Since the web first ushered in a new era of e-commerce, marketplaces, payment services, and massive scaling of shipping and distribution networks have made e-commerce successful. This reading considers how e-commerce might change over the next decade.
Future trends for e-commerce
No one can say for sure which innovations today will be used tomorrow. However, a few e-commerce trends stand out:
Specialization of smaller retailers
Immersive customer experiences
Distribution and delivery innovations
Specialization of smaller retailers
Large online marketplaces and retailers will still probably account for most online purchases. Smaller retailers may increasingly become more specialized by offering highly customizable products, niche product categories not offered by larger retailers, and more personalized service.
Immersive customer experiences
Today, many customers still like to go to a physical store because they want to handle or try on an item before they buy it. Virtual and augmented reality can provide immersive experiences online so customers feel like they’ve handled an object or tried on a garment without actually making a trip to the store.
Virtual reality (VR) is fully immersive. By putting on a VR headset, users are able to view a simulated physical world with audio-visual feedback. Imagine putting on your headset and going to the virtual dressing room to try on clothing items before buying them. That is an example of a VR experience.
Augmented reality (AR) is semi-immersive. Users may not need to enter a simulated physical world. AR adds audio-visual feedback to your existing world. What if you could automatically view sunglasses in your shopping cart overlaid on a virtual image of yourself on your phone? What if it saved items from any e-commerce store so you could “try them on” again? This would be an AR solution to shopping at different stores in person.
Chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate conversation with human users. They can ask you if everything is fine and if you need help. This would be an online version of a sales associate asking you the same questions in a physical store. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning by chatbots using data from actual conversations may improve the overall experience for shoppers.
Distribution and delivery innovations
You might have heard or read about the possibility of drones or self-driving vehicles making the last-mile trip between a warehouse and a residential home or office. These methods of distribution and delivery may be commonplace in the next ten years.
Key takeaway
No matter which technologies end up being adopted over the next ten years, e-commerce will continue to grow, and our daily lives and habits will change, too.
Bonus
Want to experience AR? Google has added 3D animals to its AR search results.
If you have an Android smartphone or Apple iPhone, complete these steps:
1. Open your browser app (preferably Chrome).
2. Enter “Bengal tiger” for a search. You can also enter a dog breed like “Yorkshire terrier” or “German shepherd.” Note: You may need to scroll down in your search results for the 3D animal.
3. Click View in 3D.
4. After clicking View in 3D, if you want to view a true-to-size version of the animal in your physical space, click View in your space.
Note: This step requires you to give the app access to your device’s camera, microphone, and device storage.
Traditional marketing is marketing that isn’t online. Marketers reach potential customers through printed media, television, radio, direct mail, phone calls, or billboards. Digital marketing is marketing that is exclusively online. Digital marketers focus on potential customers who engage with online content, including search engine results, email, video, blogs, or social media.
This reading describes the advantages digital marketing has over traditional marketing and some definite challenges, too.
Digital marketing uses content in a variety of formats that can be easily converted from one format to another, making spending more cost-effective. Digital marketing also reduces wasteful spending. For example, television or billboard ads are equally seen by those who have an interest in your company or product and those who don’t. Traditional marketing always wastes some budget on people who will never buy a product or service. In contrast, digital ads can be selectively shown to people who are more likely to have an interest in that product or service. Digital marketing that is more strategically focused on the right people yields a better return on spending.
Technology
Various technologies enable organizations to engage and interact with customers more effectively, which is a big part of digital marketing. Developing a good online relationship with customers makes them more likely to find your business, become loyal customers, and even share their recommendations with others.
Digital marketing tools also enable companies to collect data and measure the results of their marketing efforts more effectively. When marketers receive data faster, they’re able to change direction easily if a marketing effort isn’t producing the results expected. Measuring the success of digital marketing campaigns is key to ensuring that you get the results you want.
Digital marketing adapts to new technologies. There are always new opportunities to reach customers in different ways, especially compared to traditional marketing.
Target audiences
Digital marketing tools and data enable you to expand your customer reach well beyond that of traditional marketing. Ad visibility and audience coverage can be tailored to meet your specific business needs and goals. When you reach the right audiences, you’re more likely to increase sales and develop sustainable customer loyalty programs.
Digital marketing challenges
Digital marketing also has certain challenges that are associated with spending, technology, and target audiences. For each advantage previously identified, there are also associated challenges.
Spending
Advantage: Digital content is easier to create.
Challenge: Organizations engage in omnichannel marketing—the integration or synchronization of content on multiple channels—so customers can have a consistent brand experience. This increases the amount of content required, so even if it’s easier to create digital content, much more content needs to be created overall. Furthermore, it’s not just about the amount of content created, but its quality. Advertising is a crowded space. Content must be distinctive to positively impact customer awareness and change their behavior.
Advantage: Digital marketing is more cost effective than traditional marketing.
Challenge: If an organization is working towards an omnichannel presence, the cost of marketing on all channels adds up quickly. Getting support or buy-in for extra or additional budget to cover the cost can be difficult.
TechnologyAdvantage: Digital marketing adapts to new technologies.
Challenge: As a marketer, learning and keeping up with new technologies and tools is a constant requirement. Marketers must also stay up-to-date with and follow all user privacy and data sharing regulations worldwide. Omnichannel marketing also makes it more difficult to track where sales come from. Marketers must rely more heavily on analytics tools to help them do that.
