Category Archives: Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the Internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising,and any other digital medium.

Digital Marketing, PPC, Social Media Marketing

Even A Small Business Needs Paid Advertising – Why?

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Captain America had the shield, and Mister fantastic had his wit, but what do great entrepreneurs have?  – I’ll tell you: it’s arobust online presence. Advertising has always been a preferred way to market any product or service to a broad audience worldwide.  These days, every online business want their websites rank #1 on Google. Afterall, it is an effective way to increase brand awareness and skyrocket your business traffic & revenue.  However, many small businesses do not consider paid advertisement just in the name of saving money and time. 

So, does your story depicts the same picture? Well, here are the key reasons why it is the right time to include paid advertising in your marketing mix. 

High Conversion Rate

We are in the digital age where people do not look in the yellow pages of the newspaper for their needs or even pay attention to billboards.  Instead, around 90% of users go to a search engine and search for product information before making any purchase.  For businesses, the right time to advertise is when users are searching for products online.Paid advertising helps companies to reach the right customers at the right time.

Increase the Credibility of Business

Many times, marketing experts witness new products gaining a reputation among customers. So, how do small businesses build so much credibility even when they are in their initial stages? Well, it is due to the combination of paid advertisements and the quality of products or services.  Many small businesses take the approach, “fake it till you make it” to increase goodwill and brand perception in the eyes of the users.  When users see advertisements of a brand, they assume that business has adequate funds, which means the business is doing good.

Pay Only when Your Ad is Clicked

Paid advertisement is a quick and effective way to increase traffic and revenue.  With the help of a paid advertisement, a business can set up and launch a campaign within a couple of minutes. The best thing is that companies can optimize the campaign at any time. Businesses start getting sales within 24 hours of launching the campaign. PPC is also budget-friendly because businesses only pay when the ad is clicked. Moreover, there is no charge for appearing in the search results.

Target the Advertisements Correctly

Facebook, Google, and Instagram are top sites with access to billions of data. Therefore, they can easily put your ads in front of the right audience. It means that their algorithms aren’t going to show an ad for a house to someone who’s searching for online shoes.

Due to the adequate data of users, these platforms can help small businesses target the right user base without much hassle. Google takes care of displaying the right advertisements to the right users so that they end up buying the products. For small businesses, it is a surefire way to generate a good return on the investment.  

Monitor the Progress with Powerful Tools 

With the help of digital marketing funnel in London, businesses can monitor the steps users take from being a prospect to a customer. Similarly, Google’s AdWords and Facebook Ads Manager let small businesses track their progress and check the success of the campaigns in real-time.  In order to reach the audience more accurately, a business can have a look at the demographic information.  You can also get insight into the time of the week or month when ads get the most response. 

With paid advertising, entrepreneurs can propel their businesses to the new heights of success. Here are the top three platforms for online businesses. 

Google PPC Ads

As per studies, PPC is the preferred choice of around 45% of small businesses. There are two types of paid ads through Google AdWords, including text and display ads.  Text ads appear on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), while display ads pop up while browsing sites. Small businessesare increasingly investing in Google ads because they only have to pay when users click on the ads.  It is a cost-effective method to get your business noticed and drive traffic to your website. 

Facebook Ads

The Facebook platform has over 1.13 billion daily active users. Similar to pay-per-impression, Facebook ads run on the same idea. Due to a vast amount of users’ information in Facebook’s database, it helps businesses to be detailed with the targeting.  Users’ information, such as sex, age, location, and interest, are used for the filter of the ads.  What makes Facebook Ads stand out from others is the affordability.  When combined with a solid strategy, Facebook ads can help small businesses reap maximum benefits.

Instagram Ads

Instagram usage boomed faster than the supernova in the past few years. With over more than 600 million active monthly users, this platform allows small businesses to market their products and services effectively. Due to high user engagement, this platform has named “the king of social media.” Nowadays, many businesses are jumping on the paid advertisement bandwagon left and right.  Instagram is among the best platforms to get the most bang for the bucks. 

The Endnote The paid advertisement has become the need of the digital world. For small businesses, it is the must-have marketing tactic to add in the digital arsenal.  So, if you are a small business owner, it is the right time to give paid advertisement a chance and witness the number of customers and sales soaring high.

Author Bio

Harry Smith has over a decade of experience working as a digital marketing agency. As a digital marketing veteran, he takes immense pride in having specialization in Web analytics, marketing strategy, competitor analysis, marketing management, and budget management. Writing isone of Harry Smith loves, and he contributes todigital marketing blogs constantly. He has been helping small businesses achieve new heights of success.

Digital Marketing, PPC

PPC Campaign: How to Avoid Wrong Audiences

Over the years, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Marketing has proven to be one of the most effective and fastest ways to reach your target market, generate customers for your brand and grow your business. It has been also one of the fastest ways to have a high return on investment. PPC can get your business in front of a specific target audience thus making it integral to make your business into a success.

However, as more and more brands leverage this method to boost their online presence and eventually convert each click into sales, there has been a lot of mistakes done along the way that makes PPC ineffective and leads to targeting the wrong audience. While some marketers view PPC as an easy task, many fail to avoid doing said mistakes that lead to not making the most out of their budget.

So, here are some of the major PPC mistakes you should avoid targeting the wrong audience.

