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So your business is set and is starting to flourish. Your marketing department is keeping up with the new trends - be it online or offline. But in the year 2012, your marketing focus should be on digital marketing. Here’s a lowdown of the top five reasons why and how you NEED to make digital marketing a priority in 2012:

• High Return on Investment (ROI):72% of respondents to an Econsultancy survey in early 2011 described email's ROI as excellent or good. Only organic SEO scored better. This survey, the fifth annual Email Marketing Industry Census, sponsored by Adestra is based on the largest UK survey of email marketers.
• Be a social media scout: Love it or hate it, social media plays an essential role in making or breaking a person or a business. Having a decent presence on the social media sites and sharing links to your business website and to product and promos pages of your business will help make it an instant hit amongst users. This will ensure sharing of the information of your business and products.
• Good customer service to improve online reputation: It is observed that most of the consumers consult online reviews before buying and many consumers trust the reviews they read. Therefore, monitoring your online reputation and working towards it is very essential. If the reviews and the image on the internet are positive, it will attract more and more users to your business. This will also speak volumes about your excellent customer service. If you have any negative reviews, make sure that they are addressed in a professional manner and found a solution to.
• Let photos speak about your business: The best way to put forth the personality of your business is through photos. This new digital marketing move will make the consumers go “gaga” over your website. Through the pictures on your business website or on your social media pages, people will come to know what goes on daily in your business and also it will help boost your organic web presence if you tag the photos correctly. Posting photos is a hot and growing trend and you need to tap into it.
• Make your website go mobile: Digital marketing via internet has been in usage since a long time. Now the trend is to market your products through apps. So make a presence for yourself in the mobile space and see the results yield in no time. It is observed that by 2015, the iPhones, Androids and other tablets will replace the modest home computer as the home hardware of choice. So don’t give your potential customers an excuse to buy from your rivals by not having a mobile presence. Make sure that your website is available in all formats.

Physical or offline advertising has its own benefits but online digital marketing is your today’s new game plan. So tap into it now in order to make the most of it. Visit WSI Web Applications (www.wsiwebapplications.com) to learn more about Digital Marketing.

The online business marketing world has become very competitive and challenging. Lead generation is one of the many ways to stay ahead of the game when it comes to marketing your business.

Pay-per-click (PPC)

Pay-per-click (PPC) is when you purchase ads to display in the search engines when a user enters your target keywords.

PPC Highlights

• PPC is scalable.  You control your budget to fit your sales goals.

• PPC furnishes instant results

• PPC endows flexibility allowing you to target numerous keywords and people from different geographical regions.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website to get top ranking on search engines for specific keywords.

SEO Highlights

1        SEO drives qualified, cost-efficient traffic and sales

2        SEO extends brand recognition and keyword-brand associations

3        SEO enhances credibility and legitimacy

4        SEO reinforces investment in your domain name

5        SEO costs are more predictable than most other forms of marketing

Display Advertising

Display advertising provides a unique platform for products or services to resonate with prospective customers. This occurs as display ads engage interactions like clicks, mouse-over, video plays, game plays etc that increases the chances of your advertisement to be absorbed and acted upon.

Display Advertising Highlights

• Lower Cost per click and conversion.

• Display advertising reinforces Remarketing

• Better targeting to content-rich and relevant sites

• More visually appealing ad options rather than just text

• Behavioral, demographic, and geographic targeting capabilities

Video Advertising

Video ads are a new buzzword for lead generation. The theory behind it is simple – what appeals to the eyes keeps you hooked onto it for longer. And the longer the client takes to view your product or service the higher the number of leads.

Video Advertising Highlights

1        A larger portion of audiences interact with video ads as compared to other lead generators.

2        Play-through rates do not vary greatly by expandable or standard video ad formats.

3        Video click rates are far higher than image format ads.

Which is the best on-line LEAD GENERATOR?

All the lead generators are vehicles to get your business searched when a consumer is ready to buy your product or service. It is your take on what you want to achieve room your advertisements. If you are looking for instant advertising of brand name and a higher ROI than PPC will suit your needs more. But if you solely depend on PPC traffic, you will lose all your traffic if you stop PPC. This is where SEO gets thumbs up as it is long lasting. Using the short term advantages of PPC is a good way to identify keyword phrases that produce quality leads and conversion. These keyword phrases can be implemented into SEO for more long term results. A golden mean between PPC and SEO should be maintained. If you are aiming for high website traffic with an effective branding that is appealing, then you would benefit from a display advertising or video advertising.

 

For more information on how social media can help your business, visit www.wsiwebapplications.com or follow me on twitter @cmappleton

The use of Facebook advertising is one particular of the fastest methods by which you (marketer or as an organization) can get your Crowd Conversion out to millions of folks worldwide.

