4 Elements You Need to Include in Your Online Marketing Campaigns

It’s critical for business owners to understand how important it is to have a marketing plan for the products or services their brand offers. 

Most businesses are constantly working to find ways to give their brand awareness a boost, hoping to connect with new customers and reinforce the relationships with existing ones to ultimately gain a loyal following. 

That being said, you may already have some type of marketing program in place, but are you limiting yourself to the traditional platforms that include TV, print and radio?

As the CEO and founder of an online marketing company, I know firsthand that many businesses out there are making the mistake of not exploring all their options when trying to put together an effective marketing campaign. 

In fact, all too often, an online marketing plan’s potential to complement other advertising efforts gets completely overlooked.

There are different ways to market your business online, but the most successful Internet marketing strategies implement each of the following elements, allowing all the pieces to work together to accomplish the level of brand visibility, website traffic and revenue you’d like to see.

1. Web Design
In this day and age, there’s no question about the necessity of businesses maintaining a strong presence online, and having a well-designed website is the number one way to do that. 

If you’re a business owner who views their site design as part of their online marketing efforts, you have the right idea. Any advertising and content that’s published will point back to your website to encourage consumers to take action, making it the foundation for your entire campaign. 

Websites should be user-friendly and appealing enough to make visitors stay, while utilizing fresh blog articles, a mobile-responsive design and other optimization techniques. These key web design features will all play a significant role in your marketing tactics.

2. SEO
Search engine optimization is meant to help businesses rank higher in the likes of Google, Bing and Yahoo. Without it, there’s the potential for your business to get buried somewhere deep among pages and pages of search results. 

We all know that most people don’t make it past the first or second page when they’re looking for something specific so if your company doesn’t stand out at the top of the rankings, you’re likely to lose quite a bit of website traffic and profit. 

Using SEO properly can make a big impact on how well you fare over your niche competitors.

3. Social Media

Integrating social media into your online marketing program holds a lot of value, especially since it’s free to join and a small advertising budget can go a long way. 

With so many thousands of people engaging on all the various social media platforms out there, being active on your own business profiles can generate a reach you won’t get anywhere else. 

Social media not only allows you to share information about your brand and products or services through posts, Tweets, images and video, but it also gives you the opportunity to develop a genuine bond with consumers. 

This leaves them feeling good about purchasing from you, as opposed to a competitor they have no connection with.

4. PPC / Banner Advertising
Gone are the days when it was sufficient enough to run a few commercials on TV and advertise in the local newspaper. The majority of the world’s population uses the Internet to get news, shop and even stream their favorite shows, ditching cable. 

This is where pay-per-click and banner advertising come into play. Having your company name and offerings pop up on search engines and a wide array of websites repeatedly helps you gain brand recognition and get in front of consumers who are actually looking to purchase your type of product or service, leading to a higher conversion rate.

http://pjtec.info/4-elements-you-need-to-include-in-your-online-marketing-campaigns/

Internet Marketing Truths And Fallacies!

Internet marketing presents both unique challenges and unique opportunities. Because internet marketing is still relatively new, plenty of fallacies regarding it are still floating around. Let’s look at several of them:

Fallacy #1: If you have great services or products, you’ll succeed. Not necessarily. Great services or products are imperative, but if you aren’t building relationships and trust, who will know or trust you? 

Internet marketing lets consumers “get to know you,” trust you, and become comfortable with you. That almost guarantees success.

Fallacy #2: The bottom line is the only important statistic. Of course the bottom line is critical. But the other metrics – your click-through, conversion, and bounce rates – can give you a fuller picture of where you are now and where you’re going. 

Don’t miss the red flags indicating that your website needs some tweaking.

Fallacy #3: If you build it, they will come. That’s true only in the movies. No one is going to find your website without some effort on your part, and SEO (search engine optimization) is key. 

Compile a set of keywords that reflect what your services or products are about, and create a site that includes these terms. With proper SEO and engaging, practical content, then they will come. 

