It seems to be an increasingly common trend for inexperienced online marketers to look for “a few quick bucks”, or as a friend of mine put it: “a quick fix”.

Whether this trend derives from an urgent need for small amounts of money to buy virtual items in online games, or the almost arousing feeling of instant gratification the moment another “money mail” from PayPal arrives in their In-box, I can’t tell. Another and slightly more serious question, though: Is this need for a quick fix making marketers even greedier, is it something we should be worried about? Read the rest of this entry

Mull for a moment over all the ways that companies use branding to build awareness of themselves or to promote their social awareness and customer service values. A few things come to mind such as greeters at the entrance of my favorite store, go-green awareness issues, charity drives that “give back” to the community for every purchase made, TV screens playing music videos or news as you wait in line, and so forth . None of these things lead directly to conversions but they do lead to higher company awareness and the good old fashioned fuzzy-feelings we get when we know that we are valued as a customer. Most times we are probably not even aware of these things on a conscious level. Yet the effect shows as we have a tendency to advocate [spin] these companies more frequently than the other alternatives.

[spin] It was admitted branding is a viable marketing strategy. Businesses worldwide invest millions of dollars in branding campaigns each year.

As a matter of fact, let’s put aside pure branding campaigns. If you think about it, providing good customer service is branding too. The quality of customer service a company provides (good or bad), causes an image of that company to be branded into the consumers mind. Over time, a little here and a little there builds up into a solid perception of that company. Whether they like it or not, they have established a recognizable brand by doing little more than going about their business.

Beyond doubt when it comes to realizing the benefits of social branding, most companies will tell you that it is valuable. But increases in sales can rarely be traced back to a single customer service or branding event. And that doesn’t negate the value or stop companies from investing their money into these types of campaigns. The lack of trackable rate of return on a per-sale level doesn’t make branding (or good customer service) an unnecessary expense. As a matter of fact, I don’t think any consumer would argue against the necessity of excellent customer service. So what does all this have to do with social media?

And the answer to this question: social media is branding. Over time target may see an increase in brand awareness and overall sales due to their clever TV commercials that do little more than show people dancing around a red target symbol, but I doubt they can trace any sales increase to a single commercial spot. I’m sure some supermarket chain can’t track a single purchase to the addition of the elderly employee standing at the entrance greeting customers. But when we walk through those doors, we feel that our favourite supermarket cares just a little bit more about me, the customer. So goes social media.

In addition, when we engage in social media and online social networking, we similarly don’t see any immediate, trackable results. But, like branding and customer service, we don’t need to in order to understand that it’s valuable. Thus, when companies engage in social media they can’t think of it as a traditional marketing expense with a return on investment that can be shown on paper. Results won’t be seen immediately and usually only after a very long period of time, and you’ll not likely be able to pinpoint a single new sale or customer on a particular social branding campaign.

You should understand that social media is still important. It provides a way for companies to get out there and get noticed. It’s an opportunity to go where the consumers are and create a presence. Like a TV ad, you don’t have to wait for consumers to find you, you go where they are. But instead of forcing yourself on them while they are watching their favorite TV show, social media lets you actually hang out with them. You’re not the ad on the wall; you’re the guy holding the drink telling stories that your audience finds fascinating.

In addition, social media is better than branding and customer service. Because of the direct interaction social media affords the client with their customers, it truly is better than any branding campaign, including one-on-one customer service. Customer service presupposes that the target consumer has to become a customer first (or at least be very close to becoming a customer) before you can make a good impression.

Social media however allows you to brand yourself long before anyone becomes your customer. And it can often be the catalyst that brings them over. And why wouldn’t they? You’ve already become a part of the group. In fact, if you’ve done your social marketing right, you’ve already become their friend. It means that this is interactive branding at work.

So don’t be afraid to participate in social media just because you don’t see the ROI. You’re not likely to, at least not immediately and not in a way you can pinpoint one event causing another. But over time, you can build your social reputation. This leads to credibility. And over time that credibility and awareness will very likely lead to an increase in your customer base.

Bookmarking on the Internet
Internet Media branding
Future of Internet marketing

Total Internet marketing

Let’s say, we have made the decision to move into an online business. Besides, we’ve done our due diligence on the company and its products and we have made the bold move of parting with hard earned money to move into something that is going to give we and our family a much better lifestyle. Lifestyle tends to be for most people having a greater financial situation. Some people state that it is not about money and that is absolutely correct; anyhow, a lot of the time money gives us the things that make that lifestyle right. Whether it is staying at home with our children, changing our zip code, change our car and go on multi vacations every year, money gives us time and with time we have freedom and its get rid of that grand weight, or stress that we carry around on our shoulders.

In the first place, the Internet regardless of what business we’re in can give us that financial freedom as long as we know how to attract interested parties to our website. When interested parties are attracted to our website there is a chance of a sale. If no one is visiting our site there is actually no chance of making a sale. So we have got a question: how do we get people to our site?

I must say: what an absolutely outstanding question and there is no real straightforward answer as there is a lot of different strategies available to get people to our site. In the first place, there is a huge number of professional Internet marketers out there and they all have different Internet marketing strategies with low to high end costs. Wait a minute, I’ve just spent X amount of dollars on joining this program. And now how about investing in a professional Internet marketer to do my marketing?

As a matter of fact, we are not saying that that’s all; however, we do strongly recommend that we do not go into Internet marketing totally blind. It can wipe out our money very quickly if we are not exactly sure on what we are doing. Although all the big search engines give good education programs on how to set up our accounts and how to put an ad together, unless we are prodigious at ad writing and can choose the correct keywords for the niche that we have identified. But if we are not, then our advice is to seek out advice on internet marketing before we take that leap of faith.

So where do we get this advice? Our first point of contact is the person who introduced us to this business. Yet, our advice is not only to take their advice. And here’s why not: we are now in an online business and we at this time are looking to make a sale, and maybe at this time we have put an ad in the local paper. We get some prospects and hey presto we make, a sale and someone joins our team. They ask us ‘How do we advertise on the Internet?’ But we ourselves have only just started; how on earth we can advise our new team member! This is exactly what could happen to us. The person who brought us on to the team could be to a certain degree inexperienced with the internet as well.

Nonetheless, internet marketing has many spokes to its wheel, and if we take our website as being the hub then there are at least another 12 things we should be doing to drive traffic to our website. Press Releases, Pay Per Click (PPC) banner advertising, SEO blogging, just to name a few. And, most of these Internet strategies need to be re-visited on a regular basis in order to maintain a regular presence on the Internet. But this can happen only after we have been able to gain a good page ranking, that’s for sure .

Active Internet marketing

Actually, we don’t believe that we can survive on the Internet especially if we have an online business without having other strategic Internet marketing tools in place to support our website. The reason why we can say this is we have gone through the same scenario and we after wasting a ton of money found the education that we needed to get us where we needed to be. We are not saying in any shape or form that this is the product that is going to make us number one in our company, but if anyone is joining our team, we immediately introduce them to this internet online education. To crown it all, this strategy hugely increased our presence on the web.

In conclusion it did take us a while to understand everything about Internet Marketing and coming up with our own internet marketing education series that we ourselves designed especially for those who get in the situations described above. So, if you are thinking about an internet business thoroughly, do your research before attempting any online advertising or get outstanding advice and educate yourself on how to do marketing on the internet. We would be happy to advise and share with you the story of our success.

Future of Internet marketing