1. Failing to Know your Target Market

Your target market is the most important factor in doing your PPC campaign and if you fail to identify your target market, you will end up reaching out to the wrong audience. Though it will still be shown to people which you can still consider an “audience”, these people will show less interest than your target audience.

In showcasing any of your ad campaigns, either it is PPC or other marketing methods, it is essential to figure out your target audience. It is important however to note that you also must avoid streaming too thinly to a niche market as your campaign will not get traction or getting too broad with your desired market will not give you the traffic you want.

Create your buyer’s persona. Doing this will let you know your potential more and can hone your marketing strategy better.

2. Having No End Goal

Launching your PPC campaign without a definite strategic plan and a clear understanding of your objective, will not make it a success. Your goal should be the starting point of your strategy.

Failing to set a clear plan and failing to identify your goal will cost you more than you should do, will not be able to reach your target audience and will not give you optimum results as this is a crucial step for your campaign. If your audience is not defined, you will not know to whom your offers are geared toward and may be sent towards a wrong crowd. 

In order for your PPC strategy to be effective and to avoid hitting the wrong crowd, you need to clearly define your goals and objective that you need to accomplish. This will be your guide to implementing your campaign and making sure that you will get an optimum result.

3. Not Tracking your Campaign

If you are not tracking your PPC campaign, how will you know if it is effective? How will you know you know if your end goal is being achieved? How will you know if you are targeting the right or wrong audience?

It is important to track and know your PPC campaign performance to let you know if you are on the right track and help you understand your strengths and weakness in doing the campaign that will help you know where to do some improvements. It will give you feedback on whether your goals are being met and if you are targeting the correct consumers.

Your PPC campaign will not get an optimum result if you will not keep track and check your campaign after they were launched and already live online. Tools like Google Analytics will help you track your campaign journey which you can interpret to make your strategy a success. It will also be an aid to let you know if you have been stuck on the same promotion for too long already and it is not already effective in keeping your audience interested by giving you a diminishing result.

4. Irrelevant Copy and Emotionless Content

Another mistake that marketers and business owners keep on repeating when doing any campaign is producing ad-copies that are irrelevant and unrelated to their target audience.

If you are just starting and new to online marketing, creating ad copies can be hard for you. Even if you have an experience already, it may still be a bit tricky. Research on how an ad can make you click and you can apply it to your target consumers. Creating confusing copy and emotionless content can land you to the wrong audience.

Strive to write better ad copies to avoid a lower quality score of your campaign. Study other ad copies and the images that they have used.

5. Not Testing Conversion and Not Doing Split Tests

Split testing is creating small variations of a single ad. By doing this method, you will be able to know which of your ad works best for your PPC campaign and which does not. This strategy can also help your conversion rates and validate which of your particular campaign is working and effective in targeting your desired audience.

Doing a split test can help you find a winner ad which you can keep and an underperforming ad which you can improve.

Final Thoughts

Technology gave marketers and business owners like you a lot of options to promote your product and grow your brand. One of the most effective especially when done right, is the PPC campaign.

However, this type of marketing method may seem to be easy but it is actually harder than it is really is. It requires time,  knowledge and understanding of its strategies and how to implement it to make it work. It is important as well to be aware of the major mistakes you can make and how it can be avoided when you launch your campaign. Committing such mistakes can lead to loss of money, poor conversion and targeting to the wrong audience.  Knowing of such possibilities can ensure that your ads will reach your desired audience, can encourage them to make the necessary action – which is to click your ads and help translate each click into sales.

Author’s Bio

John Ocampos is an Opera Singer by profession and a member of the Philippine Tenors. Ever since, Digital Marketing has always been his forte. He is the Founder of SEO-Guru, and the Managing Director of Tech Hacker. John is also the Strategic SEO and Influencer Marketing Manager of Softvire Australia – the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.

Email Marketing

10 Email Marketing Strategies Every Business Owner Should Know

You may have remembered one particular moment in your life where you groaned because you received an email yet again from one of the stores you made purchase months ago. This email may have even directly hit the spam spot in your email folders. You may not have cared too much back then, but if you have your own business these days, it would surely matter to you. 

Email marketing has one of the longest in the digital marketing landscape yet still proves to be one of the most effective. More than 40 years ago, the first email marketing message went to roughly around 400 recipients. Fast forward to 2019; there were about 3.9 billion email users worldwide and expected to rise to 4.48 billion in 2024.

With this number of potential audiences, email marketing should always be part of your online marketing campaign. Aside from this number, emails can give you a high rate of click-throughs and even a massive 4400% ROI.

So, how can you get the most out of your email marketing campaign? Here are some email marketing strategies that you can adopt to ensure your business’ success.

Email Marketing Strategies That You Should Know

  • Connect With Your Audience

One of the many reasons why the email you received years ago landed in the Spam folder instantly is because you feel no connection with it. It did not speak to you and therefore was not worthy of your time.

It is important that the emails you send these days will speak to your audience and will establish a connection with them. Do the proper segmentation before you dispatch any of your emails. You may group your audience according to their age, gender, and location. When you do this, there are higher chances of open rates and low unsubscribe rates as it ensures that you are sending your message to the right audience.

