GET ONLINE OR LOSE GROUND – 10 Reasons Why Your Business Needs to Engage Digital Marketing, Have an Online Presence and an Online Strategy..

GET ONLINE OR LOSE GROUND – 10 Reasons Why Your Business Needs to Engage Digital Marketing, Have an Online Presence and an Online Strategy..

The world is going Digital and every business leader, manager or marketer needs to understand how to apply and use Digital and Social Media in order to remain relevant and out sell the competitors in this digital economy.

Truly, to be competitive in this digital era, every business leader and managers need to adapt, embrace and engage digital marketing, Social Media and online strategy.

It’s not wrong if an organization or individual refuses to learn and join the Digital Revolution. However, if her competitors embraces and engages it earlier and better than they, that organization is bound to lose her market share. Those who refuse to learn and adapt to the new trends as they evolve will definitely one day become redundant or irrelevant in the industry. They will learn the lessons in a hard and expensive way.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for the targeted, measurable, and interactive marketing of products or services using digital technologies to reach and convert leads into customers. The key objective is to promote brands, build preference and increase sales through various digital marketing techniques and Social Media platforms and selling strategies.

Digital Marketing and Social Media Optimization have become the main stay in business world today and smart business leaders and managers are leveraging on it to market and promote their products and brands in a cost-effective and measurable way.

 Reason #1: Local Search Engine Marketing is a PROVEN Method of Marketing

Businesses have been experiencing the frustration of diminishing returns from in print advertising.  It seems as though when people are looking for a new product or service, especially something local, they are turning to their computers rather than their phone books or newspapers.  A look at numerous studies shows us that:

 73% of activity online is in one way or another “related to local content” (Google 5/07)

 New Research by The Kelsey Group and ConStat Indicates 70% of U.S. Households Now Use the Internet When Shopping Locally for Products and Services. Findings also suggest the Internet is poised to surpass newspapers as a local shopping information resource.

 70 percent of online searchers will use local search to find offline businesses. The TMPDM-com Score study shows 86 percent of online users will be searching for a local business at some point in time. (Research by Kelsey Group)

Appearing in the local search results is more important than ever.  When someone sits down at their computer and does a search for:

Name of Town + Type of Business

I would like to encourage you to take a moment and go to Google.com.  Type in the name of your local town and type of business (example: Chicago lawyer).  Does your business appear near the top of this front page?

If it doesn’t, I want to encourage you to take action on this.  Consumers in your area are doing these types of searches on a daily basis.  They are looking for a business RIGHT then and there.  If your business isn’t appearing in those results, it is like they are knocking on your door and you aren’t there to answer!

Fortunately the way to get your business to the top of this page isn’t a mystery.  It is done through a careful and calculated search engine optimization campaign that includes elements such as the on-page optimization of your website, backlink building throughout the internet, the incorporation of social media, studying the success of your competition, and more.

We would love to sit down with you and explore how we could help your company increase its business today.

Reason #2: Digital Marketing allows you to Track Everything

One of the biggest challenges of running an advertising campaign is being able to gauge how much it helps your business.  Take a newspaper ad for example, there is no way to know how many people will physically see your ad, let alone take action from it.  Wouldn’t it be nice if the newspaper company sent you a monthly summary that broke down:

• How many people saw your ad
• How many people read your ad, and decided to look for more information about your business
• How many people saw your ad, and came through your door as a paying customer

This is one of the reasons I LOVE online marketing.  Virtually everything can be tracked.  Did you know that it is quite easy to take a look at every single person that comes to your website?  One of the first things my company does is setup a method of tracking everything on your website.  This allows you to see all kinds of valuable things including:

• The amount of visitors your website is receiving each day.
• WHERE the visitors are coming from
• How long they are staying on your website. It even shows how long they stay on each page!
• What pages they are leaving your website from
• What keywords they typed in to find your website
• If they were on your website before, or if this is their first visit

It is crucial that an internet marketing firm understand exactly where your business is before search engine marketing services begin, so the success of the campaign can be tracked.

Tracking the success of your business’s website closely even allows us to experiment with things like ad copy.  This is a great way to fine tune your advertising campaign and find out quickly what ads your potential customers find more interesting.

We would love to sit down with you and share in more detail how we can help you track your website statistics and measure success today.

