Category: E-Commerce

The Power of Online Marketing

marketing-1466315_960_720

Online, or digital marketing, is an umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies. It includes any effort to spread the word about a company that uses the internet as an advertising medium.

Over the last two decades, online marketing has become an absolute necessity for every business that wants to reach its target consumers. No longer can a company put an ad in the Sunday newspaper and assume that everyone will read it and then go out and buy its product. In fact, these days, if your business does not have an online presence, it might as well be invisible.

Indeed, online marketing has become so pervasive that is has resulted in a paradigm shift in the customer/advertiser relationship – people are now in control of their marketing experience and businesses must use various internet platforms in order to adapt to the changing expectations of consumers who are wanting ever-more sophisticated offerings throughout the purchasing journey.

But even though the balance of power has shifted in favor of the consumer, businesses should not be unmindful of the many advantages that online marketing offers. For example, the use of digital marketing allows brands to market their products and services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year. It also allows them to offer customer support all the time, and not just during “normal” business hours. In addition, the use of social media platforms allows brands to receive both positive and negative feedback from their customers, which helps them decide quickly which products are popular and which may need to be put out to pasture.

Another advantage is that digital marketing is easy to be measured, allowing businesses to know the reach that their marketing is making, whether it is working or not, and the amount of activity and conversation that is involved. The results of traditional broadcast marketing simply cannot be measured nearly as accurately.

In addition, there are many powerful arrows in the online marketing quiver – any of which may prove to be the one that hits a potential consumer where he or she lives. They include:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – a methodology of strategies, techniques, and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – a paid version of SEO where marketers pay for display ads in order to drive traffic to a company’s web pages
• Content Marketing – the creation of valuable media and content made available to potential customers who are searching for information about a particular product or service. It may include articles, blogs, videos, etc.
• Social Media Marketing – using one or several social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., to engage with customers and build relationships
• Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) – paid ads on search engines and social media sites
• Affiliate Marketing – a type of referral marketing where companies promote each other’s products
• E-mail Marketing – contacting customers who have given permission to reach them via their email accounts

Most businesses, these days, engage in omni-channel marketing, which employs a mixture of these strategies in a synergistic way, in order to maximize their effectiveness. And it’s a wise advertiser who learns to harness and master the power of online marketing.

Salesforce in San Francisco

ball-563965__180

Salesforce.com is a cloud computing company headquartered in San Francisco, California, with regional headquarters in Morges, Switzerland, India, and Tokyo. The company was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive, Marc Benioff, and his partners, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez. The company specializes in SaaS – Software as a Service – a licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted.

In June 2004 the company’s initial public offering was listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol CRM and raised $110 million. Today, Salesforce is one of the most highly-valued, American cloud computing companies with a market capitalization above $55 billon. It has nearly 20,000 employees and revenues of $7 billion per year. Salesforce.com has its services translated into 16 different languages and has over 2.1 million subscribers.

Salesforce’s main product is a CRM (Client Relationship Management) system that helps companies automate such tasks as customer information, contact and case management, communication tracking and scheduling, and sales opportunities and forecasting. It gathers, organizes and disseminates everything there is to know about which products are selling, which customers are buying, and how the sales force is performing. With all of a business’s information on customers, prospects, and leads stored on a single online platform, everyone in the company has access to the latest information.

And because Salesforce is in the cloud, it can grow and scale as needed. It’s full-on CRM product starts at $65 per user per month and the most expensive version goes for $300. Features can be added without adding costly infrastructure and upgrades are instantly implemented as soon as they’re available, without disruption. Salesforce’s CRM system is fully mobile, so that data is available on any connected device, at any time – desktops, laptops, tablets, and smart phones. In addition, its common platform works across all channels, including social, Web, email, and customer call centers.