  • Remember To Personalize

When you are finally able to do proper segmentation in your email, it is essential as well that what you send is personalized and will fit their interest. Get to know your audience better and familiarize yourself with customers’ interests and whatever catches their attention online.

Strengthen the initial connection that you build with your audience with a personalized email. It will increase your open rates and will convince people to buy or make any transaction with you.

  • Always Think Mobile

The call for going and doing mobile-first has been around lately. Many people have decided to rely on their mobile phones entirely and ditched their computers and laptop. This phenomenon means that these people are connecting to their internet, doing a search on search engines, and opening their emails at their mobile devices. If your email is not fit for mobile, they will lose interest and toss you to the Spam folder, delete your message without reading, and even wholly block yours from sending any letter.

  • Practice Less is More

The world is moving on fast. This statement rings true even for your online audience’s behavior. Many are living in the fast lane and does not have a lot of time in their plate. Their patience also seemed to be wearing thin.

When using email as part of your marketing strategy, it is essential to keep this in mind. Your email interface should be simple, clean, and professional looking. Your message should pop up even without the use of bright and colorful images. An email interface that has a fresh, polished look seemed to be more authentic and delivers messages across in an instant.

Your audience will not have the whole day to read your message. It should be concise and direct to the point.

  • Integrate AI

Artificial Intelligence has already made an impact on our lives. We have been using AI even without us knowing, from the ride-hailing app you so fond of to the voice searches that you made last night; these are just some of AI at work.

AI in an email may have a different job, but it will make your life as a marketer and business owner easier. AI can help you with proper personalization and smart segmentation. It may also automate your workflow, which can save you a lot of time and be able to focus on your other marketing strategy. AI can also determine the best possible time your audience is online and, most likely, the best time that they will open their email.

  • Call To Action Buttons

If there is one thing that you should never forget in your email body is the inclusion of “Call to Action” buttons that can make a whole lot difference in your email. It is the primary driver of click-through on your website. CTA makes it clear on what your readers should do next, and it makes readers act. It is a critical part of your email marketing strategy.

CTA transitions your customers to the next level of interaction with your brand and encourages them to take action immediately. You can ask them to sign up at your website, contact you for further details or even to know more about you.

  • Social Media Buttons

Another set of buttons that you should not overlook when you make your email blast is your social media buttons. They act as secondary CTA buttons. Your social media buttons can either follow icons where it takes your customer straight to your social media profiles or share button where readers can share specific content to their social media profile.

  • Catchy Headlines

Often, your headlines will be the deal maker, whether you will end up in the Spam or Trash folder, or your email will see the light of day and have the recipient read it thoroughly. When you create your headlines, make sure that they are catchy and will have your audience hooked on your email. However, remember to avoid using click baits as this will affect your online credibility.

  • Email and SEO

The content you put in your email matters a lot. Either you want to promote your brand, product, and services or you want to update your audience with a recent article from your website, it will make a huge difference when it comes to your SEO campaign. Though email marketing does not directly affect SEO, when used side by side, it can complement each other.

Email marketing is a great avenue to drive quality website traffic and helps lower down bounce rates. Accordingly, 55% of people find new websites through emails that they have received and read.

  • Encourage Feedback

If you have been using email marketing for a long time now, you will know that there are different purposes on why you do this campaign. It is either you want to promote something, or you share a sale offer. However, these days, marketers and business owners are using email to generate feedback from their users.

Final Thoughts

As Technology move in a rapid state, so does email marketing. Staying updated on the latest trend can make your campaign a success. Even if email marketing has already been around for ages, it holds a lot of potentials that you should leverage. By using email marketing to help promote your brand, augment sales, and win your target audience, you will achieve all of your marketing goals.

About the Author

Ramon has been writing about technology trends, entertainment, and gaming ever since he left the busy world of corporate HR Tech behind. He currently writes about software and user experiences for Softvire Australia – the leading software e-Commerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand. In his spare time, Ramon writes science fiction, collects little yellow men and plastic spaceships.

Digital Marketing, Diseases

Corona Crisis Management-How Brands are Harnessing the Power of Digital Media

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The pandemic COVID 19 has pulled the proverbial rug from under us. Each day we wake up to a new altered landscape as an indicator of things to come. For brands, businesses & entrepreneurs, the coronavirus has changed life forever. We observe a change of behaviors is among clients and customers, the way they communicate, shop & react is different now.

In these unprecedented times of rapid change when one-third of the world’s population is under quarantine, businesses are confronted with two significant questions: how to respond during the pandemic, and, looking ahead, what changes in consumer behavior to expect because of a prolonged lockdown. 

We all talk about the digital revolution and how businesses will function in the digital age during challenging times. Does this mean the is future here? Hasn’t a little virus scared us to do business differently!

I don’t want to contribute to the negative literature on the topic – of which there is a lot. The facts are bleak, however, in the crisis’s wake brands have been turning to digital media strongly.

Has digital media turned out as a lifeline for businesses during coronavirus pandemic?

Some businesses may be affected mildly, some may adapt and hunker down until things stabilize. And then there are the businesses that may benefit from the corona crisis—the law of nature, it’s a jungle out there and the strong will survive. Ah, the word, survive! In tough times people survive the most horrendous circumstances by adjusting, being adaptable, and focusing on the basics.