Target audiencesAdvantage: Digital marketing tools expand customer reach using specific audiences.
Challenge: The digital space is a crowded field that’s getting even more crowded. It’s harder for marketers to stand out with their advertising, even when they are targeting the right audiences.
Key takeaways
Various technologies make digital marketing more cost-effective and adaptable than traditional marketing. Digital marketing tools also enable more advanced and targeted audience selection for marketing campaigns. However, these benefits come with some challenges. In a digital space that’s both crowded and noisy, it’s harder for a company’s brand and advertising to stand out. Marketing professionals must keep up with technological advances and customer behaviours that change rapidly.
Email marketing is the oldest form of online marketing. It is the most direct and effective way of connecting with your leads, nurturing them and turning them into customers. Most digital marketers use email marketing to advertise special deals, highlight content or promote an event.Email marketing is one of the most popular and effective tools to help you boost sales online. In this article, we’ll share how email marketing can help your business grow and few tips to get you started.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is a powerful digital marketing strategy used to promote products or services to prospects and customers. Effective email marketing can convert prospects into customers, and turn one-time buyers into loyal, raving fans. Using emails can also help your customers to become aware of your latest items or offers. Email marketing can play pivotal roles in lead generation, building relationships and also driving traffic to your blog, and social media.
How email started
Engineer Ray Tomlinson, the father of emails, in 1971 launched the world’s first email while in a windowless room in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The message was nothing special, a series of numbers and letters that looked more like a password than a message, but its significance was profound.The email was sent from one computer to another, travelling through a network of machines not unlike the internet we know today. Tomlinson also introduced the “@” symbol in email addresses to the world.In 1978, Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager for the now-defunct computer company Digital Equipment Corporation, sent out the first commercial and unsolicited mass e-mail promoting his firm’s computer products. Sent to hundreds of computers over ARPANET (a precursor to the Internet; see DARPA), Thuerk’s message immediately gave birth to email marketing. There were only a few hundred people on the list, but that was enough for Thuerk to claim the mantle, “Father of Spam.”Today, we’re inundated with email marketing campaigns, and spams, but there’s no denying the impact a well-crafted message can have on your customers.
Why is email marketing important?
You now know what email marketing is. Let’s talk about why email marketing is relevant for your business.Despite the rise of social media, and a hundred other forms of messaging, the traditional email format feels relatively old. However, it still remains one of the most powerful and effective way to nurture leads and boost customer loyalty. That’s why almost every social media platform requires you to have an email. The email list can yield dramatic rewards for business owners. According to Direct Marketing Association, email marketing on average sees a 4300 percent return on investment (ROI) for businesses in the US.
Importance of email marketing
1. Email is the #1 communication channel. You can go for a few days or weeks without checking social media like Facebook or Twitter, but most people use email every day, if not multiple times a day, so it’s safe to say that email marketing is good for business. At least 99% of consumers check their email daily. That can’t be said of any other communication channel.2. You own your list. On any social media platform, your account (along with all your fans and posts) could be suspended or deleted at any time, for any reason, without notice. However, you own your email list. No one can take those leads away from you.3. Email converts better. People who buy products marketed through email spend 138% more than those who do not receive email offers. In 2015, a study by the U.K.-based Direct Marketing Association (DMA) found that for every $1 spent, email has an average return on investment (ROI) of $38. That’s huge! The average order value of an email is at least three times higher than that of social media.4. Email marketing allows you to run A/B tests. With email marketing, you can run A/B tests of a subject line or call to action to identify the best performing message using email marketing software that can also be configured to easily send out emails.
How to get started with email marketing?
Email marketing is made up of several moving pieces, but that doesn’t mean it has to be complicated. Here’s how it breaks down:
Step 1: Establish your goals
But signing up to an email marketing tool and jumping to send your first email, it’s worth taking a minute to think about your goals and what you really want to achieve with email, as that will dictate the type of campaigns you send, who you target, the content you include, and how you measure success.
Step 2: Build your email list
Now that you have identified your goals and what you want to achieve from email marketing, it’s time to build your email list so you can start sending campaigns that those goals. There are a couple of different ways you can build your email list, but the right method depends on the goals you establish in Step 1.
First, create a branded opt-in pop-up form for your website
Pop-up forms provide visitors with a quick, convenient way to share contact information and subscribe to your list while they’re browsing your site, making them a powerful tool for audience growth.
Create marketing campaigns to find your people with Facebook ads
Facebook ads can help you reach new audiences and find new customers by targeting people who’re similar to your existing contacts. But Facebook ads aren’t just used for selling stuff, but also to generate leads by collecting emails through ads that link to your landing pages with opt-in forms. In just a few steps, you can create an ad that drives people to your site so they can quickly and easily sign up for your email list.
Step 3: Select the type of campaigns you want to send
There are several different types of email campaigns you can send to subscribers, and the type you choose really depends on the goals you established in Step 1. The campaigns could be newsletters (about one main topic of interest), Marketing Offer (offering discounts and special promotions), announcement (announcing a new product, feature, or service), and event invitation.
Step 4: Create your first campaign
Now that you’ve decided on your goals, built a bit of an audience and selected the type of campaign you’re going to send, it’s time to start building your email. Find tips to making the most of your email marketing campaigns in the next heading.
Step 5: Measuring your success
After publishing your email campaign, it is now time to keep track of your progress and learn exactly how many new people join your email list. You can track the success of your email marketing campaigns: using tools like Google Analytics.
