage-competitive edge over those who overlook doing so. Going the extra mile in producing lots and lots of content shows companies are doing the transformation business work.
2. Dedicated teams for achieving marketing and PR tasks - One team just for social networks, another for press release marketing, another for podcasting, and another for YouTube video marketing. Savvy companies can achieve this for little or no payout by hiring volunteers from colleges seeking to gain valuable online marketing experience and posting on social networks looking for "social marketing and PR press release writing volunteers." This way, the dedicated teams can focus individually on assigned tasks for the strategical purpose of organically increasing the presence of the company website across the Internet. When you improve your PR and expand online visibility, you also improve long-term SEO search engine optimization.
See these videos by American Express OPENForum to learn more about improving SEO and content marketing
3. Forging and sustaining meaningful relationships with site readers - this is the life and blood of any business. Companies that use a creative long-term strategic objective concentrated on building relationships and providing value to their site readers earn the right for repeat business and the privilege of using site readers energy to give free word-of-mouth to others to come to the site "viral-exponential free advertising."
DrewryNewsNetwork can't emphasize enough about the long-term strategic ploy of having a creative content marketing plan at bay when doing any kind of business online. Content is and always will be keying on the Internet. Why? People search Google and Yahoo as well as other search engines throughout the day looking for valuable information. When your blog or website provides valuable information to the target audience, this is what builds your positive online reputation and shows your long-term strategic marketing ploy paying off. According to an article in Forbes entitled "Content is a long-term commitment," it discusses the importance of updating a site daily with relevant content. Additionally, the Forbes article mentions "When you're planning a content marketing initiative, take the long view. Any solid initiative needs at least six months to yield impact. The day-to-day, however, is important as well. Evaluate and iterate constantly." What the article is saying in so many words is "don't expect for any long-term content marketing ploys to work overnight. Have patience and keep pushing even when you see no light at the end of the tunnel."
Content is the king on the Internet as well as the lifeblood of any online business. It helps to reduce the need for PPC "pay per click" ad spending on ad networks such as Bing.com ads by Microsoft.com and Google AdWords.
Companies Who Used Long-Term Strategic Objectives and Succeeded
A company with a long-term strategic objective that came from humble beginnings in 1991 was Bloomberg. Michael Bloomberg, who was laid off from Solomon Brothers in 1979 was given a severance check for $10 million. Back then, he took his $10 million severance check from Solomon Brothers, hopped in a cab with one financial terminal and headed over to Merrill Lynch to discuss getting financial backing to start his company Bloomberg LP. Bloomberg's long-term strategic objective was to be the leader in data financial information sharing and do so in a way no one in his time dubbed. His long-term strategic objective of serving such financial information made him a leader in his niche and a trusted authority in financial information sharing to this day. According to the Motley Fool, Bloomberg "The Bloomberg Terminal (officially, the Bloomberg Professional Service) has become ubiquitous on Wall Street trading floors and other financial institutions, and its data feeds and messaging service are often viewed by these firms as requirements for doing business. That gave Bloomberg L.P. tremendous pricing power, with customers paying about $20,000 annually for the service. This highly profitable segment is largely responsible for Bloomberg L.P.'s success, with the company reported to be worth more than $27 billion." The Bloomberg terminal became the company's main source of bread-and-butter back then and continues to be one of the primary sources of guaranteed income for the Corporation today; data terminals is responsible for Bloomberg's billionaire status from early 1980s.
Pierre Omidyar started eBay in 1995 with the long-term strategic objective of turning it into the worlds most trafficked and trusted online auction platform. Pierre at the time was in his infancy of writing the eBay online auction software when he coined the idea of selling a broken laser pointer on the site and earning his first profit of $15. That was the very first item sold on eBay then. His long-term vision where he wanted the company to be inspired him to stay on track with his entrepreneurial goals despite economic uncertainty. An article from Inc.com says the following about Pierre's long-term vision for eBay "Instead of telling my executives what to do, I should try to inspire them with a vision of where we're going and let them translate that in their own terms, based on their own experience, their own expertise. Inspiration is much more effective than delegation." It sounds to me as if Pierre allowed his eBay executives to be creative in such creative manner by managing the company through creative control in hopes of increasing online profit potential. He allowed them to have their unique long-term vision for where they wanted to take the online auction site to financially. Because Pierre or allowed his executives to have their unique long-term vision to take eBay to new horizons financially, this kept Pierre in billionaire status off of the energy, ideas, and work of his executives.
Companies Who Failed With No Long-Term Strategic Objectives
In the Forbes article entitled "Why Most Company Strategic Plans Fail," it mentions a key ingredient why most companies fail at the long-term strategic objectives. What is the main ingredient? Accountability. Accountability? Yes, accountability! Holding others accountable for executing their daily tasks is something most companies fail to do which accounts for their failure. However, failure is not the end of the world. Successful strategic planning is about teamwork. The Forbes article says "It's up to you to structure your planning process so that you and your colleagues can deliver winning performance." Companies stay afloat financially when they incorporate this into their daily business mantra.
Sad to say, Kodak failed miserably at maintaining long-term strategic objectives. Despite being a famous brand, the company failed in their objectives by refusing to change with technology. Another words, they specialized in the film business. As years went by, the world resorted to digital photography, and Kodak stayed still with selling traditional film for cameras. A Forbes article discussing Kodak's failure says the following "The results of the study produced both bad and good news. The bad news was that digital photography had the potential capability to replace Kodaks established film based business.
The good news was that it would take some time for that to occur and that Kodak had roughly ten years to prepare for the transition." Because Kodak knew ahead of time technology was changing and needed to make the necessary changes to their film business in order to stay relevant before their target audience and failed to do so, this is what led to their failure at long-term strategic objectives, resulting in a massive flop in revenue and folding of their business. This is a prime example to show companies who fail to have long-term strategic objectives, despite being a famous brand name, can succumb to failure just like a no-name business.
Food for thought: Whatever you do online, you'll always need to update your blog or website with fresh content and stay focused in your online marketing objectives. That is, if you're dedicated to achieving "side hustle millionaire" status by doing the transformation business work.
References:
Bustin, G. (2014, September 15). Why Most Company Strategic Plans Fail. Retrieved November 2015, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/09/15/why-most-company-strategic-plans-fail/
Hall, J. (2014, April 13). Content Marketing Is A Long-Term Commitment, Not A Campaign. Retrieved November 2015, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnhall/2014/04/13/content-marketing-is-a-long-term-commitment-not-a-campaign/
Mui, C. (2012, January 18). How Kodak Failed. Retrieved November 2015, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/
Omidyar, P. (2013, December 9). How Pierre Omidyar Turned An Idealistic Notion Into Billions Of Dollars. Retrieved November 2015, from https://www.inc.com/magazine/201312/pierre-omidyar/ebay-inspiration-more-effective-than-delegation.html
Tenebruso, J. (2015, August 30). What Is Michael Bloomberg's Net Worth? -- The Motley Fool. Retrieved November 2015, from https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/30/what-is-michael-bloombergs-net-worth.aspx