The lifeboat here is digital media. For a business to survive in this critical, life-altering condition of the coronavirus disease, it is the time to switch to digital media—and in doing so, stay connected to clients, building strong customer relationships, and to learn innovative ways of communication. Actually, your potential audience has never been more captive than it is right now. Everyone is at home following social media feeds for updates and messages of hope.

Harness power of digital media marketing

For the business that can harness the power that is marketing on digital platforms, the opportunity is now and ripe for the picking. Secure your customers after the crisis by well-orchestrated strategies that enable brands to keep connected to their customers in the tough times. This can be achieved by providing credible, informative, relevant feeds, sincere information, and useful content, and potentially solving their problem.

Digital communication will help to march forwards. Although it was always on the cards with many businesses. But those businesses now have the opportunity to grab the lifeline that the digital-age affords them in this difficult time in our economy who either ignored the signs or have made half-hearted attempts at joining the digital revolution.

Traditional marketing takes a hit

Since the government has already called for a nationwide lockdown and as we have seen the same in other countries. Advice to stay home and limit all unnecessary outings seems to lead to a decrease in out-of-home ad spend. Brands are focusing on online digital ads instead. People have to stay indoors so some TV executives are predicting huge increases in ad spend as consumers got to stay inside.

Increase in online marketing

We can predict that there will be a huge increase in the digital ad in the coming months as consumers will naturally spend more time online, especially choosing to shop online versus leaving the house. As people are working from home more, and avoiding traveling, we may expect to see an increase in mobile and social opportunities. People are free from the watchful eye of their workplace manager so they will check their phones more frequently. Also, 6 out of 10 of us are checking the news more frequently!

Social media ad spend is set to increase

Social platforms are likely to increase due to the inflated use of social media. It has now become a daily routine as people are on their phones, looking for engaging content to keep them busy. They are trying to tackle self-isolation, social media helps them to keep grounded, give them a sense of community, and regular updates on the global corona rises. It is playing a vital role in communicating with the world and also with your clients these days. Companies that invested in this practice in the last few years can now benefit from that network and expertise.

Digital media tactics to follow during the corona crisis

For marketers, there are two important questions, viz.. How to respond (if at all) during this crisis? And, looking to the aftermath, what changes in consumer behavior to expect because of a prolonged shutdown?

Here are digital media tactics that could work perfectly right now. Following tactics may help you in achieving this strategy.

1. Small and personalized digital conference rooms

Share with your customers an update on your business and how you are re-inventing yourself during these strange times. It will help you better understand how you can provide value during a crisis. Share your personal story, showing empathy for your clients, and share your positive and innovative mindset. You will create a positive impact on your brand.

2. Live stream your business

The usage of social media is booming as millions of people are stuck in their homes. Live streaming can be an interesting opportunity. Thanks to the live stream of Instagram or LinkedIn, you can now set up your own TV channel or virtual market place.

3. You can inspire your customers

Use social media platforms to inspire your customers and thus add value to your business. Do not aim for hard selling on social media right now. Try to know and understand the fears of your customers and their hopes. Find out ways to add value to this process. Try to build a stronger brand reputation. Let’s hope that one fine day, the gates of the world will open again. Value your customers even in crisis time.

4. Large virtual events

There is an enormous potential to reach a larger audience with the help of virtual events. Now people have more time than before. They are no longer stuck in baffling traffic. Their workload may be lower. They are comfortable to attend a meeting in their cozy home environment.

5. Seize the opportunity to connect with customers

Strategies your plans, when, where, and how to reach your target audience in new or sophisticated ways through digital channels. Continuing to engage with consumers in an online environment is in the best interest of brand marketers. Because as long as the internet is ad-supported and accessible, you can reach your consumers and expect technology to drive tangible outcomes to the bottom line.

6. One-on-one communication

This is a good time to communicate with your customers and your community. One-on-one conversation is a great opportunity to connect with your customers. Reach out to them—for starters, ask if they are healthy—but you can also share some content that you created for your social channels with individual customers.

7. Keep paid digital media spends holding steady

Keep paid digital media spends in place to confront coronavirus and its digital media impact successfully. Daily life has a way of marching on, and when consumers are looking to buy what they need and want, you can be there with the right message at the right time. The competitive playing field also becomes less crowded in strange times, which may benefit you.

8. Experiment With and Test Digital Advertising Strategies

The gloomy time may turn rosy for brand marketers wanting an audience. People are locked in their homes and switching to entertainment to kill boredom. Perhaps, this is the right time to experiment and invest in connected TV search or other social strategies. Though, before you do, know your brand’s value proposition and your audience so your message will resonate well.

If you thought LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook were something for people with too much time on their hands, you’ve probably come to regret that assumption. There is good news, though, even if you didn’t invest in digital marketing before COVID19, there are still many opportunities to use them now.

Adapt to the ‘new’ customer

For a brand, an online presence has never been as important as today. Try to keep it digital. Locate your target audience and how their lifestyle has changed and map out how you should target them. What is your potential audience’s emotional context? What do they want to hear? How should you be communicating with them? Do not underestimate how the coronavirus has changed your customers and how it has affected their demands.

