3 Digital Marketing Blunders Small Businesses Make Right off the Bat

You’re busy supporting your customers and running your business. Taking even 10 minutes out of your day to devote to a blog post or social media updates is a challenge.  The new, holistic approaches to internet marketing–thanks to changes by Google and other search engines in the last 12 months–are enough to make anyone’s head spin, let alone a small business owner or manager who wears many different “business” hats everyday.  No matter your goals for your website and social media profiles, avoid these common pitfalls when repositioning or establishing your company’s digital presence.

1. Overpaying for a Website

A problem plaguing so many companies in the early 2000s has seen a resurgence as more and more small to medium-sized businesses have upped their online game, web designers are taking advantage of a business owners’ lack of know-how to cash in big for a minimal amount of work. Business and networking are breeding grounds for this practice and it’s taking a toll on business’ search engine visibility and the basic functionality of their websites. With so many easy-to-use, cost-effective methods of creating beautiful, functional websites, there’s no reason for nail salons and painting companies to drop $3,000-$10,000 on a website in 2015. Don’t fall for a sales pitch and a smile.

2. Quitting Early on Social

Everyone who’s tried to create a social media profile has experienced the frustration that comes with a stunted or non-existent following. As with many endeavors, people tend to approach a new project with enthusiasm and then give up when they don’t get the feedback they want. Try searching YouTube for “My First Video” and you’ll see what I mean. However, for better or worse, Facebook is becoming a major player in small business marketing and even if people aren’t finding you via the social network, your potential customers will certainly check to see if you’re keeping up with your profile. There’s no magic formula to success on social media, but there are a few Facebook tips and tricks for small business owners to gain traction and establish themselves without dedicating too many resources to your efforts.

3. Demanding Instant Gratification

The “give it to me now!” mentality of the online world does not apply when marketing a small business – sorry. As with any marketing effort, the work takes time and results aren’t immediate. Instead of focusing on “going viral” or getting 100,000 viewers to your website, redirecting your digital marketing team to establish your authority on search results in your industry and generating viable leads will show dividends in the long run. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen if you have the right team.

One thing about digital marketing is that it’s always changing and developing as technology and consumer behavior changes. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage to any business owner. An advantage because everyone needs to constantly educate themselves on new marketing trends. When something new arises, everyone starts at the same level. On the opposite end, it can be a disadvantage to those who don’t care to learn. Business owners who are content with their existing methods and plan to steadily run things will end up falling far behind. Sticking to what you always do, will get you what you’ve always gotten.

For expert advice on how to increase your online reach, strengthen your brand equity, help achieve stronger business results and generate greater profitability, contact Onimod Global today.

How Your e-Commerce Businesses can get the Most out of Facebook

Sites like Etsy, Amazon and eBay have made it easier than ever to open an online store and jump on the e-commerce bandwagon. Now advertising on Facebook is essential for success in today’s e-commerce market. For many online merchants, Facebook is more than a tool to drive sales, it’s a platform to market and sell products, build brand identity and interact with customers. But where and when do you start to place your ads? Who are you targeting and how do you succeed in reaching them successfully? Read more

Want Digital Marketing to Work For You? Integrate Some Analog Thinking.

As buyers look for new ways to engage with and purchase their preferred brands, those brands are bringing the sales process to them nonstop through digital and mobile interactions.

Given this push to be present everywhere the buyers are, brands — to no one’s surprise — are hiking their digital marketing budgets. One estimate is for a 14 percent increase in 2015.

That sounds pricey, but brands are finding this level of increase worthwhile because one of the big advantages with digital marketing is its ability to cost-effectively reach customers across different platforms.

Leveraging this advantage, in turn, is the secret sauce for online marketing efforts. Emails driving viewers to landing pages that offer relevant and attractive content downloads, for example, are a staple of today’s marketer. Add in social-media touch points, SEO and pay-per-click ads — all of which reinforce the brand’s offer — and the result is a powerhouse campaign that should deliver what the brand is hoping for.

So why doesn’t this digital approach work for everyone? The upside and downside of digital marketing is that anyone can do it, but the sheer volume muddies the waters. For your particular programs to deliver strong returns on your investments, they need to stand out from the pack. Here are two key points to keep in mind.

1. Relevancy rules.

Longtime direct marketing experts are disciplined about optimizing the two critical components of any outbound marketing effort. They are: the target audience, the offer and the accompanying supporting, creative content.

For digital marketing these components are even more important. Analysts in 2014 estimated that close to 200 billion emails were sent and received each day, with almost half of those originating within the business sector. You don’t need anyone to tell you that this translates into a lot of crowded inboxes.

Of course, your audience may be unwilling to sift through those jam-packed inboxes, and instead simply delete anything remotely promotional without so much as a second glance. So, it’s very important to create a high-quality, targeted email contact list for your marketing campaigns as well as a strong offer, and strong creative content, that stand out. Otherwise, you’re simply wasting money.

2. Think ‘integrated,’ not ‘isolated.’

While you can implement pure online and offline programs separately, both are far more influential when they’re part of a unified strategy in which each complements the other. Think of the project as teamwork.

Online marketing can be golden for prospecting, lead-qualifying and lead-scoring. Then, once you get a lead to a level where he or she is ready to be engaged from a sales perspective, pass the relay wand to the offline approaches. Using both methods, hand-in-hand and driven by a central strategy, will yield far greater results than using either part, doled out piecemeal.

The thinking of days past was that seven exposures to a brand were what it took to make a sale. But with the myriad ways customers are barraged from all angles today, it’s arguable that twice as many exposures are actually needed.

The lesson here is to work toward fueling your marketing with a strategy that incorporates both online and offline marketing, in order to identify prospects, convert them into customers and keep them for years to come. That’s the real winning formula.

R/T Entrepreneur.com

Google Panda Update Coming Soon

Google’s Gary Illyes announced that the next Panda update will happen in the upcoming 2-4 weeks at SMX advanced.

Illyes referred to it multiple times as not an algorithmic change but a data and info refresh. This is an interesting piece of rhetoric as it has been noticed that the organic results in the last few weeks have been uncharacteristically stagnant.  This data update refresh is sure to shake up the organic rankings a bit, however we are not expecting an algrothimic shift style change.

Illyes also explained that it is in Google’s best interest to keep this data fresh, so the they want to keep it updated as frequently as possible. This particular algorithm needing manual refreshes as it is not as automated as algorithms in the past.

Keep an eye on our Blog for more updates as these changes come live.  As always do not hesitate to contact an Onimod Global expert to discuss your organic rankings and website visibility.

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Got an iOS app? Now you can get it indexed and visible in Google search results!

We’ve been helping users discover relevant content from Android apps in Google search results for a while now with Onimod Global’s Mobile App Optimization services. As of May 27th Google has announced they are bringing App Indexing to iOS apps as well. This means users on both Android and iOS will be able to open mobile app content straight from Google Search.

How to get your iOS app indexed

While App Indexing for iOS is launching with a small group of test partners initially, we’re working to make this technology available to more app developers as soon as possible. In the meantime, here are the steps to get a head start on App Indexing for iOS:

  1. Add deep linking support to your iOS app.
  2. Make sure it’s possible to return to Search results with one click.
  3. Provide deep link annotations on your site.

For support contact Onimod Global – an official Google Partner.