Email Marketing Strategies
Effective email marketing takes effort. Here are a few strategies for making the most of your email marketing campaigns:
Send relevant emails
Once someone has trusted you with their email address, don’t abuse that trust. Inundating your audience’s inbox with emails will cause them to lose interest or unsubscribe entirely. Focus on sending them relevant, engaging messages about the stuff they like, and they’ll be loyal for a long time to come.
Attract your subscribers
Grow your email list, you need to attract people with a compelling offer. You need a lead magnet, something awesome that you give away for free in exchange for an email address. It doesn’t have to cost you anything to create. Some popular lead magnet examples are: eBooks, resources or consultation.
Seek permission
Probably the most obvious problem is when your email gets sent to a subscriber’s spam folder. Before you can email anyone, you need their permission.
No purchased emails
While buying email lists may sound like a great shortcut, it isn’t. And we do not recommend it. We also do not recommend adding emails from people’s business cards that you collected at seminars or workshops unless you have their permission. People who don’t opt-in specifically for your email list are not interested in your services. Emailing them, therefore, is a complete waste of your resources.
Consistency
it’s important to email your subscribers consistently, so your list doesn’t go stale. So to keep your list fresh and filled with engaged subscribers, it’s a good idea to periodically remove inactive subscribers. An inactive subscriber could be anyone who has not engaged with any email in the past 6 months or more.
Timing
Timing can have a huge effect on subscribers opening your emails, so think carefully about what time and day you send your emails.
Make subject lines stand out
When it comes to email open and click rates, your subject lines are everything. Your job is to make your subject lines stand out. The subject line should entice curiosity, include numbers, be friendly and speak in a language and style that your subscribers use themselves.
Be friendly
When you draft your subject line and message content, write as though you are speaking to a person, with a personal subject line and a personalized message.
Mobile friendly
Mobile email accounts for 67% of all email opens, depending on your target audience, product, and email type. Make sure your email is responsive and includes easily loadable media. Also consider the fact that mobile screens are smaller, so long subject lines may get cut off on mobile devices.
Content must be engaging
If a subscriber is happy with your content, they are more likely to open your emails in the future. Conversely, if a subscriber is displeased with what they get, they probably aren’t going to open your emails again, and they may even unsubscribe. Simply make your content engaging and appealing t your subscribers.
Conclusion
Email marketing is a powerful driver of sales & revenue for your business, and has a greater reach and return on investment than any other channel available to marketers today.Follow the steps outlined in this guide for a quick start to email marketing and campaign success.Get started with email marketing today with SEO Digital!
Social media marketing first started with publishing where businesses were sharing their content on social media to generate traffic to their websites and, hopefully, increase sales. But social media has matured far beyond being just a place to share content. These days, businesses use social media in a myriad of different ways. Some ways in which businesses use social media are, monitoring social media conversations and analyzing their reach, views, likes, follows, engagement, and sales.
Social media marketing is simply digital marketing that involves connecting with your audience to market your brand and boost sales for your business or company. Social media marketing activities involve publishing radically different social actions such as sharing short messages/texts, videos, media links, joining events/groups. It also involves the use of paid social media advertising to drive audience engagement, build brand awareness and increase sales.
We’ve created this guide to help you understand the relevance of social media marketing and how to develop a compelling social media marketing plan for your business this year.
The major social media platforms in 2021 are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat
Why is social media marketing relevant in 2021?
While it may seem overwhelming, the importance of social media cannot be overstated. It’s so important that 97% of marketers and 78% of salespeople are using social media for their business. Plus, its benefits extend far beyond increasing sales. However, not all businesses are aware of the benefits of social media marketing. 50% of small businesses aren’t using social media to promote their business. That’s an alarming number. Even more concerning is that an additional 25% don’t plan to use social media in the future either.
How Will Social Media Boost Your Business Online
1. Makes it easy to promote your business
2. Help you increase your clients reach
3. Promotes brand recognition and awareness
4. Increase traffic to your website
5. Build your conversions
6. Enhance communication and engagement with target audiences
7. It is mostly FREE!
Do you now see the relevance of using social media marketing to boost your brand online and drive sales? Are you ready to get started with marketing on social media? Here are a few things to consider before you kick-start your social media marketing
1. Start With a Strategic Goal
Social media strategy planning starts with identifying your brand’s goal. Maybe, you want to use social media to increase your brand awareness, generate engagement around your brand, or even drive website traffic and sales this year. Either way, your goals will define your content strategy and how much time and energy you’ll need to dedicate to your campaigns. Additionally, the goals you set for your business must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). Starting a social media marketing campaign without a strategy goal in mind is like going to visiting a new city without a map—you might have fun, but probably get lost.
Second, research to know which social media platforms your competitors are and where they have their largest reach/following. Your competitors can provide valuable data for keyword research and other social media marketing insight. Start by creating accounts on the same platforms to beat the competition, but always do it better! You can also figure out which social media platforms you want to focus on.
Aside from the major social media platforms, there are also social messaging platforms like Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat you can explore. Always start with a few platforms that you think your target audience is rather than to be on all platforms.
Here are quick questions to ask yourself when defining your social media marketing goals:
Why do I want my brand on social media?
What am I hoping to achieve with my brand through social media campaigns?
Who is my realistic target audience?
Where does my target audience hang out and how would they use social media?
What message do I want to send to your audience using social media marketing?
Your business type should inform and drive your social media marketing strategy.