Salesforce.org is the philanthropic arm of Salesforce.com. Salesforce.org donates one percent of the company’s resources (defined as profit, equity, and employee time) to support organizations that are working to “make the world a better place. Salesforce.org provides a full-featured, ten-seat user license available to nearly all United States 501c3 non-profit organizations or overseas equivalents. Additional licenses are deeply discounted for public interest groups. As of March 2014, Salesforce.org supported 20,000+ higher education and non-profit customers, and has donated $53+ million in grants. In addition, as of July 2015, Salesforce employees have collectively donated more than 1,000,000 hours in volunteer labor to thousands of charitable organizations worldwide.

How important is AdWords to New Businesses?

adwords-793034_960_720

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that approximately 400,000 new businesses are started every year in America. But according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about half of them survive more than five years. And the Small Business Administration estimates that 50 percent of new businesses actually fail during their first year, alone.

There are a lot of reasons why businesses, especially new ones, don’t make the grade. But it is safe to assume that one major reason is simple enough to deduce: not enough customers. It’s no secret that in order to get those customers a business must advertise – and a new business must advertise even more intelligently, if not more extensively, because . . .well, it’s new. Nobody yet knows that it’s out there.

One challenge for any new business is that it is likely competing with more established operations that are more well-known and more experienced in the advertising side of things. Another challenge is monetary; start-up costs often eat up a large percentage of a new business’ budget and there may be scant funds left over for a major marketing campaign.

The good news, though, is that today, the internet has helped level the playing field. And one of its best tools is Google AdWords. Whenever a prospective customer is looking for a product, service, promotion, or anything from anywhere in the world, they’re likely going to search for it on Google. And Google AdWords can get a business found. With Google AdWords, on even a moderate budget, a new business can compete on the same level as the more established firms, no matter how long it’s been around.

When a business buys an ad on Google AdWords, with a link to its website or other content, and the chosen keywords match what people are looking for, the ad appears on Page One, above or alongside the organically ranked websites in the same category. That means it gets seen. But more importantly, it gets seen only by potential customers who are already interested in what that business is selling or offering.

In addition, unlike other marketing strategies, the business only gets charged when people click on its ad. That makes Google AdWords extremely cost-effective. That’s especially important to a new business because it can determine how much it wants to spend – a budget can be set from ten dollars to thousands of dollars a day.

Google AdWords also gives a business targeting options, so a locally-based business, (such as a neighborhood restaurant), a regional company (such as a state bank), or even an e-commerce site (with, say, country shipping restrictions), can geo-target its most promising, potential customers. And it’s not wasting ad dollars on those who aren’t in its area. By using Google Places in conjunction with AdWords, a business can even show a map of its brick-and-mortar shop, if it has one.

And since new businesses, in particular, have to watch every penny spent, with Google AdWords, every single aspect of a marketing campaign is measurable – right down to the number of clicks, the number of impressions, the click through rate (CTR), the number of conversions, the conversion rate, the cost per click (CPC), the cost per acquisition (CPA), etc. So it’s very easy to measure the return on investment (ROI).

Google AdWords also helps with follow-up. When interested visitors have clicked on an ad and visited a new business’ website, they get a cookie from a code that exists on the site’s back end. When they leave, the ad can be targeted to follow them on the Google Display Networks, or Google search.

With all of its advantages – its relatively low cost, its potentially wide reach, and its broad menu of options – Google AdWords can be a hugely successful method of driving traffic and gaining new customers. Which is why every new business should consider using it – especially if it wants to wind up in the 50 percent range of those businesses that ultimately do get to stick around.

Your Customers are Looking for You, but Can They Find You?

These days, more than ever, it’s not enough just to be good at your business – you have to know how reach your customers and potential customers where they live. And, today, more and more of them are living online. So, if they can’t find you on their computers, tablets, and smart phones, then you are probably losing them to your competition. Here are some tips that will help them find you when they look:

1.You must have a professional looking website that is highly functional and easy to navigate. If your customers can’t get the information they are seeking within seconds, they will hit the back button and go looking somewhere else. Make sure that your website meets current usability standards and that it is optimized for use on a mobile phone; that the information is correct and up-to-date; and that it is easy for a potential customer to do business with you.

2. Concentrate on your local market as most consumers still prefer to do business with those nearby. Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing provide business owners with a free way to get businesses listed ahead of all the search results via their default map systems.

