Digital Marketing in the New Business Paradigm: Taking Notice of Trends and Adapting to Emergent Realities

           Good business is all about quality products and high sales but without proper promotion, introduction and demonstration of such products, achieving high sales and profitability is not possible. Virtually every company in today’s world has a professional marketing and sales team that focuses solely on methods of promoting their products and services. Marketing practices have shifted due to the digital age and have therefore given birth to digital marketing, which, has established itself as a dominant player in the world of promotion. As more businesses benefit from such campaigns, they become more prone to embracing digital marketing solutions as a possible new frontier for their operations, increasing demand for the sector and its utile services.

            Moosa Hemani for The Huffington Post reports on “how marketing automation is changing the game in 2017,” referring to specific software solutions that help marketers reach their goals with ease and precision. The author refers to the first major player in the game, Oracle’s Eloqua platform, which was initiated in 1999 and spawned a new era of digital marketing for the world’s businesses, stretching the boundaries of imagination and practice alike. According to his research, in the marketing world of today, “90% of respondents report regular and periodic use of marketing automation for large-volume email campaigns,” to be able to reach out to the maximum numbers of potential customers. Hemani then explains marketing automation as “software that automates marketing actions” which enables marketers to “automate repetitive tasks such as emails, social media, and other website actions.” Such automation also makes the mentioned tasks easier to carry out, making it possible to combine “marketing campaigns across all channels,” ranging from “direct mail and phone campaigns to online, social and mobile initiatives.”The author proceeds by investigating into the reasons for which the modern day businesses require automated marketing to initially refer to the issue and necessity of time management. In many ways, the current business paradigm operates on what is known as “the first mover’s advantage” as companies that engage with their customers more frequently have a higher chance of converting their leads into sales.

According to the author, “digital marketing has set a fast pace to lead conversion and businesses have no time to lose on customers that may not convert at all” which makes the functions of digital marketing software very utile for marketers who seek to attain higher levels of effectiveness with their work. This is especially true for such marketers who lose valuable time and resource “juggling between multiple platforms,” as marketing automation “allows marketers to shift their focus to the best possible prospects that can be converted” to save them time and energy. Thanks to social media and related internet technologies, marketers now can obtain personal information about target customers but more importantly how they perceive their products. Giants such as Facebook and Google are currently utilizing algorithm based solutions to promote the most original and relevant content, which is making marketing automation even more of a necessity for marketers. As content gets regulated and its availability gets manipulated, it becomes an even bigger challenge to find the most relevant informationand utilize it in the most efficient way possible. Marketing automation software are extremely useful for such a purpose as they provide such marketers with the right tools for filtering content, creating design and reaching out to the optimal target customers.

            The two internet giants Facebook and Google have been known to dominate the online advertisement markets for years, reaching out to billions of people daily and gathering substantial data in the process. In terms of criticism and problems, Google has so far been flagged by numerous companies currentlyrunning advertisements on the search engine’s algorithm-based marketing procedures after such companies realized that their ads were being “shown alongside objectionable videos on its YouTube video platform.” Facebook on the other hand has been a frequent target of “criticism for enabling fake news, filter bubbles, foreign election meddling and social media addiction,” while generating 85% of its entire revenue from corporate posts and advertisements. Unilever’s threat therefore should be comprehended as a fair warning to both companies to pay more attention to their services and elevate them to more desirable and constructive standards. This is especially true for Facebook because given the extremely high popularity of the system among younger people, it becomes quite easy to manipulate information through its services for mal-intended individuals using the application, which can significantly harm the mental and psychological well-being of such young people.

            The recent issue known to the world public as ‘Brexit’ also has dire implications for marketing, digital or otherwise. As Suzanne Bearne reports for The Guardian, in times of stagnation and uncertainty, digital marketing is enabling struggling UK businesses and their brands to expand overseas with ease. The author refers to Graze, Made.com and Wetsuit Outlet as three successful examples for such a trend in a competitive world where 1 in 10 of every UK company export its goods to foreign market. Graze, the “Richmond-based healthy snacks company” began to grow interest in the American snacks markets after establishing itself as a powerful competitor in the UK markets as “America’s snacking and food retail markets are more than eight times the size of the UK’s,” providing an excellent opportunity for the company and its future operations. The company initiated its operations in 2013 in all the 50 American states to utilize its famous “online marketing campaigns and social media presence, which know no barriers” and bring in 30,000 orders in the first three weeks along with 100,000 customers in the first three months.

On a similar path, water sports apparel supplier Wetsuit Outlet took notice of the new trend and its possibilities after the company began to get receive amounts of foreign customer e-mails and traffic on its website.  Ranking high in Google ratings and listings, the company began to run “paid search across Europe” in 2016 while also launching country-specific sites in France, Germany, Italy and Spain to increase both sales and investment to create a sales network that currently stretches over 60 countries. Finally, the furniture e-tailer Made.com also followed suit to enter the French, Italian, Dutch, Belgian and German markets and utilize digital tools and technologies for targeting specific audiences and selling UK furniture to foreign customers. The company is intending to grow fast and the digital platforms it utilizes enables them to track its much-anticipated returns on investment figures with ease and accuracy. Bearne concludes her article by pointing out that although these companies have succeeded in their plans, the current volatile financial environment created by Brexit might pose significant threats to others, warning her readers of the related adverse financial effects. In the end, modern markets cannot offer absolute success and profitability to every player in them and therefore it is important to pay attention to the issue of finance for companies struggling with their current operations in the UK before expanding into new markets.