A good internet marketing agency can create your website and its content, ensure proper and sufficient SEO, and help you promote your website through social media and backlinking, pay-per-click advertising, and email marketing.

The most important thing to remember is that online shopping is an experience, whether the consumer is shopping for a home, a microwave oven, or a doctor or lawyer. 

Establishing a web presence that’s comfortable, trustworthy, informative, and personalized is imperative to internet marketing success. Learn more. 

Discuss your internet marketing with the experts at a good internet marketing agency, and don’t wait. Someone may be looking for you online right now.

http://www.socialfirestarter.com/internet-marketing-truths-and-fallacies/

Merging Your Business Processes with Online Marketing!

If you want to survive and thrive as a company in the modern business landscape, you must incorporate yourself into the online world. Everything from marketing to sales conversions is happening online. 

The generation of people who have grown up on computer technology are becoming employed and having expendable income.

If you have yet to truly merge your business with the Internet, here are some of the most important ways in which you must do so.

Online Marketing
85% of all new business is done through the major search engines Google, Yahoo, and Bing. If you do not have a presence on these platforms, then you are missing out on tens of thousands of dollars that you do not even know that you are missing.

It is actually much easier than ever to get started on the major search engines, direct marketing, and in other online marketing forms. As a matter fact, there is a good chance that Google already has your business marked if you are registered with the state with a storefront. 

In many cases, all that business owners have to do is claim their listing. Take a look at Google Places in order to find out if your name and address have already been registered with the search engine.

The mobile environment is also doing more business than ever before. You must have a responsive website that gives Apple and Android users the ability to find you easily. 

The new Millennial generation that everyone is aiming their marketing at does not sit and watch TV. They find new companies over their mobile phones.

Online PR
If you have service customers in your area, odds are that you probably already have a review of your business up on a website like Yelp or Foursquare. Even if you do not plan to engage with these websites regularly, this is still a great way to find out exactly what people think of your business. 

Review sites are the new word-of-mouth. People are actually becoming quite well-known for dropping reviews of businesses in real time as they patronize them.

Social media is also a great way to get the word out about your business. If you have any social media profile such as Facebook or Twitter, then you can start a conversation with your customers that can give you inside information about how you are perceived. In the past, this kind of service had to be outsourced to a focus group company and could cost thousands of dollars. 

Today, the information is given freely by people online. It is simply good business to go and find this information in order to use it for the benefit of your business.

Online Competition
If your storefront has experienced a drop in foot traffic lately, you may be receiving competition from companies that you did not even know were in existence. Many businesses today have online only existences that create a much more convenient solution for customers. 

However, you will not know this unless you look online to see where your customers are and what they are looking for.

You can easily find local competition using a localized search on any of the major search engines. Google is the most often used service. It is also generally the most expansive, regularly pinging government roles in order to find out who is creating a new business.

Maximizing Your Online Footprint
You may not be the best at navigating the online world at first – it can be quite technically in-depth. You have customers that you need to tend to today – learning a new skill may not be in your time frame. 

However, there are plenty of solutions that can help you to create an online presence without spending a great deal of time on it. Workflow software such as BPM Software will help you to organize your online marketing, PR and logistical efforts without having to waste the working day on it.

https://tech.co/business-online-marketing-2015-04

Online Marketing Strategies : How To Market Your Business Online For Less!

How to market your business online: When looking for online marketing solutions the choice out there can be very daunting and so many of the options, such as the use of paid ads are so expensive!

You are looking for online marketing strategies that work – but at the same time don’t break the bank! The good news is that you do not have to pay a fortune for paid ads to get your business or website seen all over the internet. 

You also, do not personally need to know how to do it. Let the experts take over and you can get on with running your business and helping those clients at whom you are aiming your website and your company.

Marketing a business online or marketing a small business online need not be a complicated process if you outsource the marketing to a company which is both reliable and a whole lot less money than those paid Ads! 

You can build your online business strategy with their guidance and their expert knowledge and literally have your business all over the internet!

Online marketing strategies:
 The online business strategies and online marketing solutions they will build with you, will include the use of a variety of media. 

