The rise of social media in recent years has transformed the advertising industry, not just online, but to some extent offline as well. These days, most businesses use social media in some fashion, either as a free resource, or as paid advertising as a part of their annual marketing budget.

The amount allocated to social is rising too, although at the moment the industry could do with a firm ROI analytics model that can be used as an industry standard. However, this will come and if you consider that social was thought as being ‘non-provable’ in terms of engagement and conversion just a few years ago, it’s clear that changes have already taken place.

A recent study from analysts at Gartner looked at how teams manage marketing budgets and how these are expected to change this year, as compared to last. The U.S. Digital Marketing Spending Report, 2013 also looked at what activities are most likely to lead to success.

Survey findings

On average, companies spent around 10.4% of their annual revenue on marketing in 2012. These budgets were expected to increase by 5.7% in 2013 with digital marketing continuing to gain momentum.

This means that marketing are putting even more focus this year on content creation, social and mobile marketing. 50% of those asked said that they outsource their digital marketing and that digital is one of the top two priorities, with social media marketing at the number three most important spot.

This, Gartner say, means that “we can clearly see that the current marketing mix focuses on boosting the brand's digital presence”. Social media is one of the primary channels which marketers use to strengthen brand personalities.

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If you happen to be a small business owner that wants to expand your company, then you should seriously consider internet marketing. Now, this may sound obvious to anybody that is in a tech-related field, but it's not so obvious to others. Regardless, internet marketing is a great way to build just about any business.

When you think about it, every business has something in common, and that is selling to customers. Of course, there are many variations on this, and what's being sold could be a physical product, a service, or a virtual product such as a web application. The definition of what a customer is can vary as well. Either way, when you boil it down all businesses are basically the same.

No matter what type of company you have, internet marketing helps in two main ways: getting new customers, and keeping customers. While there is no hard data, it's safe to say that the majority of businesses focus on getting new customers. And far too many of them don't do it very well. The idea that you can open a business and customers will start pouring in is an idea that will set you up for failure.

If you've been in business for any amount of time, then you know that customers do not magically appear just because you have decided to start a business. This applies to both brick and mortar businesses and online businesses. To be blunt, customers don't care about you or your business. All they care about is what you can do for them.

There may have been a time when just having a website was enough to attract the attention of would-be customers, but those days are long gone. Internet marketing may include having a website, but having a website is not all there is to internet marketing.

Internet marketing is just like it sounds: using the internet to market your business. There are many facets to online marketing, but the all revolve around getting and keeping more customers for your business.

The first thing you need to do is get people to your website (or whatever online presence you have). This is known as traffic. Some of the ways you can get traffic is by running a pay-per-click campaign, through high placement in the search engines for keywords related to your business, writing articles that point back to your site, or paying for advertising on another company's website.

Once you have people at your site, you need to connect with them in a way they respond to. You need to make them feel that doing business with you is a better option than not doing business with you. Now, that doesn't mean you have to write a pushy sales letter for them to read; though you may want to, depending on your business. You can do things in a low-key way, or be very blunt; whatever works best for your business.

The above things cover getting new customers, but that's only half the battle. Customer retention is also an important aspect of running a successful business. An easy way to do this online is by capturing their name and e-mail address. That way you can market to them again and again. The best part is that they don't even have to be customers to sign up. See, they may not be willing to buy right now, but they may be willing to buy later. And you won't have to spend as much on traffic if you have a list of people that are ready to receive your message.

Those are the basics of internet marketing. The world is more competitive than ever, and that's not likely to change any time soon. Business owners who harness the marketing power of the internet are more likely to succeed than those who don't.
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These days, it’s important to have a strong online presence, coupled with a great brand that is presented uniformly across all mediums. Digital marketing is an essential part of this for companies who want to utilise the power of the internet in order to boost business.

Taking a look at last year’s figures, let’s see what AdAge discovered when looking at the statistics:

• 77% of people interact with brands on Facebook by looking at posts and updates
• 17% share news and experiences with others about the brand
• 13% post updates about brands they have connected with
• 56% said they would recommend a brand after becoming a fan on Facebook
• 34% of digital marketers have generated leads from Twitter
• 43% of all consumers who are internet-connected use social

A business should always pay attention to where its customers are, and those who have customers on the net with a strong online presence are more likely to succeed. This is even true of local businesses, as with mobile has come location services, making it easy for mobile users to find a company who uses maps on social and its website.

Tried and tested or new media?