Conclusion

The coronavirus has left its mark in history. The question is rather how many things will change and how will the world look when it’s all over. But don’t allow the coronavirus pandemic to determine the viability of your business’ future, do what a survivor does in times of trouble instead. Look for solutions and make them work for you. If you have concerns about where your marketing budget is going or want to discuss how coronavirus might affect your marketing strategy, then get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

Even during a time that feels like a downward spiral—there can be an opportunity to be seized.

Author Bio

Swati Mittal – working as a Digital Marketing Executive at HIcentrik. She works with digital marketing based clients to accelerate their business growth with the help of the latest marketing technology and trends.

Digital Marketing, SEO

Improve Online Presence: Proven Ways for Small Businesses

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So, you have seen the bright opportunities of implementing digital marketing for your business. You are probably thinking of your next move on how to start your campaigns for better online visibility. As a business owner, it is imperative to find new heights on how to promote your products and services, especially in today’s growing marketplace and competitive business world.

There is no doubt that technological advancements and digital developments have changed everyone’s lifestyle. Today, people prefer the most convenient way to search for products and services. According to a poll conducted by Marist College and National Public Radio (NPR), 76% of consumers in the United States shop online. Experts also forecasted that the number of online shoppers can increase to about 300 million by 2023 in the US.

Given these numbers, it only makes sense why small businesses are now looking for ways to expand their network using digital marketing. In fact, even the most established enterprises are also shifting to online marketing.

Without a strong online presence, it can be difficult for your business to compete with others. There are several things, however, that you need to have in check before working on your digital marketing campaigns. Take note that this requires strategic planning and the right execution to become successful with your goals.

To enlighten you further, we will provide a brief guideline on how to develop a strong online presence.  Feel free to use the following tips below:

Understand your Business Needs

Before jumping to any online marketing campaign, you need to determine your business needs. Start with your vision. How do you see your business in 2 to 5 years? What kind of growth are you aiming for? Do you see your business in the ecommerce industry?

Are you trying to tap your potentials as the main distributor? Once you have your vision in place, you can proceed with shaping your brand identity. How do you want your audience to see you? Who is your target market? These are some of the things you need to have in check before establishing a strategy for your online marketing campaigns.

Set Specific and Realistic Goals

Goal setting is crucial in digital marketing. Make sure to enumerate specific and realistic goals. When setting your goals, you can follow the SMART principle (S – Specific, M – Measurable, A – Actionable R – Realistic, T – Timeline).

For instance, you choose Social Media Marketing for as your primary digital marketing platform, you can determine your goals by referring your business needs. Are you building your own community? Do you need more positive engagement?

Are you aiming for more followers? How much reach do you need for your campaigns? From there, you can cite some actionable plans such as developing a content strategy, running a paid ad, and so on. Provide a timeline for each goal so you can easily measure the progress of your campaigns.

Explore your Options

This is where online marketing gets a little bit tricky. Don’t get confused with so many digital marketing options available. Again, focus on your business needs and goals. Start with your current channel you’re using.

If you use business website as your primary platform, then you need to explore your options with Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click campaigns—as these two options are the most effective tools when it comes to boosting your website on major search engines.

On the other hand, you can also explore having multiple campaigns for your business. If done effectively, the results can triple in no time! For example, you can always merge SEO with Social Media Marketing. These two can go hand-in-hand, and could complement each other.

Develop a Solid Content Marketing Strategy

Boosting your online presence is impossible without a solid content marketing strategy. Up until today, content is the foundation of every digital marketing campaign. Focus on the niche of your business. Search for the most trending topics from your industry. Create a topic outline. .

Make sure to produce original, relevant, engaging, and well-written articles. You should also incorporate competitive keywords for both on-page and offsite optimization.

Be Consistent with your Strategies

Consistency is one of the main keys to success. Make sure all your digital marketing efforts are aligned with your goals. Revisit your campaigns and check the progress. Cite the areas you need to improve and make necessary adjustments. Keep in mind that every strategy is trial and error.

This is why you need to keep track of your campaigns. Use tools such as Google Analytics for more data analysis. These are just some of the things you can do to boost your online presence. Again, you need strategic solutions to achieve your goals. Be proactive and find more innovative ways to keep improving your digital marketing strategies.

Author Bio

John Ocampos is an Opera Singer by profession and a member of the Philippine Tenors. Ever since, Digital Marketing has always been his forte. He is the Founder of SEO-Guru and the Managing Director of Tech Hacker. John is also the Strategic SEO and Influencer Marketing Manager of Softvire Australia – the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.

Digital Marketing

10 Ways Digital Marketing Is More Profitable than Traditional Marketing

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You have just started your own business and you have a little to spare for your marketing budget yet you do not know where to invest and even where to start with. In order to ensure that your efforts and budget will not go to waste, it is important that you spend your budget on the method that would work for you and your business best.

Choosing to spend it between traditional marketing and digital marketing is not an easy feat. Making the right decision is hard, oftentimes confusing and requires a bit understanding of how each of the strategies works.

Traditional Marketing

The advertising world is experiencing an influx right now of many advertising channels.  Technology has paved the way for many opportunities to showcase and promote your brand adding to the list of the more traditional methods.

Traditional marketing is anchored on the methodology of the 4 Ps – Product, Price, Promotion and Place. These methodologies have been used decades ago and are still being applied to different offline advertising strategies.