Keep an Edge in Your Business with New Tech

Massive companies and enterprises utilize a technological edge every day, but it is important for more micro business owners to follow suit to compete in the current marketplace. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 99% of business owners are actually small business owners. This growing population must start integrating technology more to meet the demands of the emerging, futuristic business model that is quickly becoming the standard.

The new scope of technology has vastly affected the way that small business owners operate and reach customers all over the planet. With the technological advantage, employees can report to work virtually, CEOs can monitor business activity through their smartphone or laptop, and a company can successfully market to thousands of people with a single advertisement online. By infusing technology with a solid social media strategy, it is possible for small companies to make large ripples in the marketplace that lead to exceptional profit margins. In order to take advantage of this marvelous state of history, constructing an excellent website and actively building a social media presence to captivate, befriend, and interact with your target population is key. Whether you are a micro business owner or a multi-million dollar corporation, websites and social media pages are two of the core branding, marketing, and selling tools that every modern business must develop with consumers in mind to be more successful.

Social media is an abundant landscape for small businesses where owners can connect with customers and foster long-term relationships with them. By using social media to attract people to your brand, the unique opportunity to develop a global customer base is a reality. Due to the interconnectedness of the online economy, running a business online also means that you may interact with consumers outside of the typical demographic and geographical areas that you initially expected to serve.

The possibilities of reaching multitudes of people that you did not expect to attract can occur by harnessing the power of social media. One viral post online can suddenly lead to new customers for your products and services all over the world. By developing a strong social media presence online, you can catapult your business to broader heights than you ever thought possible.

No matter what your target demographic is, developing an efficient website is crucial. From the browsing to the checkout process, making sure that consumers are able to complete the goal of making a purchase is key. Using WordPress Ecommerce tools you can make your website easy to navigate and buy products from. No potential customer enjoys browsing neither a site that is hard to navigate nor one that appears to be unsecured. Building a website with an easy-to-use interface is essential to keep customers coming back. Integrating the latest technology into your website to raise its speed, improve navigational ability, and organize products and services well ensures that you don’t lose valuable sales to another retailer who prioritizes the shopping needs and preferences of consumers.

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you must be aware of how to properly use technology to best support your brand and business online. Amp up the power of your online presence by linking your social media pages and website together. Make sure that you have your website backed up incase you lose important data. In the future, social media and technology is only becoming more prevalent for the growth and survival of small businesses. Avoid simply guessing what the customer desires in your industry when you can engage with potential customers now to keep your company from making costly mistakes later.

 

4 Exceptional Social Media Marketing Tips For 2018

Technology is growing at rapid fast pace which sometimes make difficult for us to catch up with the trend. Social media platform keep getting changed after short interval of time that require constant attention from the marketers in order to stay ahead from competitors.

Social media is one of the most effective platform that emerged tremendously in past few years. Businesses from all over the globe took advantage of its reach quite efficiently.

It is essential for all the marketers to be aware about all the updates and changes happening on a platform in which they are promoting their business.

Here are some of the best tips which one should look forward in 2018 for most desired results in favour of success :-

  1. Use urlshortener

urlshortener is quite a effective technique that you should be using in 2018 for enhancing your social media presence. Usually, url are longer that tends to off people mood and lead them to action where they do not click on link through which you are taking them to website or something.

Use urlshortener such as google url shortener, it will cut down the size of link and make the link enable to see on wall clearly.

  1. Post frequently

You should be posting frequently on your social media page in order to engage with the audience/viewers. Frequent post keep your audience busy and increase their interest towards your blogs and website. Consistent posting doesn’t imply that you would post irrelevant stuffs, it is more about getting interact with the viewers and building faith on them.

  1. Use analysis tool to measure success

It is very essential to known how well your post is doing on social media. This help in improving marketing strategy for future. Without this you will not be knowing which part needs improvement and where to emphasize specifically.

Each social media has its own techniques of analysing the post for eg – facebook have insight button in post through which you can see what the reach of your average post is and how many people engaged with the post actually.

Get started with this immediately in order to achieve goals precisely. Do it even if it require additional tool for the same.

  1. Select appropriate image

Graphics tend to attract audience more than a text, use images which is related to your post or blog. As we say, “picture speaks thousand words” try to use it in a efficient manner in order to utilize the effectiveness of the image to its most.

If the image and text of your post do not relate to each other. people will consider your post information irrelevant and time wasting which ultimately lead the audience to the point where they will be no longer interested in your work.

take every step carefully and don’t misguide your target audience by using false picture or graphic for the post. Try to be in touch with the audience and work as per their needs. Identify their problems, know their requirements and then provide solution through your marketing strategy. This will help you to achieve better outcomes in short span of time.