Marketing Advice – TMA E-Marketing

Social Media Marketing Is Here To Stay

What is the best form of marketing?

As mentioned in our prior post, social media marketing is one of many forms of digital marketing. It is hard to say if one form of marketing is better than another. In reality different factors will determine which form of advertising is best for you business. Many people go straight to SEO, but that may be a mistake. If your website is brand new or in a competitive niche, it won’t rank immediately. In this case, and others, PPC and social media advertising are great options. This post will focus on social media.

What is social media marketing (SMM)?

Before defining SMM, one should define social media. It runs a wide gamut, but it can broadly be defined as platforms that enable online community building. The most widely know social media platforms are Facebook and Youtube, but also include Twitter, Instagram and even messaging apps like Whatsapp (although you can’t advertise on Whatsapp).

Now that social media has been defined, SMM can also be defined. SMM is the placement of advertisements within these social media platforms. Really, at their core, most social media sites are advertising companies, as that is how they make money.

Aren’t these apps just fads?

Some might say that in ten years, Facebook will have turned into the next MySpace. This means that a lot of people think Facebook is a trend that will soon pass and eventually people will move on to another platform for engaging with others online. While no one knows for sure, it is possible that that may happen, but probably not anytime soon. Unlike Myspace, Facebook has reached every generation in almost every corner of the globe. It is one of the world’s largest company with an international reach. The same is true for Youtube.

Since these companies are really advertising companies, and have grown so much, they have taken marketing techniques to the next level. Youtube has revolutionized the video ad. Once solely the domain of television, now more and more people are seeing video ads on their phones with the Youtube app. This is one of the main reasons that online advertising has recently surpassed tv advertising in terms of ad spend (see details here). So clearly these sites are not the next MySpace.

Where to start?

Just like it is hard to say which form of internet marketing is best, it is hard to say which social media platform is the best to advertise on. Most marketing professionals will tell you that Youtube and Facebook are the place to go. This isn’t to discount other platforms. Instagram is also massively popular across the world.

Again, it depends on the particular case and what you are advertising and who you are trying to reach. For example if you are advertising something that truly benefits from video form then youtube is great, but even Facebook has video ads now too. One benefit of Facebook is what is called a pixel. If you are selling something on your website, with the pixel, you can track who has visited your website. Once you advertise on Facebook, you can target those who visited your site. Just be sure you have a firm privacy policy if you go this route.

In the end, you can’t go wrong with social media marketing if you know what you are doing. These websites are authoritative and get a massive amount of visitors. Your ads are sure to be seen by interested buyers.

The Necessity Of Hiring A Denver Digital Marketing Expert

Is Internet Marketing Here To Stay?

It is 2020 and the coming decade will be a true test of the powers that digital marketing currently hold. A decade ago people were starting to realize how powerful online advertising has become and sure enough around 2015 local online advertising surpassed that of local offline (Click here for details). The question is if that trend will continue. While it is unlikely that digital advertising will lose its stronghold, it surely will evolve and develop new ways to reach the market.

But Can’t I Do It Myself?

If you are a small business owner, maybe you don’t need to market and are happy to rely solely on word of mouth. But the reality is, most small businesses could strongly benefit from marketing, particularly in the digital form. The thing is, most business owners feel competent and secure enough to handle the marketing themselves. Again, for some business owners that may work. For most businesses though, to truly get a good return on your investment, you will need to spend significant time working on advertising campaigns. So if the business owner tries to go it alone, likely she won’t have enough time to run the business itself.

Why Does It Take So Much Time?

The reality is that online marketing is a dynamic field and as mentioned earlier, it will only continue to grow and become more complex. For now there are three main ways to market online: pay-per-click advertising (PPC), social media advertising and search engine optimization (SEO). Each one of these can be broken down further into more areas.