Traditional marketing helped a lot of businesses grow over the years and has been tried and tested to grow brands into household names.  Methods for traditional marketing are:

•    Billboards

•    Posters

•    Print – Newspaper, Magazine, Gazette, Brochure, Flyers

•    Direct Mail

•    Telemarketing

•    Broadcast on TV and Radio

•    SMS Marketing

Digital Marketing

When technology started to take off and began changing the landscape of the advertisement industry, digital marketing emerged. It has shifted the way people promote their brands, products and services.

Digital marketing or sometimes referred to as online advertisement has also been around for a few years already with no sign of slowing down any time soon. With an estimate of 2.05 billion digital buyers this year, digital marketing is comprised of all the promotional efforts done online.

Many business owners have started leveraging on digital marketing which has the following advertising channels:

•    Email

•    Social Media

•    Website

•    Paid ads (Social and Pay-Per-Click)

•    Blogging Ads and Sites

•    Search engine optimization

As digital marketing started to take the world by storm, many have guessed that it will overshadow traditional marketing and it did quite a bit. Though traditional or offline advertisement methods are still thriving and still produce good results, many businesses especially those are just starting to rely mostly on digital marketing. 

Here are some of the reasons why many business owners rely on digital marketing to grow their brand and consider it a better option.

              Reasons Why Digital Marketing is More Profitable

1.    It is Cost-Effective

Whether you are just starting your business or you just have a minimal budget for your promotional activities, digital marketing allows you to spend less but gives you the potential of gaining more.

Growing your brand’s visibility online has been one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience yet it does not hurt any of your pockets. Platforms for digital marketing like social media channels, email, and search engines offer free and paid options. Spending on paid ads like social ads, pay-per-click, websites and blogging sites does not usually cost a fortune and is just a fraction of your expenses in doing traditional marketing.

2.    Easily Identify Your Target Market

One of the reasons why a lot of business owners and marketers seem to lean on digital marketing to elevate their brands is because of its ability to reach your target audience. In digital marketing you can find your desired customers, listen to their needs and provide answers by offering your products or services.

Though traditional marketing also offers a lot of opportunities to become visible in the market, it does not give the same assurance as digital marketing that the right consumers are viewing your content.

3.    Makes Your Reach Wider

Social media plays a big role in digital marketing and perhaps one of the biggest advantages over traditional marketing. The number of people online and using social media gives you a vast opportunity to expand your presence. As per the study, there are already about 3.8  billion people or 49% of the world’s population that can be found on different social media channels.

Image from Smart Insights

Whatever your industry is, you can always leverage the different digital marketing medium especially social media to widen your reach.

4.    Measurable

Digital Marketing is measurable and one of the reasons why it is highly favored by many.  Not only that you can gauge its effectivity, it can be done in an instant and with accuracy. Tools like web analytics and social media metrics make it easier for you to know if your efforts have been paying off or you need to make necessary adjustments.

5.    Promote Consumer engagement

When you print brochures and give it away to people or you purchase a billboard space for your latest ad material, there is no way you can start engaging with your future clients. Digital marketing allows you to do that. It allows you to share an interaction with your clients and initiate a two-way conversation the way offline advertising does not.

Utilizing different channels like email, comment sections, chatbox and instant messaging platforms can help your customer connect easily to you while doing tactics like short clip videos, stories, polls and surveys encourage engagement from your audience that help build connection and deepened relationship with your clientele.

6.    Enhance Customer Service

When technology emerged, it has broken the barrier between companies and their consumers. It has allowed ease in reaching out and connecting with your existing and potential customers.

Online platforms serve as an avenue to provide relevant and correct customer care that earn your client’s trust and help build your online reputation. Enhanced customer support is essential and after your business’ growth.

7.    Lead Generation

Most people start their purchasing journey online. These people usually turn to Google or other search engines to fetch information they need. As people are already online, it makes it easier for you to gather possible leads. In doing so, you need to build your online reputation which you can achieve in several ways. You can do content marketing though regular blog postings news and articles that offer favorable tips in your niche industry.

You can also create an online contest or promotional giveaways in which you can collect data from your audience where you can enroll them into lead programs that can eventually turn them into customers.

8.    Fast ROI

The return of investment for your marketing spends can be achieved with digital marketing strategies. Because it can be tracked and can be monitored, it can offer a better stretch of ROI than traditional marketing. If done correctly, your digital marketing efforts can give you a steady flow of quality traffic that can be converted to leads and sales. It also lets you do necessary adjustments in your advertising campaign that maximizes your budget to ensure good results.

9.    Let you Know your Competitors

The internet allows you to check on your competitors’ online tactics. As you study their strategies and campaign, this allows you to capitalize on your own marketing strategy and help you gain a competitive advantage.

10.    Provide Real-Time Results

When you place an advertisement over the radio or on the television or you have given out flyers to public places, it will be hard for you to know the results in real-time. Though it can create recall to all those reached by the placement or by the leafletting material, it will take time before you can gauge the effect. With digital marketing you can what is working and what is not in real-time.

Online marketing lets you know the number of clicks, increase in your subscriber’s count, the number of visitors or even those who were able to see your promotional activity and content. It also allows you to know your peak times, your conversion rates and even your bounce rate with just a few buttons. Knowing all of these results in real-time can give you an opportunity to make adjustments and choose carefully your next strategy to get better results.

