Digital Marketing Consultant

Social media marketing feels like a universal solution.  Sales not strong enough?   Create a Facebook page.  Engagement not high enough?  Write more tweets.  Profile not big enough?  Run a campaign that targets influencers.

Whatever your business…whatever you are selling, pull the levers in the social media machine and you should find more money rolling out the other end.  Right?  Well, ahem….

Business is never that easy, and consumers do not all behave in the same way.  Beyond, a digital marketing firm, has been working with a number of partners to examine different kinds of social consumers and how they buy.  One notable conclusion is that how a customer researches a product — and what leads them to buy it — depends largely on the type of product they are purchasing.

Travel, for example, tends to be booked after looking through a search engine.  For cars and electronics, customers are more likely to head straight for the brand’s website.  Fashion items will be picked up through online ads.  Baby products will be reached through Facebook, music through YouTube, and restaurants through FourSquare.

It is All Intuitive Stuff. 

When you are making a big purchase of a complex item — like a car or a digital SLR — you want to know as much about it as possible.  You want to use the site’s 360 degree animated images to look the item over as though you were sitting in it or holding it, and you want to examine all the features listed and understand exactly what the product can do. 

Travel is a hugely competitive industry with deals that change all the time and provides a range of different ways of delivering the same result through different routes and an assortment of hotels and places to stay.  The best way to get the latest and most up-to-date information is by checking search engines.

And when you are looking for something as simple but as important baby products, trust is the most important factor — and that is delivered from the friends and contacts on social media sites.

So does that mean only companies with products with mass appeal and which sell on safety and reliability need to use social media?

Certainly not.  Customers do not just look for recommendations for baby products on Facebook.  They also look for music on the site, as well as beauty products, fashion items and restaurants.  They also review electronics on YouTube, as well as on Twitter, and search for kitchen appliances.

In short, the path from interest to purchase is never straight and includes stops at a number of different stations.  A buyer might gather information about a new pushchair from the brand’s site, for example, before asking friends on Facebook whether anyone has used it and can recommend it.

For sellers, that makes understanding customer behavior vital.  You need to know what your customers are doing when they reach social media sites, what information they are looking for, and — most importantly — what are the triggers that encourage them to make their final buying decision. 

You want to make sure that your sales funnel, even as it crosses media from websites through YouTube to Twitter, delivers all the knowledge the lead needs to give you a sale.  Is it possible to discover this path?  One of the great characteristics of social media marketing is that it can be analyzed in detail...a great opportunity to spend marketing money judiciously. 

 I forgot to wish everyone a successful Christmas.  Please!

It is amazing to see how Social Media Marketing has captured everything within its surroundings, making it a necessity for every marketer for promotion of products and services.  A few years back it was assumed that marketing was just about creating a product to satisfy customer needs and managing profitable relationships with customers.  However, the marketing techniques involved were very simple such as promoting products and services via commercials, ads, billboards, press, ads etc.  and other now-questionably effective methods. 

The flood of technology and new innovation took over the world and Social Media Marketing became the strong marketing channel.  In no time its favorable effects became apparent.  Small to large businesses found it useful to meet their marketing goals effectively.  Let’s see what makes us say that Social Media Marketing can do wonders:

A Deeper Insight

Social Media Marketing basically offers a preview of the products and services your business offers.  Being a marketer you can create differentiation and positioning by specifying the unique features your products and services have to offer without spending an arm and a leg.  Apart from building a strong relationship with your customers, you can also generate an online demand which in turn will help your profitability. 

Interactive Marketing Strategy

Did you ever think that your customers would be a part of your products and services marketing strategies?  With Social Media Marketing this is possible and necessary.  How?  Existing as well as prospective buyers can participate in discussions on the various social networks and can give their positive or critical feedbacks/comments.  Customers know better what they want, how they want products and services, and where they want to attain them.  Hence including them in such discussions means a marketer can provide the target audience exactly what they want!  Of course this can do wonders for your business and gain customers satisfaction.

Harness target audience with Videos

With Social Media Marketing, marketing is much more than buzzwords and word-of-mouth.  Social networks such as YouTube and Facebook can be used to harness your target audience by showing videos demonstrating what your company does, how your products are better than your competitors, or tips and useful techniques for its viewers. 

Your Website Content Should be Appealing

Creating an effective website for your business is still important for Social Media Marketing.  The content to your website must have conversion architecture.  This requires you to have appealing content AND an intuitive site structure.  All the present methods of promoting your site is still important, even while drawing attention to your site through Social Media Marketing.

