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Top 5 Marketing Strategies for Small Business

August 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

As a busy business owner, you’re unlikely to have endless time and resources to spend on marketing, so what you execute needs to really count. Focus on these five strategies for maximum bang for buck.

A survey conducted by US email marketing company Constant Contact has revealed the most effective marketing techniques for small businesses. Even though the study is perhaps biased to email marketing, the overall results are consistent with what I believe works well for soloists.

Here are the top five marketing strategies for small businesses according to the survey, and the percentage of respondents who found these strategies effective:

1. Email marketing – 83 per cent

2. Website marketing, including both content marketing and SEO – 71 per cent

3. Face-to-face interaction – 68 per cent

4. Social media – 49 per cent

5. Events – 41 per cent

These results show some interesting trends, which may change the way you think about and conduct your marketing activities.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: News, Research Tagged With: business, marketing, news, strategy

Marketers Say Social Media, Search Are Industry’s Hottest Ad Tools

March 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Social media and search advertising are projected to be the most popular advertising tools this year, each cited by 24% of respondents to a PointRoll survey [pdf] of US marketing professionals, conducted by Kelton Research and released in March 2012. Display advertising followed closely, chosen by 22% of respondents. There was then a significant drop-off to online video (11%), mobile or tablet ads (7%), and mobile or tablet apps (6%). Just 1% chose email, text/SMS, or social gaming. Search advertising is more popular among respondents at director level or above, compared to those in supervisory or managerial positions (30% vs. 19%).

Most Will Increase Spend on Digital Channels

In fact, a majority of respondents are planning to up their spend on a variety of digital channels, a position that traditional channels are not slated to share. Among digital channels, the largest proportion say they will increase their spending on social media marketing or ads (79%), closely followed by those who will increase their budgets for mobile marketing or ads (75%). A comparatively fewer 55% say they will increase spending on search advertising, though this compares favorably to just 7% who will either decrease spending (3%) or not use this tool (4%).

Conversely, out-of-home marketing or ads will get an increase from just 16% of marketing professionals, on par with the proportion who will decrease spending in this area. And while 15% will budget more for traditional marketing or ads, 21% will scale back their budgets. Even so, traditional marketing channels still get a big chunk of budgets: 57% of marketing and advertising executives in organizations with revenues of $10 million or more said that most of their spending in 2011 went to traditional efforts.

Audience Targeting Proves Exciting

Meanwhile, audience targeting (49%) tops the list of industry trends that respondents are excited about, ahead of other movements including cross-screen media (40%), web TV (30%), Facebook marketing (37%), social gaming (22%) and digital out-of-home marketing or ads (19%). Excitement about audience targeting is higher at the directorial level and above than at the supervisory or managerial level (56% vs. 44%).

Some of that excitement may be related to necessity: 17% of respondents said that identifying the right audience has been holding them back from doing their job more successfully. According to March 2012 survey results from Acxiom and Loyalty 360, just 49% of company executives agree that they know who their most loyal customers are, and the best way to reach out to them and get them to engage with their brand. In fact, just 10% of respondents strongly agreed with the statement, while about one-third were neutral and roughly 1 in 5 disagreed.

Marketers Using Numerous Tools and Partners

Data from PointRoll’s “Marketing Tools Study 2012? indicates that 28% of marketing and advertising professionals use at least 7 tools during a single campaign to reach their target market, while 62% use between 3 and 6 tools. To help with their efforts, roughly 3 in 10 respondents call on at least 10 partners to help them during a campaign. Even so, this sometimes has the opposite effect than intended: about one-third say that managing multiple vendors typically prevents them from doing their job better, and 1 in 10 say that working more efficiently with vendors is their biggest goal this year.

Other Findings:

Marketing professionals would pay a company an average of $107,500 to manage an integrated digital campaign.
Increasing sales (31%) and ROI (28%) are the goals most commonly cited as marketers’ most important for this year.
Slightly more than half of respondents say that inefficient ROI tracking and measurement has hindered their success at work.
Almost all respondents predict they will use online video this year. The most popular formats are in-banner (60%), in-stream (49%) and dynamic or customized video ads (42%).
Roughly 2 in 5 respondents believe that they are behind the curve when it comes to digital marketing.

