Author: yarra

Planning a digital marketing strategy for 2019 could be more difficult than ever, as the competition is becoming denser by the day, and the technologies and trends are changing by the minute. It’s worth considering these novelties and shifts, not only in social media marketing but also in social media budgets. By researching which platforms businesses are spending the most on, you will see where they’re seeing the best returns, and this will help you learn the best approach for your business, which must not be a mere copy of the trends.

Nearly 70% of digital marketers who participated in SMT’s 2018 Social Media Spending Survey said that they are planning to spend more, however, this doesn’t mean they are taking the right approach. According to Orbit Media’s 2018 Blogging Statistics Survey, a better approach to take would be to invest in professional writers who would write original content. (2020 Update: If you are searching for more recent blogging statistics you can find them in the following article: 227 Powerful Blogging Statistics To Help Grow Your Blog (Blogger 2020 Edition).)

Let us try to make the task of setting a social media advertising budget easier for you, by taking these and other important facts into account.

How much should you spend?

According to an analysis by The Content Factory, the industry average when it comes to social media marketing is $4,000-$7,000 per month ($200 to $350 per day). The accurate number, though, will be influenced more by your annual revenue. On average, companies spend between 10 and 13 percent of their annual income on marketing, with 25% of that budget going to social media marketing spending.

When you are budgeting for social media advertising, you also have to take into account the past revenues based on the social media strategy, and your marketing goals.

Which costs should the social media budget include?

We already made a distinction between paid ads and content writing in the intro. But it is imperative to differentiate these things when planning the budget and allocating the funds. There are four areas of social media spending businesses need to pay attention to:

1. Paid advertisements
2. Technology and tools
3. Social media managers and the creative team
4. Service costs

Paid ads encompass those ads you are paying directly to social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. It can be a very cost-effective marketing approach, as long as you target the right audience.

Technology and tools used to launch and optimize social media campaigns are diverse, and they range from photo editing software to analytical platforms. It is always recommended to use a social media management tool, for a more effective social media strategy and efficient scheduling.

The team behind the whole story will not work for free, regardless of whether they are an in-house team or freelancers. Hiring freelancers can be more affordable, especially if your firm does not require the constant labor of, for example, designers, photographers, etc.

Another option is to leave everything related to social media or any kind of marketing to a specialized digital marketing agency. In that case, you will have to calculate the price based on the services you are getting (managment of social media accounts, on one or more platforms, designing campaigns, etc.).

Where to spend?

You know how they say, “don’t spend it all at one place”? It is the same with social media marketing. A blunt example would be: it is not cost-effective to have a retirement home ad campaign on Snapchat because more than 70% of Snapchat users are under 34 years old.

The platforms you should consider, depending on your line of work and target audience, are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, and LinkedIn.

To choose the right platform for your business, first, you will need to do research of your customers and audience. The network (or networks) you choose should be most frequently used by your target market.

How to get more for less?

It is the question that has been “bugging” the business community from the moment when the first goat was traded for a bag of flour, and in social media marketing, it is finally possible to succeed at it. Here are some basic things you should know, and you can take it from there:

• Set clear and measurable goals and monitor the progress.
• Capture the audience’s attention with inspiring and engaging ads.
• See what is popular among your target audience and use it for generating an appealing campaign.
• Experiment with your ads, and learn from customer feedback.
• Adapt the social media campaign to different platforms. Facebook and Twitter users will never react the same to an identical message.

Tailoring the budget to your needs

To summarize, these were mere guidelines which should help you tailor the budget and the fund allocation based on your business’s revenue, goals, and target audience. It is not possible to find one solution that fits all businesses. It is up to you to do thorough research and establish a strategy based on the results and the specifics of your business. Don’t expect it to hit immediate success, though. It is a process, and you are meant to experiment and learn from your mistakes. It is the only way to grow.

About the Author:

Natasha is a web designer, lady of the keyboard and one hell of a tech geek. She is always happy to collaborate with awesome blogs and share her knowledge about IT, digital marketing and technology trends. To see what she is up to next, check out her Twitter Dashboard.

Digital marketing represents the process of promoting business products and services through internet channels across electronic devices. This can be done through computers, smartphones, and tablets. The businesses require the services of digital marketing specialists to reach many consumers on a global scale. There are various sub-branches of digital marketing which include Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, and Social Media Optimization among other branches.

Businesses considering to upgrade their marketing campaigns to the next level should seek the services of digital marketing agencies. There exist many digital marketing agencies in the world today due to the advancements in the level of technology. Research should be undertaken by businesses to come up with questions to evaluate the digital marketing agency that will suit their requirements. The following items should guide any business considering to hire the services of a digital marketing agency.

Eight Questions to Ask a Digital Marketing Agency

1. Who are some of the digital marketing agency’s clients?

A business in need of digitizing its business should ask the agency to provide some of the clients that have been served by the company. The firm will be able to determine whether the agency has ever worked with similar companies in the same industry as their business. This question will adequately test the agency’s scope and experience in your company aspirations.