How to market your business online needs to include this variety in order to work. The use of social media, video marketing and search engine optimization are just some of the techniques they will use. These are online marketing solutions which just plain work!!

Lets get traffic over to your website and get your clients and customers eyes on your website today! You need a solid online business strategy in order to do this. Paid ads are expensive and are not necessary. 

There are plenty of other online marketing strategies to use and these guys know them all. They have been helping people with marketing a business online with a great deal of success and clients are always satisfied with the results. 

These are online marketing strategies and online marketing solutions which work!

http://www.finreg21.com/online-marketing-strategies-how-to-market-your-business-online-for-less 

The Impact of Visuals & Digital Customer Service!

Remember those comic books we were crazy about when we were kids? Even today those comic books may draw us more than regular books. Marketing through effective visuals has always been the most important tactic of digital marketing. 

A recent study shows that the social media site, Instagram, with over 300 million users (430 million estimated by the end of 2015) could be worth US $35 billion, outpacing Twitter. 

 In this 4th and final installment of the series, I'll briefly discuss how to market your product and services through effective visuals and how to provide customer service through digital media. These tactics are good for ambitious marketers who want to reach beyond the traditional segment of customers.

A picture is worth 1000 bucks:

If you are following the latest print adverts, you'll see that they are using a technique which enables them to attract most of the customers. The cute kitty photo gets many clicks whereas the less emotional quote of a wise man as text really has to fight for attention. 

Today there is even a trend to incorporate attractive images with nice quotes – making them better visible in online communities. When it comes to grabbing the attention of today's busy social media consumer, visual content is the cat's meow. 

A study by ROI Research revealed that fans and followers are 40 percent more likely to engage with brands that post pictures than any other type of media. Content containing images reap 94 percent more total views that content without.

 Finally if you are a start-up business owner or just a fresher in the digital marketing arena, you need to start using designed infographics as your digital marketing tactic which will eventually attract the attention of your consumer. Just wrap your info and campaign as little artworks and offer detailed information in compact form.

Digital customer service:
Do you know that Airtel is providing customer service virtually through “Online Airtel Experience Center”? Do you know most of the telecom service providers are offering customer service through apps?

Having a digital customer service function doesn't just mean setting up a company Twitter account so that customers can tweet complaints to you. 

Done right, an effective strategy is a complex and gradual process, which integrates the delivery of customer service and support via the web and the social networks into the very fabric of your organisation. Think about this for just a minute as it relates to your own behaviour.

 Think about how will you go and buy a new SIM for using internet. If you are like me, then you'll definitely go for a prior research to figure out what will be the best package for you. You'll ask questions related to usage to the customer service agent @ the telco store. Then you'll choose the best option for you as per their suggestion.

 Now what if I tell you that you won't need to go to any store for all these and you can get a SIM shipped to your place just like that? Airtel Virtual Store is offering customer service through online portal. 

You just need to log in, browse, enter info in regards to your daily usage, and the store will tell you which package would suite you best. Then you pay and get the SIM shipped to you.

 Now think about what systems you have in place to serve your customers – across multiple channels.

http://www.thedailystar.net/the-impact-of-visuals-digital-customer-service-66415

The Importance Of Social Validation In Online Marketing!

Online marketing comprises many factors, strategies, and tactics, but all of them share a common end goal: to get more people to buy your products or services. To get there, you have to step past the competition, increase the traffic to your site, and build better relationships with your customers.

The onset of social media has given brands a new means of achieving all three at the same time, at once improving the reputation of their brand and gaining more visibility and traction.

Online marketing is about more than raw visibility, however. Since the dawn of social media and the overabundance of traditional, sales-driven advertising, consumers have become more discerning, more skeptical, and less easily swayed.

In order to win their business, you have to win their trust, and there’s one key strategy that can help you do it: social validation.

What Is Social Validation?

In its traditional definition, social validation is a psychological phenomenon where one or more passive individuals follow or conform to the actions of others within a group.