Reason #3: Social Media Marketing is a MUST for Today’s Marketing

Simply put, social media marketing has changed the way businesses market themselves online.  A solid social media campaign can help your business tremendously.  It seems as though just about everyone participates in a social media in some way or another (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, etc.).  Here are a few reasons why you should seriously consider becoming involved:

• Everyone is using it.  Facebook has over 500 million members, with over half of them logging in daily!  This is where people like to spend their time, and it is easy for you to put your business information in front of them.
• Social Media Campaigns have Proven to be VERY Successful. President Obama’s social media campaign was a central component to his popular campaign.  He even continues to use it as a way to communicate with the American public.
• Social Media is seen as a credible source. Social media is one of the top sources of news and important updates.  People view it as a place they can trust.
• Social Media is FAST. Want to post something about a special your business is running?  Just throw a few sentences together and get it out there.  You don’t need an ultra-polished campaign, much social media is just text, believe it or not.  And it still works!
• Social Media allows you to build upon your strengths. When your customers start posting positive reviews on your social media account, the benefits are tremendous.  Nothing helps potential customers gain confidence in a business than seeing that they have hundreds of happy fans.

Social media marketing is an incredible marketing tool, we would be happy to sit down and talk to you in more detail about how it can help you more specifically.

Reason #4:  Digital Marketing Brings Highly Targeted Traffic

A phrase that I hear mentioned quite a bit in the marketing world is that running a campaign is often times quite similar to throwing a bunch of mud at the wall, and watching what sticks.  Doesn’t sound very scientific does it?

It is a frustrating thing to pay for an ad to be circulated in thousands of newspapers, and know that only a small amount will actually be a possible fit for your service.  Let’s take a look at two examples to help illustrate this principle.  Let’s assume that you run a law practice:

• You run an ad in the local newspaper, that reaches about 50,000 people. Many will see your ad, but how many are in need of a lawyer at this point in time?  Your strategy is to make an impression on as many people as possible, in hopes that when they do need a lawyer, they will remember your ad.  You are also hoping to grab people that are in need of a laywer at that specific time in their life.
• You optimize your website and get it ranking at the top of Google. Someone is in need of a lawyer and they go to their computer and type in “your town lawyer”.  Your firm comes up at the top and the prospect finds your website and clicks on your website, being further exposed to your marketing.

Do you see how different these two situations are?  In order to succeed with situation #1, you need to run ads in the newspaper constantly, hoping to make an impression on the audience and grabbing people at the perfect time of opportunity.  Situation #2 however, relies on getting yourself to the top of the search engines, and whenever people look for a law service online, you are right there at the top.  Pretty powerful eh?

The point I am trying to make is that when people search for a local service online, they are looking for that service right then and there.  These are the types of people you need to be targeting!

Reason #5:  Digital Marketing for Your Business is Very Affordable

Marketing in general as I’m sure you are aware, can be incredibly expensive.  Fortunately digital marketing is considerably less expensive than other traditional forms of advertising.   It is a shame that many small business owners are under the false impression that it takes hundreds if not thousands of dollars for seo services.  The truth is that, especially in smaller areas, search engine optimization is far less expensive than advertising in the newspapers and television.

A solid digital marketing campaign for a local business involves a careful combination of backlinking, on-page search engine optimization, social media, article distribution, and more.

When choosing an seo firm to do your marketing, though you do not need to pay top dollar, you will need to make sure you take care to ensure you are working with professionals.  It is smart to gain an understanding of what the company will do to market your business online.

Another option is to do the marketing work yourself.  This can be quite challenging as there is quite a bit you would need to learn.  You need to remember that a seo firm does this type of work day in and day out, and will most likely be able to draft a plan quickly specific to your business and your needs.

We would be happy to sit down with you and take a closer look at the needs of your company, and the type of work that would be required to help you increase your presence online.

To be continued to tomorrow on our new blog www.goodsuccess.tv

.....Do miss the remaining 5 reasons. Its loaded and eye opening. 

We offer top quality Digital Marketing and Social Media Strategy services, consultancy and training.

For more information, please contact Tony on +234-909-454-0396 or visit our website.

S. STRATEGIES SOLUTIONS

tony@strategicsolutions.com.ng

www.strategicsolutions.com.ng