2. What criteria will the agency use to determine results?

The business needs to understand the process in which the company will evaluate the progress of the marketing campaigns. The primary goal of hiring a digital marketing agency is to get a return on investment. The business owner should understand whether the criteria used in measuring results align with the expectations. Good knowledge of how results will get evaluated will form a basis for the business to know the right partner to give its digital advertising.

3. What is the area of specialization of the digital marketing agency?

A business person should ask the primary specialty of the digital marketing agency given the many sub-branches of digital marketing that exist. The digital agency should explain to your business all the digital marketing services they offer for you to make an informed decision whether or not to form a partnership with the digital marketing agency.

4. How much work will get outsourced?

A business owner should understand the part of the work that will get delegated somewhere else and the reason for delegation. This criterion will assist you to make informed decisions on whether to work with the agency or to look elsewhere.

5. How does your agency differ from other digital marketing agencies?

This question will open the floor for the potential digital marketing agency to explain to your business why they are the best in the field of digital marketing. An agency may point to results as their differentiating factor; others may discuss the efficient services offered while others look to a good working relationship. The guiding element in this question should be for the business to identify any unique selling point of the digital marketing agency. A good digital agency should provide evidence of their selling points.

6. How will the agency help your business achieve the goals?

This question should be asked to test how well a digital marketing agency understands your line of business. A digital marketing agency with experience in your line of business should articulate the marketing strategies they will use to reach your goals.

7. What security measures do you offer?

A good agency should provide concrete answers to the way it will do to protect the breach of data and sensitive information concerning the business. A digital agency should show an understanding of the cyber threats and possible ways to combat them to protect the reputation of your company.

8. How do you report the results?

A good digital marketing agency should generate results that depict the effects of their work. A digital marketing company should provide critical information such as conversion reports, overall return on investment, positions in search rankings of all essential words and AdWords management, and the cost data of the digital marketing campaigns they run.

Guidelines for Finding a Good Digital Marketing Agency

What is the cost of the digital marketing services offered? Digital marketing as a tool for marketing businesses across internet platforms comes with its additional costs. A company needs to understand the charging rates by their preferred digital marketing agency.

There exist different modes of payment demanded by digital marketing companies such as hourly based payments, project-based structure or the monthly based payment model. Knowing the cost structure of your agency will help to determine whether your business is ready to strike a deal with the agency or not.

About the Author:

PPC PRO is a digital marketing company that specializes in the branches of digital marketing.

Most online visitors rely on search engines and social media platforms to discover the best products and services. NAP (Name, Phone number, and Address) of businesses has become one of the key elements in local SEO lately. It’s a must for brands that want to expand their customer base and rank higher in SERP (search engine result pages).

Why NAP consistency really matters

The latest technological advancements and customers’ behaviour are contributing to the way digital marketing trends keep evolving. NAP offers businesses a means to communicate the most important information about them at a glance. It’s among the top factors that the Google algorithm uses to determine search results and the authenticity of a brand.

The search engine usually compares the listings of each business on different sites and give preference to the ones that provide matching NAP signals. On the other hand, having several NAPs can make Google assume they belong to different companies. It’s imperative to maintain consistency to enjoy the many benefits of local SEO.

How NAP is influencing local SEO

Local SEO is providing an ever greater avenue for small businesses to reach a wider audience which is why savvy small business owners are not leaving anything to chance and weave NAP around their SEO campaigns. This enables them to appear on Google’s first page during geo-targeted searches.

Besides, it gives them an edge over other similar businesses that are yet to join the bandwagon. This will, in turn, help them to drive more traffic to their sites and increase their chance of getting quality leads.

5 Best practices for getting the most from your NAP listings

Some small businesses are yet to take this step due to a lot of reasons while others are doing it the wrong way. It will be difficult for such businesses to remain visible to their target audience. These suggestions can come in handy during your NAP listing exercise.

Choose the best NAP

Maintaining consistent NAP starts with using the official name you entered when registering your business. Using any other variation or a nickname may hinder your SEO efforts. The ideal thing is to stick to a particular notation as you write your address and phone number format.

Take note of the abbreviations you use too. These little details are often overlooked but they matter. This applies to your offline materials such as business card, brochure, and invoices.

Place it on your website

A professionally designed website with an exceptional UX is crucial for building trust with customers and getting a higher conversion rate. Try to place your NAP in text format on the contact us page of your website. In case your business has several locations and phone numbers, create separate listings for clarity.

This will go a long way to boosting your organic ranking whether a search is carried out via mobile or desktop. Endeavor to adopt white hat SEO tactics in your digital marketing strategy and during SEO campaigns. Businesses without a website can also maximize NAP and get the desired results.

Set up a Google My Business profile

This is a basic step that must be part of your SEO strategy. Add your URL and quality images during this process. Remember to add the right keywords you want to rank for in the description section. It should also describe your business succinctly.