Last, think about what type of content you want to share to attract your target audience best? Will they be images, videos, or links? Is it going to be informational, educational, or entertaining? With time, you can always change your strategy according to how your social media posts perform by tracking the data using analytical tools.
2. Plan and Create (curate) compelling content
By now, you have managed to figure out your strategy goal through research and planning. But how about your content strategy? The next thing to consider after setting out your goal is to develop your content strategy with great, compelling, and innovative ideas.
Publishing content to social media is as simple as sharing a blog post, an image, or a video on your personal Facebook or Instagram profile. But in this case, you will want to plan your content ahead of time instead of creating and publishing content spontaneously. Also, your content must be informative, educational, or entertaining depending on the goal you set for yourself in the beginning. Examples of content you can consider are stories, images, short-lived videos, and showing your audience the human behind the posts they see. To ensure you are maximizing your reach, always publish content at the right time and frequency.
There are a variety of social media scheduling tools that can help you publish your content automatically at your preferred time. This saves you time and allows you to reach your audience when they are most likely to engage with your content.
3. Listen and Interact With Your Audience
As your business and social media following begins to grow, conversations about your brand will also increase if you strategise well. One key to being successful in social media is to listen and interact with your audience. People will comment on your social media posts, tag you in their social media posts, or message you directly. Always find time to respond and address their concerns. This will show you are reliable and they can trust you for a quick response to your products.
So what is social listening? Social listening involves tracking conversations around your brand and in your industry and using the information to review your marketing strategies. Social listening and interacting will help you understand your audience better, where they like to hang out, and what they like to talk about. It is simply finding out what people are saying about you. If you’re not using social listening, you’re leaving a lot of great insights on the table.
Social listening and social monitoring are however two different things. Social listening involves what your audience does and social monitoring is about why they do what they do.
People might even talk about your brand on social media without letting you know. So you will want to monitor social media conversations about your brand. If it’s a positive comment, you get a chance to surprise them. Otherwise, you can offer support and correct a situation before it gets worse. There are several social media listening tools out there that you can use, explore and find the one that best suits you and your budget.
4. Track your analytics
Along the way, you will want to know how your social media campaign is performing. Are you reaching more people on social media compared to months back? How much positive feedbacks do you get? How many people used your brand’s hashtag on their social media posts? The social media platforms themselves provide a basic level of such information.
To get more in-depth analytics information or to easily compare across social media platforms, you can use a wide range of social media analytics tools. For example, Google Analytics can be used to measure your social media marketing techniques, as well as determine which strategies are better off abandoned.
Metrics you can measure with analytical tools
1. Reach
The number of unique accounts that have seen any of your posts.
2. Clicks
Refers to the number of clicks on your post or account. Tracking clicks per campaign are essential to understand what drives curiosity or encourage people to buy.
3. Impressions
The total number of times all of your posts have been seen.
4. Engagement
This refers to the total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions and sheds light on how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact. It can also be measured by the number of times your post was liked, saved or commented on.
5. Hashtag performance
What were your most-used hashtags? Which hashtags were most associated with your brand?
6. Saved
This refers to the number of unique users that saved your post.
7. Profile visits
Times your profile was viewed.
8. Following
The number of accounts that started following you.
Having these answers can help shape the focus of your content going forward.
5. Advertising
When you have more funds to grow your social media marketing, an area that you can consider is social media advertising. Social media ads allow you to reach a wider audience than those who are following you. These platforms are so powerful nowadays that you can specify exactly who to display your ads to. You can create target audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviours, and more.
When you are running many social media advertising campaigns at once, you can consider using a social media advertising tool to make bulk changes, automate processes, and optimize your ads.
CONTACT SEO DIGITAL NOW TO HELP YOU DEVELOP A COMPELLING SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY
At SEO Digital Ghana, we use social media marketing to build your brand and boost your sales. Get all the benefits of social media with SEO Digital Ghana Now!
Digital marketing, also known as online marketing or internet advertising is a big deal these days. Internet usage has doubled over the past decade. This shift has massively affected how people purchase products, services and interact with businesses.
So, what is digital marketing? It is simply the use of the internet, emails, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to reach the right consumers. All these forms of marketing help introduce people to your company and convince them to buy your products. One key element of digital marketing is that, it requires the use of innovative approaches to attract and understand your potential customers as compared to traditional marketing.
Digital Marketing Assets and Strategies That Can Boost Your Brand
Digital assets and strategies are vital in today’s market and if you don’t keep up, you will be left behind. Let’s take a look at what your business needs to maximise its marketing plan and start reaping profits.
Digital Marketing Assets
Assets are values owned by a group or company. Marketing items used to project your business and get potential clients attracted to buy your products are termed Digital Assets. Are you using the available digital assets you have at your disposal to boost your marketing? If you’re unsure, don’t worry, here are few examples:
Strategies for digital marketing is also constantly evolving. Some strategies businesses use are:
1. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
PPC advertising is any type of digital marketing where you pay for every user who clicks on an ad like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.
2. Paid Search Advertising
Google, Bing and Yahoo allow you to run text ads on their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to target potential clients who are actively searching for a product or service like yours.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
With SEO, you can rank pages or blog posts on your site organically and not have to pay directly for every click, but this usually takes quite a bit of time and effort.
4. Paid Social Media Advertising
Social media platforms like Twitter allow you to run ads on their site to increase your business’s visibility with audiences.