In a psychological context, one or more people set an example of behavior, and their experience leads a second group of one or more people to follow suit.

Social validation in marketing is slightly different, but it still represents a kind of social “chain reaction” that leads others to similar behaviors.

In a marketing context, if a user leaves a positive review for a product or a positive rating for a business, other, even non-affiliated users will be more likely to buy that product or work with that business. Because one person went on a limb and confirms that the experience is positive, others are likely to take a similar action.

Why Is Social Validation Important to Marketers?
The idea of social validation is important because self-propagating strategies are no longer as effective as they once were.

People have grown to distrust brands, especially large corporations, and instead look to peer reviews and peer actions above any other means of justification.

Cultivating social validation in a broad group can sharply increase the trust people have in your brand, and can make them far more comfortable doing business with you.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/02/19/the-importance-of-social-validation-in-online-marketing/

Social Media Transforms Marketing!

The Internet has changed most everything, and that includes the advertising industry. Companies have shifted dollars from print to the web. Ads once created for television now are available forever on YouTube, and maybe never were even broadcast anywhere but online.

The advent of social media has also blurred the boundaries between advertising and public relations. Companies can share their message directly with customers or those whom they identify as potential customers.

How do businesses know what to use and how to use it? Many rely on communication firms as their partners.

“We help our clients in using social media,” said Dan Smith of Flightpath Creative in Traverse City. “It’s not to close business, but to expand your brand and build relationships.”

Justin Mortier, the general manager of Grand Beach and Sugar Beach Resorts in Traverse City, concurs. He uses social media to tout the area and its attractions.

“The instantaneous nature of social media isn’t an imperative. We’ve invested thousands of dollars for an app to focus on the experience in Traverse City. We use social media to complement that,” he said.

Social media giant Facebook is now a ubiquitous presence for many businesses. They cite its ease of use and the fact that so many people have connections to it.

“Everybody and their brother is on Facebook,” said Rod Call of Great Lakes Sailing. “We know where our customers are: Detroit, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Texas, Florida, Canada. We can reach out to people via Facebook.”

Bob Streit of Twisted Fish Gallery in Elk Rapids likewise uses social media in concert with his website to maintain and build his business.

“Facebook is a way of communicating news and activities,” he said. “We’ve got over 5,000 friends and it goes up 50 to 60 per week. Those are contacts we didn’t have two or three years ago.”

http://www.morningstarpublishing.com/articles/2015/02/07/grand_traverse_insider/business/doc54d5a263e2e56246705996.txt

Why Most Digital Marketing Fails -- And How To Fix It!

If you’re looking for insights about the future of digital communications, it pays to ask someone who’s been there from the beginning. Social media strategist Sally Falkow has been a keen observer of online trends since the mid 1990s, and started her blog, The Proactive Report, in 2003. 

In 2014, she was named one of Cision’s Top 50 Social Media Influencers on Twitter. In a recent interview, she revealed four issues she sees with the current digital media landscape – and how smart companies can take advantage of the opportunity that presents.

Not Enough Companies Are Blogging. After more than a decade on the scene, you’d think that blogging would have become ubiquitous by now. Not so much. Falkow notes that a UMass-Dartmouth study showed that in 2008, 16% of the Fortune 500 had public-facing blogs. By 2014, that number had only climbed to 31%. 

She understands why companies aren’t jumping onboard. “Blogging is a commitment,” she says. “Once you start, you have to continue. A blog has a voracious appetite. You have to produce good content regularly, and that takes resources.” 

But she views this silence as a missed opportunity to communicate directly with stakeholders, share ideas, and stake out a position of thought leadership. Indeed, she says, “With digital, we have new tools. 

It’s easy to publish and you can use analytics to find out what content is resonating with your readers.” If your company makes the effort, you can speak to your customers in a very targeted and effective way.

Companies Still Don’t Understand ‘Social.’ We’ve heard it a million times: social media is like a cocktail party. Don’t be a jerk and talk about yourself all the time. Don’t try to make a sale before you get to know someone. And yet, Falkow still sees marketers doing this all the time. 