About the Data: The PointRoll data is based on a survey of more than 250 marketing professionals from across the US at supervisor level and above, conducted in January 2012.

Story source: www.mikeandrewconsulting.com/blog

Filed Under: News, Research, Social Media Tagged With: business, networks, Research, Social Media

Social Shares Drive 1 in 4 Online Shoppers to Purchase

March 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

1 in 4 online shoppers, who shop at least quarterly online and login to their Facebook account at least monthly, have made a purchase based on a social recommendation, details Sociable Labs in a March 2012 report. 62% of survey respondents said they had ever read a comment on their Facebook page from a friend talking about a product they purchased, while of those, three-quarters clicked on the product link in their friend’s comment. Once at the retailer’s site, 53% purchased the product they learned about through their friend’s comment. Additionally, these eventual customers are happy to pass along the favour, as 81% identify as sharers themselves.

Other research has also shown the influence of social networks on shoppers: according to a study released in October 2011 by Performics and conducted by ROI Research, among participants who use social networks at least occasionally during the shopping process, recommendations from social networks (58%) are trusted by more than recommendations from shopping sites (57%) and deal sites (53%).

Deal Sharing Top Reason for Product Comments

Meanwhile, among social sharers, who make up 38% of the Sociable Labs respondent sample, the primary motivation for commenting on products is to pass along deals they found with friends so that they can get the same deal, cited by 41%. Roughly one-quarter said they want to share the reasons why they chose the product. However, the comments that make readers most interested in learning more are the ones detailing the reasons why the product was chosen (43%), ahead of ones containing discount offers (41%).

Social Proofing Drives Engagement

Significant opportunities exist for retailers to drive higher engagement through social proofing, suggests the report. In fact, more than 3 in 5 respondents said that they are likely to stay and shop on a website if they are shown their friends’ activities on the site. Additionally, 57% are more likely to make a purchase there if they see a list showing their friends who have made a purchase on the website.

Other Findings:

The primary concerns respondents give about sharing a product purchase on Facebook are that it is too trivial to share, and that they would not want their friends to think they are pushing a product. In fact, almost three-quarters of respondents said they are more likely to share if it remained on the retail website and was not posted back to their Facebook feed.
The most common benefit cited for seeing that friends made a purchase on a site is that respondents would know who to ask for an opinion. Roughly one-quarter said they would trust the site more.
48% of respondents said that friend comments shared on Facebook are extremely or very helpful when looking for a product to buy, rivaling the proportion who said that about Google search (49%).

Filed Under: News, Research, Social Media Tagged With: business, Research, retail, Social Media

Facebook to debut on stock market in May

March 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Facebook will make its stock market debut in May with a record-setting initial public offering of shares, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The world’s leading online social network has stopped selling shares on the secondary market in order to get a precise count of investors, the Journal said on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.

Facebook on Tuesday modified its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to warn potential investors that a patent lawsuit against the company by internet pioneer Yahoo! could deliver a significant blow to its business.

‘If an unfavourable outcome were to occur in this litigation, the impact could be material to our business, financial condition, or results of operations,’ Facebook said in amended paperwork submitted to the SEC.

Yahoo! filed suit against Facebook in a US district court in California on March 12, accusing the company of infringing on 10 of its patents in several areas including advertising, privacy and messaging.

In the suit, Yahoo! said that Facebook’s growth ‘has been based in large part on Facebook’s use of Yahoo!’s patented technology.’

Facebook in February filed to go public and could raise as much as $10 billion in the largest flotation ever by an internet company on Wall Street.

The paperwork filed for the initial public offering provided the first glimpse of the financial details of the web giant launched eight years ago by Mark Zuckerberg from his Harvard University dorm room.