5. Social Media Marketing
This is free and organic however, organically marketing your business on social media takes a lot more time and effort but in the long run, can deliver much cheaper results.
6. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
CRO is the art and science of improving your online user experience. Most of the time, businesses use CRO to get more conversions (leads, chats, calls, sales, etc.) out of their existing website traffic.
7. Content Marketing
This is another fairly broad digital marketing term. Content marketing covers any digital marketing effort that uses content assets (blog posts, infographics, eBooks, videos, etc.) to build brand visibility, drive clicks or sales.
8. Native Advertising
Ever get to the bottom of an article and see a list of suggested articles? That’s native advertising and mostly fall under content marketing because it uses content to attract clicks.
9. Email Marketing
This form of online marketing is the oldest and it’s still going strong. Most digital marketers use email marketing to advertise special deals, highlight content (often as part of content marketing) or promote an event.
10. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is essentially paying someone else (a person or a business) to promote your products and services on their website.
How Powerful is Digital Marketing Now?
With technology continually evolving, so do the behaviours of consumers. As a result, we have seen how traditional forms of advertising has continued to decline. We have also watched how digital advertising have grown from strength to strength. Some reasons for this include, an increase in the way we access information, news and an increased activity on digital devices. In addition, digital marketing is affordable, which allows any sized business with any size budget to target specific markets effectively. Today, just having a website is no longer enough to engage your audience and convert them to new customers. It is now important to consider implementing a complete digital plan that works across multiple channels.
With this in mind, here are 7 reasons why you need digital marketing for your business:
1. Increase reach
With the growth of the internet, more people are spending their time online. Over 7.7 billion people use the internet across the globe. It has become an integral part of everyday life to conduct searches, check social media, and purchase products online. Your customers are online, which highlights the importance of digital marketing. They’re browsing the web looking for your products or services. If they can’t find your services/products because you’re not online, you risk losing those leads to your competitors.
To drive the best results for your business, you need to build your online presence. This will help you reach more audience that want your products or services.
2. More Advanced Analytics
With digital marketing you know the following about your ads and audience:
Whether they actually saw it. With traditional marketing like TV and radio ads, you don’t even know that much.
What they interacted with
If they liked it
If they lingered on it
What they viewed
If they shared it with a friend
Did it prompt another action
If it led to a sale
You also learn much more about the people interacting with your ad:
Who’s most interested in your ads
What are they like
What makes them more likely to take an action
Who is easiest to convert
Who spends more
What do they do online
Gives you their demographics
What terms do they use to find you online
Which websites do they visit that lead them to yours
All of this easy to with free analytics software like Google Analytics. You can gain even more insight with paid tools. In addition, you can use what you learn to cut costs where you aren’t seeing an ROI and increase efforts where you get the best results.
3. Keep up with your competitors
Online marketing is highly competitive and your competitors have already taken advantage of it. They’ve created social profiles, adapted their website for SEO, and run paid advertisements to reach new leads. This reason in itself is one of the reasons why you should use digital marketing. If you want your business to compete with others, you have to do what your competitors are doing and even more. By neglecting digital marketing, you’re already falling behind your competition.
Your competitors are gaining traffic that could be yours if you’re also investing in digital marketing. Customers online won’t know that your business is an option and will automatically choose a competitor. You must invest in digital marketing to get leads to consider your business as an option.
4. Target the right audience
The ability to target the right audience is one of the most obvious reasons why digital marketing is important. Imagine being able to market directly to people who have an interest in your products or services. You have the capability to directly reach leads interested in your business.
With digital marketing, you can target your audience more precisely than traditional methods. You can input important information about your audience and use that information to shape your marketing campaigns. It makes it easy for you to reach the right people. When you better target your audience, you drive better results with your campaign and reach more leads.
5. You can monitor and optimise your campaigns for better results
The importance of digital marketing is that you can easily track and monitor your campaigns. When you invest time and money into your campaigns, you want to know that they are working. Internet marketing makes it easy for you to track your campaigns, which allows you to adapt and drive better results.
It can be challenging using traditional methods to know the results of your campaign. If you run a TV ad, you may have to ask every person that comes into the store about what brought them to your business. It would be a very time-consuming effort that could annoy people who visit your business. You don’t need to worry about bothering your audience with online ads. Every campaign you run is easily trackable to see if it is driving valuable results for your business. In addition, metrics such as impressions, clicks, views, comments, conversions, and more can be analysed.
When you track your campaign’s performance, it’s easier to fix it and adapt to changes. With traditional advertising campaign, you typically can’t make changes until the campaign is over. It only benefits the next campaign you run, which can feel like you wasted money on the previous campaign. Whereas with online ads, you can see if they are successful or need improvement. If they need improvement, you can make immediate changes and implement them at any point during your campaign. In addition, online marketing helps you spend your budget more wisely to get more out of your campaigns.
6. Best return on your investment (ROI)
If you want to know the importance of digital media, look at the results it drives for businesses. Marketing strategies online have awesome return on investment (ROI). When you invest in these methods, you’ll get more out of them. For example, email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing method. Every $1 spent, you have the potential to earn a whopping 4400% in return. This is a great opportunity for you to grow and earn a profit from your marketing efforts.
Internet marketing is also cost-effective and hence, leaves room for a great ROI. It doesn’t cost much to run a social media ad campaign, compared to certain traditional methods, and this gives businesses an opportunity to grow.