Digital Marketing has opened horizons for marketers.  It has made it easy for businesses to include online customers as part of their target audience.  As we have stepped into the Internet world, marketing has opened doors for new fields and Digital Marketing is one of these.

Seeing its advantages, it is hard to ignore its importance.  You must be aware of some of the following Digital Marketing strategies, making sure you include most of these if not all, as your business strategies to cope with the ever increasing competition and stay ahead of the game.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Competent SEO structures your individual web pages as well as the website so that they are easily discovered, analyzed, and indexed by the various search engines.  Competent SEO knows the changes in search rules and helps your website stay at top of the various search result pages by anticipating logical algorithms such as most used keywords and other techniques.  It lets web crawlers work at the back end and doing their job in the most accurate and automated form. 

Advanced Link Building

This is another Digital Marketing strategy which involves getting your content rich with links and is also known as social bookmarking.  This requires you to know your audience in order to aware of the site they visit most frequently.  Avoid using hidden links and make sure visitors find your links useful.

Online Copywriting

This form of Digital Marketing strategy is the content of your site and your blog.  You must make sure your website’s content is not copied and is 100% authentic.  It will make your website unique which can be the reason for your improved website traffic. 

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing makes the biggest part of the Digital Marketing strategies.  It includes the entire Social Media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, and other such forums.  Hence, if you want your business to stay ahead of the competitors you will have to keep your audience interacting at such platforms.  There are professional consultants who are ready to help you if you are unaware how or don’t have time to use Social Media Marketing efficiently.  In fact, competent consultants probably will save you time and money.  

Email Marketing

This is another Digital Marketing strategy that businesses have been following.  It includes promoting your products and services by sending informational mails to a list of subscribers.  Some very advanced systems, such as WSI Digital Marketing Pro, can make sure that your email works efficiently and according to the regulations.

Google AdWords

Google AdWords is a service that is used to create and run ads to promote your business.  These ads run along with search engines and you are only required to pay when people click on these ads. 

The first mistake a lot of new Internet marketing business owners make is thinking that because they have a good product and that they know their product that they will have a successful Internet or Digital business.

While it is true having a good product and being knowledgeable about the product is important, there is much more needed to be truly successful.   To gain your spot among the most successful Internet marketers will require the following:
•    Customer Service
•    Fundamentals of Internet marketing
•    Basic understanding Internet marketing

Regardless of the product being sold or even who is your target market, the basics of Internet marketing are the same.  Marketing has several phases which can turn an Internet marketing business into a successful online business.

To get your business going, you will need to generate traffic.  In order to obtain sales, you must have traffic to your site.  There are several different ways to create traffic.  Search engine optimization (SEO) is an effective method to obtain traffic for conversion on your site.  You want to make sure that your target market knows and understands your site is open and ready for business.

People will not visit if they do not know your site is in operation.   A marketing partner will be helpful in making your website known to your target market.  Some of the methods used are keywords, blogs, videos, articles, links, and media marketing such as Facebook, YouTube and others.

Creating the traffic is just one of the first steps.  In order to be successful, you will need to convert the traffic to sales. Your website should be built with the end result in mind.  You should be looking for sales of products, services, and information.

Encourage and entice your visitors to take the next step by making a purchase.  You want to make the sale and create customer loyalty to ensure future sales. Repeat visitors and purchases will be one of the ways to secure your future success.  Repeat customers are one of the greatest benefits to a business.  Customer service will go a long ways in securing repeat business from your customers.  

Don't hesitate to read the FREE Wisdom Book to learn and understand the processes.

Youtube exploded the video market on the Internet.  Business Marketers have developed thousands of videos specifically for traffic generation.  There are some great tips on how to convert traffic with Internet Marketing using videos to promote business.

The title of the video should include the main keyword.  This is of utmost importance to generate the traffic for your keyword. The video requires your own video channel and optimization. 

Perhaps you have thought making the video was the most important aspect of marketing.  But the truth is that much more than just making the video must be done, such as promoting your video on the Internet.   You can distribute your video across the web by using the services of a video distribution company.  If you have plenty of time on your hands, you could also distribute it yourself. Using a video distributing company will allow your video to be placed on a large variety of sites increasing traffic rather quickly.  Traffic Gevser is an excellent distributing service to use for this purpose.  Tubemogul is another service you could consider using also.

A lot of website owners have only used Youtube, but only using Youtube will not create the amount of traffic needed to be worthwhile. 