Facebook, which is shifting operations to a former Sun Microsystems campus in the California city of Menlo Park, reported net income of $US668 million ($A645 million) last year.

Revenue nearly doubled to $3.7 billion in 2011, with most of it coming from targeted advertising gleaned from personal information shared by the hundreds of millions of users of the platform.

Facebook – the leading social network in all but six countries, notably China and Russia – said it has more than 845 million users including 483 million who log in daily.

Facebook’s value has been estimated at between $75 billion and $100 billion.

Source: www.bigpond.com

Filed Under: News, Research, Social Media Tagged With: business, Facebook, marketing, news, shares, social networks

Coles Social Media Crime

March 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Coles has become the latest major brand to experience a social media backlash after posing
the statement: ‘In my house it’s a crime not to buy….’ elicited a string of hostile comments
towards the supermarket.

The retail giant published the tweet from its @Coles account at 8.25pm, but by 9.18pm quickly
back tracked claiming the post was a mistake. It said: “It’s a social media crime not to….. finish a sentence
yourself. Sorry guys that post was not meant for twitter!”

However Twitter users quickly vented their grievances towards Coles which has been gaining
ground on arch rival Woolworths of late through a series of aggressive marketing campaigns including
slashing the price of milk and bread as well as offering heavy discounts on meat.

Comments to hit the Coles Twitter in response to the question included from @TaraMacca: "In my house, its a crime not to
buy LOCALLY- and I don’t mean from a @coles supermarket."

@Pollytics said: "Food from markets while Coles exploits mental illness via pokies." While @downsey stormed: "In my house
it’s a crime not to buy…BREAD AND MILK AT PRICES THAT ALLOW PRIMARY PRODUCERS TO SURVIVE.”

Coles joins an increasingly long list of big brands that have found themselves facing a social media storm. Towards the end of
last year Qantas felt the wrath of consumers after launching a promotion using the #QantasLuxury.

What resulted was a string of negative comments about the national carrier’s grounding and safety. Earlier in 2011 Qantas
also landed in hot water for featuring a picture of two Wallabies fans dressed as Radike Samo complete with black face paint
and afro wigs after a launching a competition for fans to dress up as their favourite Wallabies player.

Then just last week a Coca-Cola twitter stunt which asked followers to post one word additions to the previous posters’ comments
went wrong when dozens of offensive and obscene comments were made.

In a similar vein to the #Qantas-Luxury debacle, McDonald’s in the US was bombarded with negative comments after launching the
hashtag #McDStories in order to promote the fast food giants workers and suppliers.

Responses included: “One time I walked into McDonalds and I could smell Type 2 diabetes fl oating in the air and I threw up.”

While another said: “FloppersYF said “I remember when I went to McDonalds. I was in the hospital for a week.”

Filed Under: News, Research, Social Media Tagged With: business, marketing, PR, Social Media

Coke’s social media ‘story’ fizzles out

March 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Coca-Cola is the latest company to have a social media marketing attempt go wrong.

The company invited fans to post one-word comments in addition to previous posts on the company’s Facebook page, but it ended in customers attacking each other.

‘Here is a little social experiment Add a word to the person above you to create a happy story!’

However the story written wasn’t so ‘happy’ with some of the responses including insults and obscenities, sometimes aimed at other company ‘fans’.

The campaign attracted over 700 responses and the company confirmed that it was forced to delete many of them.

‘Earlier this week, we posted a status update that attracted 781 responses,’ Coca-Cola said. ‘Around 70 responses were removed as they were not in keeping with our ‘house rules’.’

It follows a recent string of botched social experiments in the Australian media.

In October, Qantas launched a Twitter marketing campaign that ended badly, with customers using the hashtag #qantasluxury to insult the company’s customer service.

Story source: www.bigpond.com

Filed Under: News, Research, Social Media Tagged With: business, Facebook, news, Research, Social Media, Twitter

‘Downturn Shoppers’ Look to Digital for Savings

January 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Price-conscious consumers do more online research, download coupons and compare prices in-store via smartphones

Despite some bright spots on the economic horizon, shopping remains more of a battle than a pleasure for financially skittish consumers. Some of them cope by using digital tactics to help save money.