7. Easy to Scale & Adapt
For small businesses, it becomes very clear when you see how easy it is to scale and adapt as your business grows. Example, with social media campaigns, you can choose a daily budget and know how much it will cost without having to renegotiate an ad spot on TV. As you continue to convert that traffic, you just increase your daily spend and revenues with it. If you got a massive order from a customer and need to scale back to avoid getting backlogged, it’s just as easy. The power of digital marketing lies in the fact that, you can get instant results and analyze data fast to reduce wasted ad spend.
Digital Marketing Strategy
At SEO Digital, we recommend a professional online plan to raise awareness of your business and engage with prospective customers. Hence, strong digital marketing strategy should consist of the following elements:
1. Website
Build a functional, professional and easy to navigate website. Include a blog on your site to update and inform your customers of any news in your industry. Also, consider inbuilt functionality to streamline office processes and make the customer experience better.
2. Search Engine Optimisation – (SEO)
Your website needs to include high quality, relevant content about your business and services. A number of SEO techniques such as high quality content, and keyword research can all help with your online presence. Keep this up to date and integrate it with a website measurement tool such as Google Analytics to improve your chances of being found online. Additionally, using strong quality content and relevant keywords on your website can improve your organic search results and make you visible to people.
4. Mobile responsiveness
If your website is difficult to read, the chances are prospective customers won’t make an enquiry. Make sure your website is optimised for mobile devices and creates a pleasant user experience.
5. Social media
The development of social media platforms will grow your online audience, and assist with online marketing. Social Media allows you to speak directly with your customer base to provide valuable information and build trust digitally to to increase your audience.
6. Online Advertising
Consider using various online advertising streams to increase your brand awareness. Common online advertising strategies such as Google AdWords allow you to target specific demographics and set your budget to suit your business. Online advertising is a highly effective way to add impact to your business and brand.
7. Nurturing your leads
Your digital strategies need to engage your customers to get them to take the next step and make a purchase. You need to have clear ‘call to action’ strategies built in to your digital platforms and make it easy for the customer to take that next step.
CONTACT US NOW FOR A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY
Digital marketing is becoming more complex, as we develop new ways of effectively reaching clients and driving revenues online. Your digital marketing strategy and assets are essential in driving business success. Contact SEO Digital today on info@seoghana.com or +233 50 664 3847 if you would like to review your business’ online marketing to increase your client base and profits.
The eCommerce industry is a big game in Ghana now. There are different phases that depict the success of an eCommerce Business. Each of these phases has a distinct role to play in the making of a website to outstand competitive grounds. Ghana has experienced large setups venturing into the web eCommerce and Courier business but the problem is, are they doing it right?
Research has shown that more than 50% of the total world’s population is now going online shopping with over 30% increase every year. E-commerce will develop at a twice faster rate in the coming years. It has already been found that more than 40% of the purchased done by the millennial is through eCommerce and predicted to rise to more than 60 % by the year 2021.
Investing in e-commerce platforms is fairly simple but not easy. Allocating money can be fun but you will have to do your due diligence and choose to select the right few to generate the most gains over your investing horizon. Investing in these companies will have lower downsides and will take much less time.
The first thing that comes to the mind of eCommerce entrepreneurs, is BUDGET! But it is never a good practice to start an eCommerce web development project based on budget. Though a prime factor, your budget should not limit your progression and analysis of potentials, only the choice that you make after exploring all the possibilities. Also, talk to SEOGHANA to explore the options you have to set your eCommerce business as a brand because a brand always comes with a better competitive advantage.
User Experience
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The best user experience that you can provide in an eCommerce Website is speed, sleek graphics and agility to various devices and information. Along with that, you can also string along a simplistic way to apply discounts and promo codes without needing the customer to have to search and find it.
Information is really pivotal for the outreach of eCommerce business especially in Ghana, so give ample and easily available information about returns, policies, packaging options, delivery options and all. The less the customer has to look for these things, the faster they turn up to make a purchase.
UX designing is something that you ought to give more time and scrutiny, You know why? ‘cos that will determine not just how your website looks and feels, but also how it functions for you customers and the entire diversity of them. So let’s jot down the top priorities of a successful UX design:
● A simplistic navigation structure so that users don’t have to use the “back button” to go back or any other page (Have you considered iPhone users?). You should have the navigation bar close at hand with a simple format so that any page can be visited with a single click.
● A streamlined catalogue so that your products are easily searched. Get down with elaborate keyword research and do your best in finding your customers the exact thing that they are looking for, even with a misspelt search. AI-powered search is the top tool to invest in if your catalogue is really large and diversified. This technology is capable of suggesting customers the ideal products based on their search history. And you can just get too lucky if your product appears in front of someone who just wanted to have it, without having that person literally lookup that product on your site. It works, in uniting the buyers and sellers without much ado. Ask us how?
● A levitating checkout process (This is very important!) – Here the customer is about to make a decision. the smoothness of the checkout process determines the rounding off of your customer lifecycle. Make it easier with Shopping Cart preference settings and provide a minimalist content layout so that customers don’t have to go through fine prints to pick up the essential information.
Progressive Web Application
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This is called PWA, and it has been recognised as the next best thing for eCommerce stores right now. What it does? It simply helps in building the most satisfactory UX. This has been on the digital radar since around 2015, and since then have revolutionised the eCommerce industry. Technically, Progressive Web Applications are built on HTML, JavaScript and CSS platforms, that are web-based applications having the feel of a Native mobile application. The best way to access this is by logging in through a browser but you can also install a PWA into your device home screen. Either way, PWAs require less time and energy than it takes to create a website and a mobile app separately. The best benefits that PWAs provided is the omnipresent access across mobile home screens, and that customers can access the site even with poor network.