One particular pet peeve: the common practice of re-tweeting others’ praise of you. “If someone came up to you [with a compliment], you wouldn’t pull out a megaphone and yell to everyone else in the room, ‘Sally just said she likes my work!’”

Most Digital Communications Aren’t Visual Enough. The rise of platforms like Instagram and Pinterest has shown the hunger for visual communication online. Yet most marketers don’t take full advantage of the possibilities, says Falkow. 

That’s partly a function of their training. “Most PR folk are not designers and have not had graphics training,” she says. But that’s becoming a major handicap. “Every PR student should take a course in graphic design. Visual content is a must for social media success,” she says. 

There are no excuses anymore. “With the new digital tools, anyone can be trained to take amazing photos on their camera, or make a short video in less than an hour. You can use tools like Canva or Picmonkey to edit photos and make posters with text on them for Instagram or Pinterest. “

You Have to Mix Paid and Earned Media. Finally, Falkow advises companies to face facts: we live in Mark Zuckerberg’s world, and he wants to monetize. 

The days when companies could rely on organic reach to connect with customers on Facebook (or many other major social platforms) is long gone. “Distribution and amplification of your messages will need paid social advertising,” she says, and “the lines between paid, owned, and earned media will continue to blur. PR practitioners must master the art of using paid social media to support their content.”

More than a decade into the social era, most companies still don’t fully get it. That’s a competitive advantage for you, if you’re willing to immerse yourself in the unique possibilities online communication presents.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorieclark/2015/02/03/why-most-digital-marketing-fails-and-how-to-fix-it/

Video Is Vital In The Marketing Mix!

With the rise and rise of social media, smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, video has become the single most influential tool in modern marketing. 

As it gets progressively more challenging to grab and then hold the attention of consumers it is increasingly seen as the delivery method that gets results, and there is a very simple reason why: video works.

On average, a computer user will watch a video for two whole minutes before clicking away, and with tablet or iPad users this goes up to a whopping five minutes. So your potential customers are certainly watching video, and according to the latest market research findings over half of them are watching product videos before they buy. 

And it’s not just your average Joe that is browsing the web for product videos. In a recent article by Forbes, six out of ten company execs admitted they preferred watching a product video to reading a promotional article.

With video you are able to show off your product or service in a fraction of the time you can with text. With quick, engaging delivery you can entice your customers into finding your website, giving you the opportunity to bring them into your marketing environment and make that all important sale. Nearly a quarter of people will visit a website if it has a video advert they have seen somewhere else.

Statistics show that customers are much more inclined to buy something if they have just viewed a video about the product or service and they are much more likely to buy the product if they have seen it in action. 

Not only that – videos are something customers and shoppers like to share with their friends via Facebook and other social communication channels so they are the perfect way to engage people with your brand, helping you share your personality whilst showing off your product or service.

You and your business are much more likely to make it on to the first page of Google if you have video content on your website and with YouTube now the second biggest search engine (second only to Google) video marketing will greatly improve your online visibility, so isn’t it important that you start taking advantage of this?

So, how do you grab your audiences’ attention in this competitive market place? Well, businesses perception of online video marketing does need to change. Most clients think of a single video delivering a single promotional message, but that’s not quite how it works in reality. 

Increasingly, marketing professionals are waking up to the fact that a sustained campaign of quality videos is required, with good VSEO and targeted distribution. With nearly half of customers sharing videos on social media you even have the chance of your marketing going viral.

There are now multiple platforms for displaying your video marketing so make sure you use this to your advantage and make sure your target audience is watching by planning exactly where your video will be viewed and on what devices. 

Some platforms have further advantages – a YouTube channel can even earn an income through ad revenue and if your video is properly tagged, your business could even find entirely new customers outside of your existing network.

Video is the perfect way of engaging with your customers and increasing sales, and it doesn’t have to be expensive – so what’s stopping you?

http://talkbusinessmagazine.co.uk/2015/01/20/video-vital-marketing-mix/