A SymphonyIRI Group MarketPulse survey on how the economy affects behavior and attitudes when buying consumer products found that US consumers were more optimistic in Q4 over Q3 2011, but still relied on frugal habits developed during the recession.

For example, 39% of survey respondents downloaded coupons from manufacturer websites in Q4, while 37% downloaded coupons from retailer websites, up slightly from 35% for both activities in Q3. Twenty-seven percent researched products on websites, an increase of 3 percentage points from Q1.

Dubbed “downturn shoppers” by IRI to describe the way they approach grocery shopping in a prolonged downturn, these consumers increasingly view digital as an important tool, but rely on traditional offline methods more. Some 55% used coupons in Q4, and 49% checked newspaper circulars. Those numbers, already high, have been steady since Q3.

“What we are finding is that consumers are holding on to the old way of doing things—clipping coupons and circulars—but they are using the internet as an incremental way to save money,” said Susan Viamari, head of consumer insight market polls at SymphonyIRI.

Armed with coupons and sales promos, consumers continue to do research via their smartphones while in-store. A WSL Strategic Retail study cited by Internet Retailer showed that 56% look to their devices to compare prices in-store, while 46% continue to seek coupons or discounts and 53% use their photo feature to snap images of products.

The lesson for retailers and manufacturers facing this diversity of consumer tactics is “use media that complement each other,” SymphonyIRI’s Viamari advised. “Communicate with both traditional and digital media.”

Filed Under: News, Research, Social Media Tagged With: business, Consumers, internet, news, Research, Social Media

China web users hits 513 million

January 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The number of internet users in China has surged past 500 million as millions of new web surfers go online using mobile phones and tablet computers, an industry group reports.

The popularity of the internet in China has driven the explosive growth of profitable web companies and made fortunes for some Chinese entrepreneurs despite government controls on what the public can see online.

The number of mainland internet users rose to 513 million in December, up 12 per cent from a year earlier, the government-sanctioned China internet Network Information Centre said on Monday.

Among them, the number who go online using handheld devices rose 17.5 per cent over a year earlier to 356 million.

The popularity of wireless internet was reflected on Friday in a scramble by Chinese gadget fans and scalpers to buy Apple Inc’s latest iPhone 4S, which sold out within hours of its China launch.

Angry customers shouted and threw eggs at Apple’s flagship Beijing outlet after the company failed to open the store, citing the size of the crowd. Apple postponed further iPhone 4S sales at its mainland stores for safety reasons, but said they will be sold online and through its local carrier, China Unicom Ltd.

The communist government encourages internet use for business and education, but tries to block access to material it deems pornographic or subversive.

The government is strengthening its control over popular microblogs after a bullet train crash last July that killed 40 people prompted an online outpouring of criticism of the official response.

Microblog services have been ordered to monitor postings content more closely and remove objectionable material, while news media were barred from reporting online material without firsthand verification.

Despite such controls, popular online services such as portals Sina.com and Sohu.com, video websites Youku.com and Tudou.com and search engine Baidu report growing traffic and revenues.

Outlets owned by the ruling Communist Party or by the government also have jumped into the market, launching their own search engines and other services.

On Friday, regulators approved an initial public stock offering by the online arm of the ruling party newspaper People’s Daily, people.com, on the Shanghai Stock Exchange to raise 527 million yuan ($A82.84 million).

Story source: www.bigpond.com

Filed Under: News, Research, Social Media Tagged With: business, China, internet, news, Research

Most Will Increase Spend on Digital Channels

Audience Targeting Proves Exciting

Marketers Using Numerous Tools and Partners

Other Findings:

Deal Sharing Top Reason for Product Comments

Social Proofing Drives Engagement

Other Findings:

Price-conscious consumers do more online research, download coupons and compare prices in-store via smartphones

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