In short, both. Marketing is something that should be carried out on as many different mediums as a budget allows. Social media marketing is free, or you can opt to advertise and as such, it’s a valuable resource which shouldn’t be discounted.

As mentioned above, email and SMS certainly still have their place, as do TV, radio and newspaper ads. However, traditional ads such as those in papers or leaflets are no longer trusted by the consumer, so it’s worth concentrating efforts on the internet, SEO, PPC and social.

I think you’ll agree that it’s necessary to ensure that the company website can be read on a variety of devices such as PCs, tablets and mobile to ensure a uniform experience and so that potential customers won’t leave due to a site not displaying properly.

Overall, digital marketing is an effective means of boosting sales in any industry. There are other means that can be utilised, such as in-app advertising for mobile and social, but these are the most common at the moment.

At PROMOEXPERT NG, that's what we does and we are concerned about you and your business.

Remember, you dont need to scream to be heard, we are always here to help you.

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We live in a super-connected world these days and as such, advertising and marketing are no longer the same animals they once were. This is especially true due to the rise of social media, which has changed how businesses communicate with potential and existing clients.

So what exactly is digital marketing and what does it encompass? Basically, it’s a collective term which is used where marketing meets internet technology and other forms of new media.

Digital Marketing includes:

1. Social media marketing

• Social media marketing: this has risen hugely in popularity and there are now countless dedicated agencies scattered around the web which promise to help with it. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn are all examples of social networks which can be used as a part of your marketing efforts, although they are far from the only ones.

Social media marketing allows two-way communication between a company and consumer in a way that wasn’t previously seen and it’s safe to say that it has changed business approach to marketing as now, the consumer holds the power.

It’s also based on one of the most effective forms of advertising; word of mouth.

Social media means that communication can be a lot more targeted and personalized than other forms of marketing, as companies get the chance to receive feedback from customers daily.

It’s also useful for making content ‘go viral’, something which can help to strengthen a brand very quickly. It’s brand personality that makes social work so well, as if this is done correctly, across the board, then it can boost engagement considerably.

2. Search Engine Optimisation

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): is a means of optimizing the content of a website in order to gain better placement on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPS). A variety of techniques are employed to achieve this and it’s not a job for amateurs really as there are many pitfalls that could have Google frowning on your site.

SEO includes:

• Keyword research and usage, on-page and off (within HTML)
• Link building /outreach blogging
• Content delivery
• Site structure
• Analytics

This is not an exhaustive list, but it does give an indication of how much work is necessary in order to optimize a site.

3. Search Engine Marketing

• Search Engine marketing (SEM): is similar to, but incorporates, SEO and uses many of the same techniques as a part of that. The main difference between the two terms is that SEM also includes paid online advertising models, such as pay-per-click (PPC).

PPC advertising models are those such as Google Adwords and Bing, which only require payment when the ad is clicked through to the target website. SEM also requires keyword analysis as the words and phrases used in the ad and site and these need to be monitored carefully to reflect the market and current search engine rules.

Whilst it can be said that SEM encompasses all kinds of digital marketing, it’s more commonly thought of in a narrower niche, to describe paid models.

4. Content Marketing

• Content marketing: is a technique where content is produced and distributed with the intention of providing relevant, interesting content to attract and engage a particular audience that a business is targeting. The creation of useful content is a way of developing communication with the customer in order to drive engagement and customer action. Content can mean anything from blogs to videos and whitepapers tend to work well using content marketing techniques too. The goal is to win customer loyalty and retain it.

5. Email Marketing

• Email marketing: remains a very effective tool, despite claims that it isn’t as important as social these days. Modern email marketing is just beginning to evolve so that it can be linked to a database in order to personalize it, so that individual groups of customers can be sent mail based on previous purchases and interests.

Additional Channels

• SMS marketing: is also highly effective and rising in popularity, due to the fact that many of us no longer go anywhere without our cell phones. This ‘always-on’ aspect means that when SMS marketing is used, it’s highly likely that the customer will at least read the text.

• Video marketing/video infographics: is again becoming hugely popular and it’s likely that we’ll see an even bigger move in its direction this year as more and more businesses begin to recognise the potential it has. People take in more information when watching video and are more likely to engage, so it’s certainly worth looking at.

Whilst image-based infographics are already hugely popular, making these in the form of a series of frames for video is beginning to really take off in the digital marketing space too.

Watch Out for the next article in which we shall discuss how digital marketing can help your business. 

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