3. Get listed on review sites. People want to know that others have done business with you and have had positive experiences.

4. Attract buyers by blogging. Blogging not only elevates your professional profile, it can help raise your company website to the top of the search engines pages.

5. Use social media. People buy into you before they buy from you. Social media lets you connect with potential customers without coming on too hard as a salesperson. By having an open, interesting dialog with people who may be interested in your goods or services, you stay in their minds. Then, when they are ready to buy, they are more likely to remember you.

6. Use online press releases. Think about all the new and interesting things going on in your business and write an article about them. Embed a few links back to your website, and send the release to the most appropriate online press release services.

7. Shoot a video and upload it to YouTube, or any of the other video sharing sites, and be sure to link it directly to your website. Then promote the video with social media to increase your online presence.

8. Send out regular email newsletters to current customers and anyone else who has contacted you in one way or another. By sending out fresh, new content on a regular basis, you’re reminding your customers that you’re still out there.

9. Content is still king. Create useful content and give it away free to your customers on your website. There are many types of online content: white papers, articles, reports, case studies, and webinars, for example. In addition, the more useful and original your content, the higher your site will rank on search engines.

10. If your budget allows, pay for online ads with Google Adwords and/or Bing Adwords. Paid placement will get your business on the front page of their search engines when customers are surfing the web. Get some professional advice, though, before you spend a dime. Doing it right can help your business thrive; doing it wrong can wreck your bottom line.

Remember the old conundrum: If a tree falls in the forest and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, if your customers are looking for you, but can’t find you, can you really do business with them?

Google’s AdWords vs. Bing AdWords, Who is better?

Search engine marketing has become an integral part of a business’s online strategy, and paid search is one of the top sources for driving traffic to a company’s website. In fact, PPC (pay-per-click) advertising provides the highest ROI (return on investment) of any type of online marketing scheme.

The two main search engine platforms for PPC campaigns are Google AdWords and the Yahoo! Bing Network. Each one has its pluses and minuses and depending on a business’s market, budget, competition, etc. one may be a more viable solution that the other.

Google AdWords is the leading search engine with 67 percent of the market share. It consists of two networks: Google Search Network and Google Search Partners. Google AdWords is generally considered an easier platform to manage; it’s user-friendly, has a high search volume, and more advertising extensions than Bing. It’s better for medium or low competition markets with a clear advertising strategy and flexible budget.

Like Google, Bing also allows businesses to advertise through two different networks: Bing Search Network and Bing Content Network. Bing Ads has less competition than Google and its CPC (cost-per-click) are 50-70 percent cheaper; its impressions are 90 percent cheaper, as well. With Bing Ads, small businesses can easily rank higher while getting increased ad exposure, despite relatively small marketing budgets. So if cost and high competition levels are major factors in a company’s advertising budget, then Bing could be a better choice, resulting in low cost-per-acquisitions.

In addition, Bing allows a business to assign different campaigns, different time zones – Google does not. Bing also has a very helpful customer service department willing to help small companies that spend at least $500 per month, whereas Google’s ante for good customer service is $500,000 per year.

So, for a more user-friendly platform with high search volume, Google AdWords is often a better choice. Bing prevails for high competition, low-budget startups. For businesses that have the budget and ability, working with both platforms gives them the best of both worlds.

How Small Changes in your Online Ads Boost PPC Conversions

online-marketing-1246457_960_720

If people are clicking on your PPC ad, but then are not converting to a sale, you’re spending money, but not making any. The point of your entire campaign is to convert lookers to buyers, so in order to create a successful PPC campaign – one that results in enough conversions to make it worth your while – you need to do many things, some big, some small.

Here are some big and some small things that can help you increase the ROI of your PPC campaign by increasing your conversion rate:

• Understand the five general phases of the customer buying cycle: Awareness (Can you help me?), Consideration (What do you do?), Interest (What’s different about you?), Preference (Are you the best value for me?), and Purchase (How much? How long? And When?). Now, make sure that your ad contains elements that appeal to customers in each stage of the cycle.