As an advertiser paying for clicks, you are indicating what is most important to you is driving traffic to a page on Facebook or your own website. You may want to focus on making sure your ad is highly targeted to the most relevant, appropriate audience. Your landing page should be set up to let users easily find what your ad offers. As an advertiser paying for views (impressions), you are indicating that it is most important for users to see your ad. You may also want to focus on making your ad as clear and informative as possible and having your brand or company's name be easily recognized.

There are 2 types of payment modes which the advertiser can choose to use.  The advertiser can either shell out per click (meaning you only pay whenever a person clicks on your advertisement), or pay per thousand impressions (which means you specify a quantity you would like to pay for the ads for each thousand times your posting is displayed to your targeted visitors). Targeting Your Prospects, Facebook allows you to target your prospects by:

• Age group
• Gender
• Relationship status
• Country
• Education level
• Languages
• Keywords

Effective Facebook advertising, though, requires that people recommend your offer to their friends. Attracting Facebook users includes subjective factors, and is more like making a great TV commercial. Everything you do has to be “right”—copy, images, layout, spelling—just to get people to pay attention.

Facebook is a great way for businesses to connect with existing customers, make new contacts, and get the word out about products and services. Following figure depicts the US Ad spend per user/subscriber:

 

The most efficient type of Facebook advertising is one particular that drives prospective customers to a site compared to a person that sells a product or service. You can also take advantage of friends talking to friends with sponsored stories, a natural way to amplify word of mouth. You can transform your website into a social experience with plug-ins and custom apps.

There are other drawbacks for serious business folk thinking about networking via Facebook. First of all, it’s nearly impossible to remove all traces of yourself from the social-networking site, even if you deactivate your account or request it be removed in its entirety. Then there’s the triple threat of potential legal liability, disclosure of personal information, and the risk of leaking corporate secrets. And in reality, not many executives actually use Facebook anyway, with many preferring more professionally oriented sites such as LinkedIn and Plaxo.

Perhaps the biggest downfall of Facebook is that the friends you have aren't always that. Some people may friend you without knowing a thing about you. Others might be total strangers. While Facebook allows us to connect with people, without providing the same type of interaction that you'd get in real life. This can give you a false sense of what friendship really is.

The best bet is to combine the benefits of Facebook with real, in-person, connections. It's okay to have a lot of Facebook friends and enjoy spending time on the site, but couple it with time spent with people you see in person.

For more information on how social media can help your business, visit www.wsiwebapplications.com or follow me on twitter @cmappleton

Landing Pages are simply pages within your site designed to gather hits and create conversions. These landing pages are just normal pages on your site, and you don’t necessarily have to use them to make money online selling products or services. However, they can bring in more passive income than any other product or service you offer. They are very different from home pages, but often the two are used together.

The following are some of the main characteristics of a Landing Page which will ensure revenue:

• Size and Graphics: Ensure that everything important to the conversion:  Call to action, images, headlines, and so on are visible without scrolling. The graphic should look professional but doesn’t need to be the same as the rest of the website.

• Heading and Contents: The headline should explain what you want to sell.  Be quick and smart, and include a slogan with more explanation. Show preference to bullets and numbered lists to explain the key features and advantages of using you service.

• Pictures and Videos: A picture or a video is highly recommended, almost mandatory but keep it simple.  Clients want to see what they’re buying so keep in mind that a picture worth thousand words.

• Buttons and Calls to Action: They must be visible without having to scroll and the use of colors and catchy words is helpful. Be a little creative and don’t use words like “Click here” or “Subscribe” but rather “Try it now for free” or “Join the community today” or “Buy now and we’ll toss in a bonus item” or “This offer is only available until ___”. Such calls to action encourage the buyer and create a sense of urgency in order to get the best deal.

• Testimonials and Trust Signs: Only a small percentage of people (known as early adopters) like to be the first to buy something.  Therefore, include testimonials and include trusted signs like PayPal, Credit Cards and Verisign logos to show your clients that your partners are solid and established.

• How many Landing Pages: Often one per site works, unless you are selling many different products or services. Still, if you use more than one keep them a bit shorter.

• When do Landing Pages work: You’ll know by the bottom line: the number of hits and how many conversions you get. Of course you want a reasonable percentage to go ahead and buy your product or service. If you fail to sell enough, you might want to rework the Landing Page.

• Incorporate Meta data: SEO is the foundation behind any pages on your website but no more so than the Landing Page. Search engines are hungry for Meta data to navigate so feed them keyword rich title tags and description tags. Your efforts should include careful marketing analysis to determine the most effective terms to include in your copy.

When you are looking to make money online you have to consider the user experience, marketing tactics, keyword research, and the effectiveness of your Landing Pages. That is why it is always a good idea to employ A/B split testing. It is difficult if not impossible in all cases to tell at a glance if one Landing Page will "sell" more than another. This is where split testing, or A/B testing comes into play. Split testing is the practice of using separate pages to sell a product in an effort to learn which one sells more and why. Frequently, advertising and search marketers will test components such as the length of sales copy, images which enhance the desire of a product or include empirical data such as charts and graphs to create a rationale of why someone should use a product.

