The New Year is finally here and, I don’t know what it is, but something just feels different about 2010. Everyone at Revenflo is super excited about 2010 and the possibilities that exist. I wanted to start the new year off right with a new small business-focused approach to creating content – one that addresses the core questions and opportunities about marketing on the web. I plan to make this a weekly series about marketing and the web, so if there are specific topics you want me to cover, leave a comment and I will put it in the queue.

There has been a major shift in web marketing during the past three years, brought on largely by three factors:

• Search Engines – Whether it’s Google, Bing or whatever comes next, let’s face it – most people think of that box with a blinking cursor in the middle of their screen AS THE INTERNET.

• Content Creation – Businesses are now pumping out blog posts, email newsletters, video, tweets and such for a new connected world

• Social Media – Facebook has blown up the world, and it only gets bigger from here…WAY BIGGER.

These three factors quantify How, Why, and Where people are spending their time online, and should also define – wait for it – HOW YOU SPEND YOUR MONTHLY MARKETING BUDGET.

But how do you do that? I’d like to present the six most effective tools to spend your marketing budget on, and give you an idea what percentage of that monthly total each tool should consume. It’s a sliding scale, and the precise percentage will vary between business model. But hese numbers will give you a rough idea of the cost and/or importance of each tool.

Here, then, are 6 real-world, start-tomorrow suggestions on HOW TO SPEND YOUR MONEY.

#1 Get a NEW Website…

listen, before you go any farther…make sure you are in a fully scalable system that allows you to publish content and alter your site on the fly. If not, it will take much longer for you to respond to changing factors in your industry…making the whole endeavor that much harder. It you are using a Content Management System (CMS,) then go to step 2.

#2 SEO – search engine marketing

In the plain terms that I like to talk about with tactics, there is no other place to start the conversation, because its where everyone else is starting – at least for the near term. In the coming years this will start to change, as businesses begin to receive rankings and referrals from social media, but for now SEO is the top of the heap, and the best bang for your buck. Think about it, if you don’t show up on the first 3 pages of Google, Yahoo or Bing then your website has no chance – and I do mean zero – of producing for you. Spend 40% of your money here.

#3 Blog Posts, Press Releases, Written Content for your site

This goes hand in hand with the first two recommendations. We can do so much with written content and the search engines love it. Google ranks you on many factors and almost all of them revolve around written content creation. So here is what you should do, from the very beginning: hire a company that can help you get this process under control. It would be great if you could take some time to write. It really isn’t that hard and the process can be quite relaxing after you get the hang of it. But, ask yourself, will you actually take the time to do it? Likely about half as often as your best intentions. But that’s not bad if you have a company taking up your slack when you have an important golf trip or need a mental health day at the beach. You see, Google doesn’t care about your golf trip…just that your website is producing regular content. Spend 20-25% of your money here.

#4  Automated Email follow-up

This is a fairly new concept, and it differs from just pushing out an email newsletter. It is client-specific, client-tracking, client-metrics, client-strategy, and it has just recently come down to an affordable price. Don’t contract with a vendor, pay thousands of dollars to license software, and then pay a butt-ton of monthly fees – there is a better way!

Monthly services like Infusionsoft are affordable and downright easy to integrate into your daily workflow. Get this, you set up campaigns and not only can your track the campaigns but also THE CLIENT or PROSPECT! How amazing is that? But you must strategically work through the process: creating the content, capturing your client education and buying process, and constructing a campaign. That is where you are going to spend the most money…after it is created then you will just need small tweaks and updates and an administrator can perform. Spend 10% of your money here.

#5 Social Media

In 2009, many well-known brands and large businesses stepped up to the plate, spending significant money on social media. Small businesses are just starting to get their feet wet with this form of media. One big thing to consider here is the message you are promoting. To really make a dent in social media you need a strategy and some tried and tested methods that will produce the type of conversation that works in social media. So keep your spending moderate until you are able to hammer out the details and the framework of your campaigns. The great thing about this medium is that with a little time and budget its a very meaningful way to connect with your sphere of connections. Spend 10% of your money here.

#6 Video

Video is changing how we interact with the web. Youtube is the second largest search engine. Video hardware is getting better and cheaper. More consumers are migrating to high-speed internet connections, and those speeds keep increasing. All of this is leading us into a time when business will use video to communicate regularly with clients, be it training, demonstrations, interviews, product reviews, promotion, and so on. Revenflo is delving into this area as we speak. We have an appointment later this month with our Revenflo videographer for an interview style session. Our approach will be to produce regularly scheduled, informal 3-5 minute segments of video interviews (during one video session) with the owner of Revenflo, Jason Broadwater. Spend 10-20% here.

We want to know what you think and what questions you have. Take a moment and let us know.