• Track everything from the beginning. In order to be successful with PPC you need to analyze and adjust constantly. Little changes over time make huge overall improvements. There are plenty of good-quality tracking programs, and some of them provide a lot of in-depth information. The good news is that Google’s free conversion tracking tool will do a great job most of the time.

• Make sure your ad copy correctly describes the product or service you are advertising. And make sure that the content on your landing page is related to your ad copy. And finally, write high quality, engaging copy.

• Test everything. Again: test everything. Test your PPC ad text; text the images you use in your ad, your call-to-action, or anything else that has to do with your campaign. Then test it again against a variation to determine which concept gets better results. Then test your landing page to find out which pages are more successful at driving conversions.

• Be different. Lot’s of PPC ads are the same. Same doesn’t work; same is boring. Instead, try to create emotionally-charged ads with strong triggers that showcase your unique proposition.

• Use the right keywords. The nature and intent of the keywords you’re targeting is critical. Use keywords that are “transactional” and have high commercial intent, meaning they are used by people who are ready to buy. Also, it is crucial to regularly scan for new keyword ideas, and then test them.

• Use re-marketing as a conversion rate optimization tool. Remember: only about two percent of website visitors convert on their first visit. But various studies have shown that re-targeting ad campaigns – showing individuals who have seen your ad but have not yet converted, the same product or service you are offering on websites they later visit – result in a steep rise in conversion rates. You should also offer additional discounts in re-marketing ads that give people a reason to come back and convert.

• New ads can have as big an impact on conversion rates as new landing pages. Keep updating, honing, and improving your message. Small changes to ad copy and your call-to-action can help better qualify website visitors.

• Give people a reason to buy TODAY!!! If you have a sale, push it. If a sale is ending, make a big deal of it.

• Block irrelevant or unqualified searches by finding and then excising negative keywords that don’t align with your advertising objectives.

• Use AdWords extensions or anything else that will help your ads stand out.

• Revise your ad scheduling to run only on days and/or hours that represent the most optimal times to reach your conversion requirements.

Finding New Ways to Reach Customes Online

social media

While the media used to reach customers may have changed dramatically over the last several years, there are some things that haven’t changed in the world of marketing: before you can sell your product or service, you first have to engage your target audience. And in order to engage that audience, you must reach out to them where they live. And today, the vast majority of people live online.

It’s axiomatic that every business must have an attractive, well-organized, and well-structured website rich in information. It must contain the relevant keywords so that it can rank as high as possible on all search engines, and it needs to have as many inbound, outbound, and internal links as possible.

Most important, it must include useful and original content that will resonate deeply with its intended audience. By maintaining a blog that targets potential customers’ interests, a business can position itself as a thought leader and expert in a particular industry. Finally, every website must be optimized for mobile and tablet usage, with as much video content as practicable.

In addition, to having a website, many businesses prosper with the use of paid channel advertising, specifically Google AdWords. Buying ad space on Google, or on another search engine, such as Bing, puts a company’s website on the engine’s first page, where most web surfers begin, and often end, their searches.

But in order to really reach the present generation of shoppers and consumers, a business, today, must know how to leverage the many social networks that people now use to communicate with one another. While the average person might only spend 15-30 minutes per day on social networks, many others spend multiple hours each week. That suggests that any strategic marketing plan must include a steady dose of social media.

The most widely-used social network is, of course, Facebook. Facebook provides an opportunity to showcase products, share company news and milestones, and present pictures and blogs that can engage and entertain the Facebook universe. It is an excellent way for people to see new content with every post. Facebook has a simple sign-up process that can establish a business online in minutes and it’s fairly easy to customize how a company can represent itself to its users.

Of course there are many other social networks that can be utilized to engage its users. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc., all have possibilities for the savvy business owner to exploit. The most important thing to remember is the importance of finding out where one’s potential customers are spending their time and then maximizing the relationship opportunities better than the competition.

