Make sure your share is up while the market is down
Friday 12 June 2009
TAGS: In the press
As reported in: FreshBusinessThinking.com
When businesses are faced with the task of making financial cutbacks marketing spend is often one of the first things that is reduced, however in the current financial climate it’s more important than ever before to be seen by the right people in order to drive sales forward.
Neil Robbins, managing director of online marketing agency Silverbean highlights why internet marketing makes sense while the market is down.
In the current economic climate many businesses are cutting their marketing budgets, but by reducing their spend on traditional marketing methods and implementing a low risk internet marketing strategy, companies can generate a better return on investment from their website and benefit from a low cost and measurable way of promoting products and services to a wide reaching and highly targeted audience.
And with so many businesses being more cautious with their marketing spend, there’s no better time to get ahead of the competition and gain a greater market share of the potential business that’s available.
Internet marketing can be less expensive and just as effective as traditional marketing methods due to the number of people reached and the fact that the every aspect of a campaign can be tracked, measured and tested. It also gives businesses the advantage of appealing to consumers in a medium that can bring results quickly as online initiatives take users directly to a company’s website, creating a chance for the visit to convert into an immediate sale.
Below are some of the most lucrative and effective online marketing tools that companies should consider to reach more customers, generate more business and ultimately, improve their market share.
Search Engine Optimisation
With over 43 million Internet users in the UK and more than 50% of them using search engines every day, a well executed and managed search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy can be an extremely cost effective marketing channel with many businesses experiencing at least a 300% return on their investment into SEO.
A specialist digital marketing agency can help to ensure that your website ranks as highly as possible in the key search engines for the search terms most relevant to your business
With the continued growth of online shopping and the increase in the use of the Internet for business purchases, ranking highly on the main search engines such as Google should be an essential part of your marketing strategy.
Affiliate Marketing
Another cost-effective internet marketing tool is affiliate marketing. By advertising their products and services on partner, or affiliate, websites, businesses can increase their online sales by 20% or more. This can be an extremely low-risk investment because affiliate partners only get paid for having the advertisement on their site when they generate actual sales for the business.
Again, a specialist agency can help a business to maximise sales by planning and implementing an effective campaign which involves recommending and liaising with appropriate affiliates, managing the technical integration process, setting up and managing promotional tools and creating incentive plans to get high-quality affiliates on board.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective, quick and responsive mediums for businesses that want to communicate with their existing customers or want to let prospective customers know about their products and services.
By investing in an email marketing campaign, business will cut out printing and postage cost involved in traditional direct mail campaigns and will be able to accurately evaluate its cost-effectiveness by monitoring the progress of the emails.
However, email marketing can go horribly wrong for companies that don’t have the technology, knowledge, or experience to carry out an effective l campaign. So to avoid your campaign backfiring, enlist the help of an expert firm who can help with everything from planning and production, through to delivery and reporting.
Online PR
With the increasing popularity of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, companies can also conduct ongoing and effective online pr and marketing free of charge, and benefit from authentic, two-way communication with their consumers.
Why not distribute your press releases online, contribute to relevant blogs and write feature articles for websites. A specialist agency can provide guidance on what you should be saying and to who if you don’t feel confident or have the expertise to do it yourself.
Silverbean can work with your business to help you take advantage of the many cost-effective marketing opportunities to get your products and services seen by the right people, over and above traditional methods where it can be more difficult to gauge effectiveness.
So, there is no reason for your business to fall off the radar because of the economic downturn and in fact this could be the best time for you to improve the way your business performs online to get out there and be seen by the people that matter, your customers.
Neil Robbins is Managing Director at Silverbean. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how Silverbean can help you achieve your online marketing objectives through good usability; please contact Steve using one of the following.