Customer Support
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You may add live chat support or a direct WhatsApp interface. The more close at hand and friendly your customer service is, the more your customers are going to trust your store, and even refer it to others. Nowadays, most websites give an enquiry form in their chat pages, wherein customers would have to register at the site to be able to chat. You can change this idea, by offering free advice at all times, without needing the customer to have to go through a long process of registration, just to get a simple answer to a whimsical query. But if you are offering them free advice, then somewhere down the line, you are getting a shot at speaking directly to a lead, and can potentially turn it into a conversion without being too clingy or pushy.
Final Word Of Advice
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Remember, the first thing that you should bring to the establishment of a new website is the Product. And based on how big your product catalogue is, and how diverse it is going to be in about 3-5 years, choose the platform. But it is very hard to provide proper guidance about the best options for choosing a web development platform because it really depends on the stature and objectives of your eCommerce business notwithstanding its huge SEO integration, so it is always radical to consult with a specialist before making a move. Or at least read plenty of case studies and white papers to steer clear of any preconceived notion about it. Contact us today and let’s build that web winning platform for you!
SERP full form is Search Engine Result page in which web crawler gives arrangements of results that we looked for an inquiry. When we looked they give you the Web pages, titles, Descriptions, URL(Uniform Resource Locator) and a lot more things with respect to the watchwords that we sought.
Each SERP is one of a kind. Despite for chase request performed on a comparable web searcher using comparable catchphrases or interest questions. This is in light of the fact that in every way that really matters all web records re-try the experience for their customers by appearing subject to a wide extent of parts past their chase terms, for instance, the customer’s physical region, examining history, and social settings.
Kinds Of SERP?
There are three Main types of SERP as following:
1. Google Spider Bot:
It is the main sort of Search Engine Result Page. Google Spider bot crept, looked and file the pages and after that, you can see the Results on the page. These are the Organic Searches you look for the catchphrase on the Search Engine and after that, it gave the Results with respect to your watchword.
Characteristic results are postings of webpage pages that show up in view of the web searcher’s estimation (more on this in a matter of moments). Website plan improvement specialists, normally known as SEO, have useful involvement in propelling web substance and locales to rank even more exceedingly in characteristic rundown things.
2. Physically Add :
The second type is the physical add it means that The pages that physically added to the Google Database by the Google group. Google Group containers many Developers that were controlling our data.
3. Paid Search Engine :
In this sort, Marketers pay to Google to put promotions on this to pick up Results on the page. There are numerous sorts of paid promotions appeared on Google. In 2012, just Text advertisements appeared on Google But Now all sort of promotions have appeared on Google.
The guide and expert asset are the fundamental results on this SERP that are not unequivocally paid results. This guide has shown up on a customer’s territory, and feature postings for neighborhood associations in Business Account.
Google My Business is a free library of associations that can empower more diminutive neighborhood associations (Local SEO) to extend their searchers subject to Geolocation. Scrutinize this blog passage for more information on Google My Business.
4. Featured Snippets
A Featured Snippet is data pulled from an outside site and showed in a case normally at the highest point of a SERP with a connection to the site the data was pulled from. Maybe the SERP highlight with the most elevated active clicking factor (CTR), the included piece is very significant for driving traffic, ingraining brand validity, and building up your image expert.
This included bit has an immediate connection to our previous site and possesses the principal position in the SERP. While Google’s execution of some SERP features- that give answers promptly to questions, for example, this- can decrease the measure of clients that navigate, they really hold great CTRs and drive traffic. In spite of the fact that the scan volume is low for the above inquiry, the CTRs are still at a high rate.
Search Engine Optimization is extremely important for the growth of your online business. It has the ability to take your business to the next level.
SEO is considered as one of the best marketing strategies which can help you to increase the number of visitors to a website. A business with a website and online presence is necessary for the growth and development of your business. Search Engine Optimization can again build brand awareness by implementing the best strategies to create fast, robust, and user-friendly websites that can help you to rank higher in the search engines.
There are several companies which offer a wide range of services such as keyword and keyphrase optimization, on-page and off-page SEO and many more. SEO Ghana can help you to get the best services at an affordable price.
Here are some of the major benefits of search engine optimization:
User-friendly website: It will help you to create a faster, smoother, and user-friendlier website. Always remember that a well-structured, clean, and uncluttered websites attract more visitors. The content which is optimized used to improve the user experience.
Customer Retainer: Search Engine Optimization is one of the most efficient and affordable marketing strategies and optimized website tends to attract more customers with it. It is beneficial to bring the targeted traffic to your website. It is the best marketing tactics you’ll ever use to attract these customers.
Better Conversion Rates: SEO optimized websites load faster and they are easy to read. It is important for you to understand that websites that are easy to read and navigate are most likely to grab the reader’s attention. They will help you to become your loyal customers, subscribers, and returning visitors. It exposes you to the entire market of individuals searching for you.
Built Brand Awareness: It is considered as an important strategy to build brand awareness. When your website appears on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing that your customers will, more likely you play a significant role in making or breaking your brand.