PPC advertising most closely resembles old-school advertising. This is when you are clearly looking at an ad on a webpage and click on it to get more details. Think of clicking on it as the old-school equivalent of calling the business for more information. Popular blog websites and journalism websites are full of ads like this, but they are also found on Google at the very top of search results.

Social media advertising has grown in popularity due to the large number of people that frequent websites like Facebook and Twitter. These website incorporate ads into users’ feeds so well that sometimes the user does not know or care that it is an advertisement. Many users’ actually prefer the ads to the posts of their social circle! Facebook allows advertisers to target specific demographics. This type of marketing can be further categorized by the social media platform you choose. Another big one is Youtube which generally takes more resources as you need to create a compelling video rather than just a simple post.

SEO refers to getting a website on top of Google or Bing or whichever search engine you want to optimize for. While technically this is free advertising because you don’t have to pay Google to get your website on top, it still requires a lot of time and resources to get on top, especially for competitive keywords. It can be further broken down into local, where you are trying to get local businesses ranked for a certain city like Denver, or even a state, like Colorado. This is compared to affiliate, where you try and get your own website on top to sell something to customers.

It is for these reasons that you really do need a marketing expert on your team. Maybe you are looking for a the best digital marketing Denver has to offer? Or maybe you are in another city and looking for a digital expert? Keep in mind that many marketers work remotely so you do not have to live in the same city. Video calls are usually sufficient and just as effective as meeting in person. After you can’t make it from New York to Denver in a couple hours. It is a growing field so it is not hard to find somebody who will offer you their services, but not all marketers are created equal so ask for proof of prior results.

Marketing Leads and How To Best Market To Them

What Is A Lead?

A lead, when it comes to marketing is essentially anyone who may be interested in buying your service or product. More specifically though, a lead is someone who you either know, or at least have their contact information, and who could potentially benefit from whatever it is you are selling. For example a butcher shop could potentially sell their meat to anyone who eats meat, but not vegans or vegetarians. But just because I am a meat eater doesn’t necessarily make me a lead to them. For one, I could live in another country which would not qualify me as a lead unless they ship worldwide. But secondly, I could have no clue about the existence of said butcher shop, and they likely do not even know that I exist. That is, unless they have my name and number or email at the very least.

Why Are Leads Important?

Hopefully you now know what leads are, but why are they important? Well, for a state employee working in the research department, they don’t need leads because they are steadily employed working for the state and stay busy analyzing data. Now consider a the owner of that butcher shop. She owns the business and like any good business owner should want to maximize her profit. To do that she will want to constantly be expanding the number of people coming into the shop everyday. There are multiple ways to go about growing a client base, but essentially every form of it will involve getting leads. You can think of leads as potential customers who you can influence to become an actual customer.

One example of a way to get a lead is a simple TV commercial. If you’ve ever watched a late night local show, you know that small local businesses like to place commercials to advertise for their business. Now if I’m watching a late night show and see the commercial for the butcher shop then I just became a lead. However this isn’t really the best lead because even though I now know about the business, the business doesn’t know about me. They can’t follow up with me to further encourage me to buy their meats.

What Is The Best Way To Convert Leads?

If the butcher shop really wants to improve their marketing techniques they should take it online. Online advertising has grown in the past decade and for good reason. It truly is the most effective way to convert leads into customers. A simple way is through a website contact form. You’ve probably filled one out before where they ask you for your email at the very least. Once a company has your email they can contact you essentially whenever they want to coax you into becoming a customer, for example by sending you a coupon.

Another way to convert leads is through social media like Facebook. Facebook revolutionized not just the way we interact with our circle but also with how we are marketed towards. Businesses can fine tune their ads so that they reach exactly who they want them to, their targeted demographic who is most likely to become a customer. Google Ads work similarly in that you can finely focus on who you want to reach.

Now that you know about leads and how to convert them, what are you going to do? The best way to learn is by experience I’d recommend you stop reading now and take at least one step towards either getting more leads, or converting the leads you already have. Most importantly have fun doing it.