You can also use your own site or even your blog to host your video.  Adding videos to your website or blog is a sure way to increase traffic to your website.  Self hosting your video can be most beneficial from several different aspects.  
1.     More control of the video
2.    The combination of your blog and video creates success for your products, services and information.

Video marketing is a type of power tool in the hands of the Internet Marketer.  Building a library of applicable videos for your website will generate more traffic to your site.

It is important to keep your videos current and polished.  You should also develop the videos around your niche in the marketplace.

You can see how to do this well in our wisdom book.

Over the past couple of years with the struggles of the economy, Social Media has done very well and has actually been increasing during this time.  More business owners have turned to blogging and social networking during this time.

Hard-sales-approach marketing does not work as well as attraction marketing on the internet.  The goal of internet or digital marketing is to get your potential customers to visit you at your site rather than your going to them. 

The social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter have changed how business is done.  These applications allow you to build relationships with your potential customers.

You will build relationships as you provide solutions to your customers' needs.   Don’t be afraid to give away some valuable information.   This will help to build your reputation.   This is referred to as "paying it forward."   The last thing you want your reader to feel is that it is all about you. 

You will want to paint a clear picture for your business about how others will benefit from your products or services.   When you make the center of attraction about others, you will discover success.

Social Media has weathered some storms regarding security, but it is still one of the best opportunities around to build reliability, goodwill, and ultimately a successful internet marketing business.  Make a difference in your digital marketing by engaging in various social media platforms.

Woo your target market...don't try to Wow them.

Internet marketing requires grooming your business website for effective attraction marketing.

Grooming your website is all about making your website appealing to your target market, and to the matchmakers.  Attraction marketing does not focus on sales tactics.  When a young man meets the girl of his dreams, he doesn’t usually pop the big question, "Will you marry me?"   He will take her on dates, buy her gifts, take her out to dinner...all a part of making himself attractive to her.  This is best known as courtship.  Attraction marketing is business courtship.  

Attraction marketing starts with listening to your target market and finding out what its problems are and then providing solutions to its problems.  It is about finding out what prospects like, what they need, and then supplying it to them.   Exceptional listening skills are needed when it comes to attraction marketing. 

Some tips to groom your website for attraction marketing includes:

•    Make sure the links on your site work.  Broken links are like broken promises.

•    Make sure your links guide your visitors to where you intend them to be.  Links on your website that misdirect your visitors from what they were expecting to find is the best way to turn off your visitor and loose them forever.   Take the time to check all your links to make sure you are not misdirecting your visitors.
•    Start blogging.  Blogging is an excellent way to get feedback from your target market.  You can then use the information gained in developing a marketing plan with the power of attraction.
•    Use the tools your target market uses, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter.  Using the social media sites that your target market is using gives you the opportunity to meet them on their ground and then you can lead them to your website.  This is attraction marketing in action.
•    Start using articles to provide information to your target market.  The use of articles has the power to establish yourself as the expert for your target market.  As you build your expert reputation, your target market will began to have confidence and trust in you and your business.

Attraction marketing has the potential to build long term relationships with your target market.  As an added benefit you will also receive improved ranking on the search engines.  Google and Yahoo are attracted to sites with relevant information which flows in a natural manner.  They are your matchmakers.

See our wisdom book on How to Succeed in Business Dating.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is vital for internet marketing.  SMM combines communication for marketing, interaction socially and branding with your target market at the center.

SMM is centered on two way communication instead of one way street communication where the marketer simply sends out a broadcast of information about your services.   Blogs, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Twitter, De.li.cio.us and are all social media marketing tools.

SMM will not occur overnight.  It takes some time to build and establish in this marketing world to obtain results. SMM has a goal to utilize various tools allowing interaction in various ways to establish good Social media marketing results.

Social Media Marketing encourages interaction with your visitors in a variety of ways including asking questions, learning, networking, and bookmarking just to name a few.  It really has little to do with marketing directly or even selling.

You can do several things with SMM including

·        Buzz: Create an online buzz with Twitter, YouTube and Blogs to grab attention to a service, product or event.   This has to be done in a unique and fun manner.  It has nothing to do with sales.

·        Build a following:   Use the social networking tools to establish a base of fans you can tap into for information you may need.

·        Conversation: Engaging conversation is key to SMM.    Blogging is a great way to start conversation.  The key here is to listen to what others have to say.

SMM is not a type of advertising.  It is not even controlled by you or your business.   Interaction and participation is the scoop on social media marketing.  SMM will build credibility when done correctly.

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John Danenbarger

We Take the Internet Further....
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