Remember – regardless of the type of media used, the most important factor in getting and retaining customers is keeping them interested and engaged in your company’s product or service. We may talk to each other via many different electronic media, but keeping it human and personal is still the key to business success.

Efficient Pay-per Click Techniques Make a World of Difference for Your Business’s Bottom Line

adwords-793034_960_720

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is an advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays the publisher – typically, the website owner or host – each time one of its ads are clicked on by a potential consumer, surfing the web.

Search engines such as Google and Bing allow businesses to buy listings in their search results. When someone searches on a keyword that is related to a business’s offerings, its ad will show up on as a sponsored link or banner ad on a results page, along with the natural, non-paid search results.

There are two types of PPC advertising – flat rate PPC and bid-based PPC. In the flat-rate model, the advertiser and publisher agree upon a fixed amount that will be paid for each click. In bid-based PPC, ad placement is sold at auction. Each advertiser informs the host of the maximum amount that it is willing to pay for a given ad spot based on a keyword. The highest bid has the best chance to appear first in the rankings.

Whether utilizing a flat-rate, or bid-based model, PPC’s effectiveness as a source of profit assumes that the costs of all the clicks will be substantially less than the overall gain from sales made as a result of the portion of clickers who eventually convert and buy. When PPC is not working correctly it can hurt a business’s bottom line – the cost for ads are greater than the income for sales that close.

Effective and profitable PPC campaigns rely on a broad set of carefully thought-out and well-implemented components: researching and selecting the right keywords; organizing them into ad groups; creating ad text and landing pages that are optimized for conversions; and knowing how to target the correct audience, how to test ads, and how to use the tools and analytics that measure, and can thus help refine, results. Search engines reward advertisers who can create relevant, intelligently targeted pay-per-click campaigns by charging them less for ad clicks.

Google AdWords is the largest and most popular PPC advertising system, simply because Google gets the most traffic. Every time a search is initiated, Google digs into the pool of AdWords advertisers and chooses a set of winners to appear in the valuable ad space on its search results page. The winners are chosen based on a combination of factors, including the quality and relevance of their keywords and ad campaigns, their click-through rate, the quality of the page to which and ad points, and, in the bid-based model, the size of their keyword bids.

So, in order to become and stay a Google AdWords winner, a business must do the essential work of creating and maintaining its PPC campaigns. Effective techniques include:

• Crafting relevant keyword lists, tight keyword groups, and proper ad text.

• Creating optimized landing pages with persuasive, relevant content and a clear call-to–action, tailored to specific search queries.

• Consistently reviewing the effectiveness of ads by testing them and then optimizing them as necessary.

• Tracking conversions and sales in order to measure return on investment.

• Avoiding keyword bidding wars that end up costing more than an ad’s potential return.

Pay per click is now a basic Internet marketing tool and very few businesses can afford to ignore it. But like any other marketing campaign, a PPC campaign must lift the bottom line, not drag it down.

Target Marketing – Does it Work?

marketing-954674__180

The biggest mistake that any business or entrepreneur can make is believing that if you build it, they will come. The truth is: they won’t. You have to go get them. The second biggest mistake is believing that if you simply close your eyes and shoot enough buckshot, sooner or later, you’re going to bag a customer. Well, you might, but you’ve probably wasted a whole lot of time, money, and energy with that kind of scattershot approach. In order to get the right kind of customer to notice you, and ultimately buy your product or service, you need to use a finely tuned, steadily aimed, high powered rifle. In other words, you need to employ targeted marketing.

Targeted marketing is a type of advertising that is designed to reach those consumers who are most likely to become your customers based on various traits, such as demographic, psychographic, geographic, economic, and other quantifiable types of behavior, such as previous purchasing habits. Targeted marketing allows businesses to eliminate wasted advertising to consumers whose preferences do not match a product or service’s attributes.

In order to identify your target market, you will need to explore the following: • Demographics – Who are the people who actually use your product or service? Demographic details include age, gender, marital status, ethnic group, family size, education level, occupation, etc. The sexes make different purchasing decisions and so do different age groups. Single people have different needs than married ones.