Final Thoughts

Knowing these facts can help us conclude that digital marketing is beneficial and profitable for small businesses and startups. Depending on your budget, you can always leverage on many digital marketing methods to grow your brand and expand your business. Though traditional marketing still produces a good result and still dependable for most businesses, it can work best for you if you have the right budget.

Once you are able to grow your business from a start-up to an established one, you can then create a good marketing plan that will utilize both digital and offline efforts that will ensure your efforts a success. 

Author’s Bio

John Ocampos is an Opera Singer by profession and a member of the Philippine Tenors. Ever since, Digital Marketing has always been his forte. He is the Founder of SEO-Guru and the Managing Director of Tech Hacker. John is also the Strategic SEO and Influencer Marketing Manager of Softvire Australia – the leading software eCommerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand.

Digital Marketing, SEO

The 6Ps of SEO & Digital Marketing

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It’s a special time to become a marketing professional. Many of us are traditionally not qualified as marketers in the field of SEO. It takes a while to find it that marketing is more than just being rated high on search engines. 

Search engines would like to bring people to the best results, so user loyalty and happiness is possibly a factor for SEO ranking. Links and signals on the sites are still extremely important, but they will not be useful if people don’t engage with your website. SEO is also an important part of the marketing cycle itself, and effective SEO just serves to boost traffic and increase rankings.

In this post, we will look at the 6Ps of SEO and digital marketing. We will talk about how you can boost your SEO and digital marketing using these 6Ps. Let’s look at each of these six main fields of SEO and digital marketing.

Product

The first P in the cycle is the product. You should work on your product before everything else. This is what you will be selling. For example, our company offers SEO tools. It lets our clients meet their business objectives and reduces the stress and pain they need to remain open to the SEO world. We are trying to save our clients time and money so that they can concentrate on the work they can do.

The cornerstone of your marketing approach is your product or service. You need absolute clarity in this regard because the product can affect pricing and promotions.

It’s only half the fight to be found. Your potential clients must be assured that their products or services will meet their needs.

Price

Price is related to value naturally. However, pricing must also take into account the market’s defined prices in your industry. You cannot sell your product, no matter how attractive, if it is too expensive. Profit margins will be impacted if it is too cheap.

There is a pendulum of pricing that produces more sales at a lower price, but a higher price would produce more profits. Your perfect balance is based on your approaches for lead generation and marketplace.  

SEO is an excellent example of how difficult pricing can be. SEO costs about $100 an hour as per conventional wisdom. We also saw some very different perspectives on how customers were willing to pay, especially when it came to small business SEO services when they spent some time evaluating SEO packages and costs.

Place

The third P is the place, and it hugely matters. Place refers to the target locations where you will sell your product or services and where your customers will be looking for your product.

If you’re a car mechanic, then it is very obvious that people go straight to Google. Nonetheless, specific people will buy for many things in various ways, such as networks, directories, and search engines. Identify where your clients are and where they must get the items you are selling.

Promotion

Promotion relies on the consumer, and the right strategies also incorporate marketing channels creatively in order to maximize results. Promotions include social networks, search ads, online banners, TV, email, press, etc.

In our company, higher-level activities such as SEO tools work best for us as opposed to other ones. As an example, we have a Premium plagiarism checker for business that checks the plagiarism by comparing with millions of resources. It sets us a high standard and provides us more leads. Most of our tools are free, and we promote our free services as our strength. It means the promotions are very relevant, but you should be in the right direction from the beginning.

You have to sort out how you work together to improve your content, lead generation, and sales. You are generally competitive on all networks if you can find a method of being cheaper in price and deliver comparable quality.

People

Throughout our SEO and digital marketing strategy, people play a key role. Digital marketing is all about people. To show the perfect product to the right people at the right prices at the proper time.

You should know who your clients are. The segmentation of your consumers into different audiences is important for businesses. This tells you the right angles, purchase cycles, and complaints to build a successful marketing plan.

You should also identify your best customers and your customers like your product or not. You should know either your product is solving their problem or are they happy about your product or service. 

Process

Processes are behind each Ps as the supporting tasks. Both direct and indirect purchasing activities may be subject to the process. If a consumer needs a refund, the company may continue with the correct specification of your customer service process.

Does your delivery process have ample flexibility for promotions across the world? Even a giant like Amazon could not deliver on his promise within weeks of his arrival, despite tremendous excitement and expectation from fans in Singapore.

It is in the specifics to create a great process. Writing down procedures and viewing them will help your company remain on one page and react in a consistent fashion to preserve the credibility of your brand.

Wrapping up

There are many moving parts here, indeed. These six Ps can be implemented in any order. Most people tend to merge promotion and place when they do this for their business and customers. The environment in which you work and the competition should be considered. It will be very critical that all these considerations are brought into line with flexible marketing success. You can boost your SEO through changing of your price if you measure the success of your SEO by how many leads you produce from organic traffic.

Good SEO cannot be achieved in a bubble. It is part of a broader system for marketing. As SEOs marketers, we must look at these other aspects and ensure that the work we do continues to improve.Try to consider each of those factors if you have a product or service that is not selling. Use a basic 6 Ps system to analyze your marketing. It will surely help you boost your performance.

Digital Marketing, SEO

How to Identify Bad Links and How Yo Can Remove to Your Website?

