Guest Blog by Charlene Burke, CEO of Search By Burke Marketing Group

Your online marketing techniques may need some tweaking after your year-end data analysis. Each new business year should bring with it new ideas and strategies that keep your business fresh and growing. Reviewing your business’s online marketing plan will help you determine your strengths and weaknesses.

Learning your strengths is a good starting point for reminding your team of the positive actions that are taking place in the company. This process can be inspiring and motivating when the focus is on individual and business successes throughout the past year. Dwelling on weaknesses will only promote negativity and slow down the process of moving forward with a plan that involves all the things that went well. It is much more productive to hand out compliments and praises during an analysis, then expand on how to make the next year even better.

Determining what direction the business will take in the future is the next step for developing an improved internet marketing plan. Analyze what products and services did the best in the past year, as well as which ones are having trouble. Brainstorm ideas on ways to expand what is working into other areas that may not be doing as well. Additionally, make sure your business’s mission and vision are still parallel with the target market and make changes accordingly. Consumer buying trends change from year to year, and knowing your target market trends will help you keep true to your company’s goals. Your past internet marketing review will help you meet your customer’s needs as well as make your business more profitable.

When it comes to online marketing, businesses have a tendency to forget that pleasing the customer is the real goal. Successful businesses understand that ethical marketing is the key to bringing in new clients and keeping them coming back. Here are three ways to build trust in the online marketing world:

Get personal with social networking.
Build relationships with clients with an open dialogue. Real communication with customers is the only way to understand what it is they want and need; so ask them, and when they answer, respond by offering it to them. This way, you won’t waste time and money trying to sell products or services people do not want, and you will be offering them something they will want to share with their friends.

Be honest in pay per click advertising.
Internet users do not appreciate PPC ads that use trickery to get a click and if your business has been online for long, you know that Google does not like it, either. To keep your page rank high and viewers clicking, make sure your ad content reflects reality by adhering to Google’s guidelines.

Put real effort into managing brand reputation
Your brand image is just as important in the virtual world of online marketing as it is in a physical place of business. When customers walk into a shop, they expect a neat appearance and helpful associates. When they cannot find a friendly manager or employee to answer questions, you can be sure they will leave, and it only takes a few clicks of the mouse to find your competition. Build a good reputation by keeping your online presence warm and friendly.