Avoid using P O Box addresses because Google expects businesses to have a valid physical address. Consider submitting your information on other search engines listing services like Yahoo Local Listing and Bing Business Portal. It doesn’t matter whether you use them or not.

Get listed on local directories

The importance of getting listed on social directories and major search engines can’t be underemphasized. It’s an effective approach to building backlinks. Directories still hold great potential for small businesses in this era. You can take advantage of the paid or free options when creating listings on local directories. The important ones are Yelp, Foursquare, Angie’s List and Yellow Pages.

Getting listed on other local websites in your industry locally can amplify your reach. Make sure that you update all your information as soon as you make any changes. Incorrect citations across the web can make prospective customers lose trust for a brand.

Communicate with your team

Try to provide accurate information and encourage your staff to cross check each time they use it. Check all your online profiles including social media pages and websites from time to time and make corrections when necessary. It’s better to delegate this task to a team member with great attention to detail.

Alternatively, you can hire professionals to handle your NAP listings and avoid the common mistakes. However, do your due diligence to confirm that they have what it takes to deliver meaningful results in the long run. This is a great option for brands that lack the time to focus on the process and still want to boost their local SEO ranking.

Do you think you don’t need to invest in mobile marketing unless your targeted customers are teenagers?

Think again!

Research shows that people of all ages are using smartphones more than ever. Did you know that:

• 92% of American adults own a smartphone;
• People check their smartphones 80 times on average every day;
• 90% of consumers watch videos on smartphones.

To put it plainly, every online business needs to target mobile users to stay in the game. And if you do mobile marketing correctly, you might well be able to stand out from the crowd.

So what does it really take to get great results from a mobile marketing campaign?

Well, why don’t you have a look at these tips from App Geeks that can help you drive maximum traction from your campaign?

Mobile-Friendly Emails

Many online marketers think that emails are passé in this age of instant messaging apps. Are you one of them?

Then you couldn’t be more wrong. Research shows that by the time this year ends, there would be 2.2 billion mobile users worldwide.

Take the cue and start sending customers mobile-friendly emails.

How to make emails mobile-friendly? Glad you asked.

Keep both the design and content short and straightforward so that the message is clearly displayed on small screens. Additionally, make sure your emails have call-to-action buttons easily visible.

Text Message Mobile Marketing

With smartphone users relying on text messages to communicate, online marketers simply can’t ignore text message marketing.

So start building an SMS list, if you don’t yet have one, to send well-timed SMS promotional messages to consumers. For instance, if you’re running a sale, you can send consumers text messages to inform them about the best deals.

Needless to say, the success of your SMS message marketing campaign depends largely on the number of subscribers you have. To improve subscription count, promote your SMS marketing list everywhere you can, including your site and in your promotional emails.

Additionally, consider adopting the time-tested strategy of encouraging users to do what you want them to do by offering them an incentive, like a gift card or a discount. Such a campaign can beef up your subscription list considerably at no time at all.

Voice Optimization

Did you know that more than 20% of voice searches are done on mobile devices?

Therefore, it is important that you optimize your content for it.

Because key phrases used in voice search are different than those used in text search, you will need to identify expressions people are likely to use to search your business or products through voice commands.

Voice search phrases have two distinct features. They are longer and more natural-sounding than long-tail keywords used in text search. Additionally, they are often in the form of a question.

Tools are available that help you find voice search key phrases relevant to your business or products, and you should consider using one.

Site Speed

Impressive site speed is crucial. Slow site speed can harm much of the good work you do to make your site mobile-friendly.

For instance, even if your site were to rank among the first few on mobile search results, you may not get a lot of organic traffic if it loads slowly on mobile devices.

Why?

Because today’s consumers have little patience, mobile users even less. According to a report, 74% of mobile users abandon a site if it takes more than 5 seconds to load on their smartphones.

So take the cue and improve site speed. If web development is not your cup of tea, hire a reputable web developer to fix the issue.

App-Based Mobile Marketing

This is another biggie. With 80% of the mobile time being spent on using mobile applications, there’s no way you can ignore the app-based marketing.

Most of your competitors may already have developed an app. If you delay developing one any longer, your dream of being number one in your niche may remain just that — a dream.

That said, there are two things you must remember when doing app-based marketing.

1. User-Friendly App – There are hundreds of thousands of once-used-then-forever-forgotten apps in the digital landscape. Why add another one to this ignominious list? Mobile users have neither sympathy nor time for poorly designed apps. So make sure yours has user-friendly interface and features.
2. Free App – Most companies offer free apps, and consumers expect the same from you. Remember, app-based marketing is a numbers game, so a paid app will prove counterproductive to your goal of growing your customer base.

What else you need to do? Check out this infographic because it has loads of mobile marketing tips.

About the Author:

Social media and Max is a match made in heaven. Prolific digital marketer with considerable skill in graphic design and writing, his endless thirst for knowledge and communication can be sated only by the dynamically changing world of social media. Always on top of the latest trends and development in social media marketing, Max’s curiosity and vision bring invaluable insight and value to any project.