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Any link removal activity starts with a backlink investigation. Now you need to understand that which backlinks you must remove and which you should maintain.

If you want to gauge the riskiness of the link, fundamentally, there are several components involved with determining whether a backlink is good or bad. Let me explain a few essential factors used by SEOs to examine backlink score:

Backlink Analysis Parameters

1. Trust metrics

You can find a couple of metrics within our industry that are readily available to help mention backlinks. The two which come to mind most frequently are Moz Spam Score and Majestic(or, better yet, the difference between Trust Flow and Citation Flow ). These two scores function differently. Moz’s Spam Score predicts the domain name is prohibited or penalized based on specific site options.

Majestic Trust Flow ascertains the trustworthiness of a domain or site predicated on the standard of links pointing towards it. While computed otherwise, the objective is to help webmasters identify which sites are trustworthy and which are not. While these are a starting point, they aren’t sufficient on their own to provide you with a crystal-clear picture of whether or not a link is bad or good.

2. Links with Over-Optimized Anchor Texts

If your website receives too many backlinks Using match keywords, Google will comprehend this as abnormal. It could handle as an Indication of Role in your overall search engine optimization strategy. Indeed, it can get your website penalized.

Let’s assume you have a wristwatch store. If too many anchor texts associated with your backlinks Performs a Sites link back to your website having “designer watches” as the anchor text, it can trigger Google’s spam filter.

3. Low Authority

Low-authority links – especially when authority would be expected by you dependent on the domain — are all-seeing. A fantastic link should come from a well-linked page onto a website. It’s a concern in case the difference between the Domain Authority and Page Authority is exceptionally high. It is one worth looking at, although it isn’t a signal that is solid. That is especially obvious in specific kinds of spam, like forum profile spam or paginated comment spam.

4. High Spam Score

Moz calculates the spam score to demonstrate that a website’s chances to be penalized. The more the spam score It can estimate with different spam topics, just like a minimal selection of linking domain names, a higher percentage of “trace” links, and so forth.

5. Unindexed Website

It also indicates that the website not indexed by Google, which could mean low quality.

6. High External Links

A high number of external links Can pertain to a Low-quality web directory, sitewide footer links, or junk opinions.

7. Foreign Language Sites

If your website is written in English, it nonetheless has a lot of inbound links from sites in German or Russian (or some other foreign language), this may likely throw red flags up in Google.

Final Thoughts on Identifying Bad Backlinks

Everyone knows that search engine optimization will be a great deal of work. Not only does it cost your time, but your full-time devotion is also required by it. It’d be a pity if most of those investments go to waste only because of the wrong links. With the tips above, you will be able to identify and deal with links through Monitor Backlinks.

From here, it’s merely a matter of time before your website attains its ranking potential.

How to Remove Bad Backlinks?

The link removal procedure can be time-consuming if you would like to do away with hundreds or thousands of links. Be aware that it’s not possible to remove all backlinks. To eliminate a penalty, then you have to prove to Google that you’ve achieved the best way to tidy your website’s backlink profile before submitting a disavow report.

Whether you’ve been penalized or not, removing bad backlinks is essential. It would help if you didn’t have backlinks that you’re not proud of. To remove backlinks, you have to contact the webmasters of the linking sites and ask them nicely to delete the link pointing to your site. Never threaten a webmaster and be very polite if you want to be treated the same.

Whether you’ve been penalized or not, removing backlinks is critical. It would help if you didn’t have backlinks that you are not proud of. To remove backlinks, you have to get in touch with the webmasters of these linking web sites and have them delete the link pointing to your internet website. Never endanger a webmaster and be very considerate if you want to treat the same.

Be prepared to send hundreds of requests.

1. Find the Bad Backlinks

First thing: you need to determine whether bad backlinks are making an effect on your website. Fortunately, you will find a Google backlinks checker that can jumpstart this investigative process for you.

Some great backlink checker tools include:

2. Request Removal from Website

It is removed by requesting that the webmaster well is near zero. It’s a step That said, the Odds of getting a low-quality backlink Google needs one to consider before asking them to dismiss the link, nevertheless, Therefore You should at least attempt it.

In almost 90% of the situations, you won’t find a way to locate the contact information of the person who has the use of this website. Most won’t have even a shared contact page for you send a message through – if that’s the case, utilize WHOIS Domain Lookup to make an effort to track the owner down.

3. Track and Monitor

Sending a removal petition to the webmasters of linking websites isn’t enough to remove lousy backlinks. You’ve got to track your backlinks to learn whether they have complied with your petition. If a webmaster does not respond within 2-3 times, then you can send them a follow-up email also.

4. Tell Google and Disavow Links You Cannot Remove

Google’s Disavow Tool is a benefit for website owners who have lost control of some of their bad backlinks. Even Though It must never be the first Way of dealing with a Terrible backlink, you can’t get yourself a link to go away. As we talked of earlier, Google’s Disavow Tool is Enormous Since it’s more of a band-aid compared to a solution, it comes in handy whenever you need it.

If you are going to the Google URL removal tool, first determine what links are awful and ignored by the search engine. List down all the links and domains then submits them to Google.

Final words Removing backlinks does take time, and you also need to be patient. However, it is a process you can do yourself quite readily or you can hire a digital marketing agency to accomplish the link removal task for you.