For more information visit www.wsiwebapplications.com and follow me on Twitter @cmappleton

Every business plan needs to include a competitive analysis. So, who exactly is your online competitor? Companies tend to see competitors solely as who they bump up against when going after new business, or who prospects say they are also considering. But in the search world, the competition extends beyond other companies in your industry. It also includes any kind of content or information source that appears in search results wherever prospects are looking. A competitive analysis is your chance to look closely at your market and your competition, to learn what the others are doing and why. Have you ever had challenges with defining the competition in an online marketing effort? Have you encountered brand marketers that refuse to accept the difference between search results competition and industry competitors?

Understanding the difference between Industry Competition and Search Competition is the key to taking effective SEO strategy. The things a brand marketer can do with their SEO program to gain visibility on competing, non-commercial web pages can attract direct traffic as well as provide signals that will be useful in building top visibility for brand content in search.

The difference between competition and search competition is quite interesting. If you are in a 'niche' business, the chances are your search competition and your competition is one and the same. But, you may find companies from other regions or countries beating you for certain keywords or phrases, which may steal any business from you by competing with your clients. There are also chances of going up the SEO rankings. A great way to battle this is to invest in SEO tools such as SEOmoz (some of them are mentioned below) and track the rank of your competitors for keywords and start to combat against them. This way you can rise above them on the search engines. This will ensure an increase in traffic to your website and generate more leads, which will counter the business you may lose by your physical competition.

The following are some tools and tips to find your competitors keyword ranking:

• Do not just copy-paste your competitors’ keywords, use it as additional help for your keyword research.
• Examine which keywords your competitors optimized for their pages (i.e. tried to rank for) and which keywords they ended up ranking for. Doing this will help you avoid the mistakes they are making.

Helpful Tools:

• SEO Digger (paid with free trial) – It will indicate Google keyword position, check date (International style: DD/MM/YYYY) and Wordtracker rank.
• SpyFu (paid with free trial) – It spies for both your competitors’ organic search rankings and Google Adwords campaign keywords.

Make sure your website is NOT missing the mark with your target audience:

• Look at the copy on your site. Your copy should be speaking to your audience, addressing their needs, engaging them in an organized conversation. Self important copy is death to conversion.
• Your visitor may not read long, so you can provide more info further down the page to easily figure out what’s in it for them and if it’s worth the cost.
• Ensure your site adheres to commonly accepted conventions of website design. Put the navigation in a familiar place, make it look like navigation, make links look like links and so on
• There’s always a next step (even after they buy, but that’s another post), so ensure that every page on your site tells visitors what’s next and provide a way to move in that direction.  This makes your site “sticky” and makes visitors want to stay.

For more information, visit us online at www.wsiwebapplications.com and follow me on Twitter @cmappleton

There are currently 2 billion users on the internet which is roughly 28% of the global human population. A global market of 2 billion, and a local market of 1.7million, is usually a significant motivator for companies to seriously consider internet branding and marketing.

Well-planned marketing

It’s easy to liken this situation to a housing developer who builds a fantastic mansion with every conceivable luxury, but does so in the middle of a jungle. It lacks a good approach road and thus nobody knows where it exists or cares to find it. He is left with the ultimate house in the middle of the ultimate wilderness. This is the same principle that underlies building a comprehensive website strategy. A good website requires well-planned internet marketing, a plan that can guide potential customers, through the clutter and maze of the internet, to the respective web pages and thus generate the necessary leads or sales.

Three major types:

Internet Marketing can be an extremely broad-based subject, but in the scope of this article, only the 3 major types of Internet Marketing will be considered. Thus Internet Marketing can be separated into:

• PPC/I (Pay per click/impression)
• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Social media marketing (SMM)

Though there are many variations of each type. In brief PPC/I would place your brand or product advertisement at pre-set websites and generate leads. A good SEO program will make your website list on the 1st page of search engines as such as Google and yahoo for select keywords. Social media marketing would make it possible to create a direct communication channel and loyal fan base with existing customers.

It is imperative to combine any Internet Marketing activity with a good reporting and analysis tool. This will ensure that money spent on this activity can create measurable results. There are numerous reporting and analysis tools available on the internet however Google Analytics stands out as the most robust and inventive.  The regular reports generated through Google analytics will provide the website owner with detailed marketing information on website visitors and the condition of the website.

Here are some tips to provide a high ROI to your marketing campaigns:

• Create emphasis on adverts, media and products that give you long term high potential value to your customer’s and start to create less emphasis on those marketing campaigns that don’t.
• Evaluate some customer retention methods so that your website starts to generate more returning visitors.
• E-Mail marketing is a great way to sustain a high ROI and is really easy to set up