• Geographics – Where do your potential customers live? If you’re selling something on the north side of town, marketing to the south side, where many of your competitors abide, could be a colossal waste of time and money.

• Psychographics – Why do people buy what you’re selling? What are their interests and hobbies? And what benefits can you provide that will satisfy their personalities and lifestyles?

• Economics – Who can afford your product or service? And how much are they willing to spend? And why would you try to sell a Rolls Royce in a low income area?

• Buying behaviors – Who normally buys what you’re selling and how does your product or service fulfill their needs? What have they bought in the past and how have they been persuaded to do so? What are the best ways to reach them?

Once you’ve answered these questions satisfactorily, you still will have to do the necessary research in order to break down the universal market into the segments or niches that are most likely to become your customers. In other words, you need to create a customer profile. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, a business is much more likely to do better by exploiting its identified niche with cost-effective marketing strategies. For example, a clothing store selling high-end maternity wear might identify its target customer as a 25- to 40-year old, pregnant, business woman within a ten-mile radius of the store. So, advertising in a woman’s magazine is smarter than taking out an ad in “Cigar Aficionado,” much less a widely distributed, general newspaper.

Does target marketing work? Various marketing studies suggest that it does. The Network Advertising Initiative’s 2009 study measuring pricing and effectiveness of targeted advertising revealed that it secured an average of 2.7 times as much revenue per ad as non-targeted advertising, and was twice as effective at converting users who clicked on online ads into buyers.

So, put the shotgun away and take out the high-powered rifle. Open your eyes, know who to aim at, and go for the right target. Happy hunting!

The importance of Auditing your Google PPC Account.

Google G

Your Google Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign needs to be constantly updated if you want it to help you achieve your marketing goals. Some businesses crate a PPC account and then make the mistake of thinking it can run on automatic, not realizing that it has many moving parts and plenty of places where problems can arise. An account audit is simply systematic way to review your account to determine areas that could benefit from anything from a minor tweak to a major overhaul.

Remember: the purpose of an audit is to match your PPC account’s goals with its desired outcomes and to maximize the impact of your ad campaign and, ultimately, your costs per conversion and return on investment (ROI). So, at the very least, you should perform an audit on a yearly basis and then whenever you think it necessary to address any known or suspected performance issues. Most experts recommend that you have an outside agency do the work so that your account can be examined with a fresh eye and from an unbiased perspective.

There are many different audits that you can complete to help ensure that your account is operating at its peak performance. Here are some things to consider:

• Account Structure and Organization Audit – The purpose of this audit is to review and ensure that you are targeting the right location, users, and keywords. Check for duplicate keywords, variations in the ad text, and keyword match types. Make sure there are no issues or missed optimization opportunities; that there exists an adequate negative keyword list to prevent your ads from showing up for irrelevant queries; and that conversion tracking is set up to track the most important actions a visitor could take. Check for any approval issues. Review your budget; if the budget is maxed out, consider lowering your bids in order to reduce your cost per click– you just might get more clicks for your money.

• Ad Audit – The purpose of an ad audit is to find out which ads are under-performing and which are driving a positive response. Check for typos and spelling issues. Make sure your ad has a call to action. Examine any custom display URLs and ascertain their effectiveness.

• Landing Page Audit – Make sure your landing page works and sends traffic to the right page(s) of your website. Pause ads for any products or services that are no longer being offered. Optimize the landing page for conversions, and make sure it has the proper privacy policy and terms clauses on it.

• Extension Audit – If your account has site link extensions make sure they are correctly configured to include quick links to any top pages and are appropriate for your business. For example, brick and mortar businesses should always have working location extensions. Pause any under performing extensions and replace them with other variations.

Be thorough and methodical. Auditing your pay-per-click account is one of the most beneficial things you can do to improve its performance, lower cost per clicks, and increase click-through rates and conversions.

Once these and any other audits are completed, you will need to prioritize any necessary re-working of your PPC account according to what is going to affect your bottom line the most, or according to the amount of time it will take to complete particular tasks.

Recent Posts

Our Services

Paid Search SEO Software & Apps