These are some of the benefits of search engine optimization. Always remember that the business which has optimized website will achieve higher ranking in the search engine result pages. You must invest in SEO marketing strategy so that you can create an effective strategy for your business. It builds a strong web presence and bypasses your competitions to gain new customers for your business. Search Engine Optimization rankings have the ability that will help you to improve your website’s click-through-rate. It can make your website safe and secure and protect them from viruses and fraud. The benefits of SEO are endless and It can generate traffic, leads, and sales for your website. If you do not want to grow your business with techniques like cold calling, networking, or other forms of “push” advertising then you can invest in SEO campaign as it will be beneficial for your business.
Since the web first ushered in a new era of e-commerce, marketplaces, payment services, and massive scaling of shipping and distribution networks have made e-commerce successful. This reading considers how e-commerce might change over the next decade.
4. After clicking View in 3D, if you want to view a true-to-size version of the animal in your physical space, click View in your space.
Note: This step requires you to give the app access to your device’s camera, microphone, and device storage.
Traditional marketing is marketing that isn’t online. Marketers reach potential customers through printed media, television, radio, direct mail, phone calls, or billboards. Digital marketing is marketing that is exclusively online. Digital marketers focus on potential customers who engage with online content, including search engine results, email, video, blogs, or social media.
This reading describes the advantages digital marketing has over traditional marketing and some definite challenges, too.
While it may seem overwhelming, the importance of social media cannot be overstated. It’s so important that 97% of marketers and 78% of salespeople are using social media for their business. Plus, its benefits extend far beyond increasing sales. However, not all businesses are aware of the benefits of social media marketing. 50% of small businesses aren’t using social media to promote their business. That’s an alarming number. Even more concerning is that an additional 25% don’t plan to use social media in the future either.
1. Makes it easy to promote your business
2. Help you increase your clients reach
3. Promotes brand recognition and awareness
4. Increase traffic to your website
5. Build your conversions
6. Enhance communication and engagement with target audiences
7. It is mostly FREE!
Do you now see the relevance of using social media marketing to boost your brand online and drive sales? Are you ready to get started with marketing on social media? Here are a few things to consider before you kick-start your social media marketing
Social media strategy planning starts with identifying your brand’s goal. Maybe, you want to use social media to increase your brand awareness, generate engagement around your brand, or even drive website traffic and sales this year. Either way, your goals will define your content strategy and how much time and energy you’ll need to dedicate to your campaigns. Additionally, the goals you set for your business must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound). Starting a social media marketing campaign without a strategy goal in mind is like going to visiting a new city without a map—you might have fun, but probably get lost.
Second, research to know which social media platforms your competitors are and where they have their largest reach/following. Your competitors can provide valuable data for keyword research and other social media marketing insight. Start by creating accounts on the same platforms to beat the competition, but always do it better! You can also figure out which social media platforms you want to focus on.
Aside from the major social media platforms, there are also social messaging platforms like Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat you can explore. Always start with a few platforms that you think your target audience is rather than to be on all platforms.
By now, you have managed to figure out your strategy goal through research and planning. But how about your content strategy? The next thing to consider after setting out your goal is to develop your content strategy with great, compelling, and innovative ideas.
Publishing content to social media is as simple as sharing a blog post, an image, or a video on your personal Facebook or Instagram profile. But in this case, you will want to plan your content ahead of time instead of creating and publishing content spontaneously. Also, your content must be informative, educational, or entertaining depending on the goal you set for yourself in the beginning. Examples of content you can consider are stories, images, short-lived videos, and showing your audience the human behind the posts they see. To ensure you are maximizing your reach, always publish content at the right time and frequency.
There are a variety of social media scheduling tools that can help you publish your content automatically at your preferred time. This saves you time and allows you to reach your audience when they are most likely to engage with your content.
As your business and social media following begins to grow, conversations about your brand will also increase if you strategise well. One key to being successful in social media is to listen and interact with your audience. People will comment on your social media posts, tag you in their social media posts, or message you directly. Always find time to respond and address their concerns. This will show you are reliable and they can trust you for a quick response to your products.
So what is social listening? Social listening involves tracking conversations around your brand and in your industry and using the information to review your marketing strategies. Social listening and interacting will help you understand your audience better, where they like to hang out, and what they like to talk about. It is simply finding out what people are saying about you. If you’re not using social listening, you’re leaving a lot of great insights on the table.
Social listening and social monitoring are however two different things. Social listening involves what your audience does and social monitoring is about why they do what they do.
People might even talk about your brand on social media without letting you know. So you will want to monitor social media conversations about your brand. If it’s a positive comment, you get a chance to surprise them. Otherwise, you can offer support and correct a situation before it gets worse. There are several social media listening tools out there that you can use, explore and find the one that best suits you and your budget.
Along the way, you will want to know how your social media campaign is performing. Are you reaching more people on social media compared to months back? How much positive feedbacks do you get? How many people used your brand’s hashtag on their social media posts? The social media platforms themselves provide a basic level of such information.
To get more in-depth analytics information or to easily compare across social media platforms, you can use a wide range of social media analytics tools. For example, 
When you have more funds to grow your social media marketing, an area that you can consider is social media advertising. Social media ads allow you to reach a wider audience than those who are following you. These platforms are so powerful nowadays that you can specify exactly who to display your ads to. You can create target audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviours, and more.
When you are running many 
Digital assets and strategies are vital in today’s market and if you don’t keep up, you will be left behind. Let’s take a look at what your business needs to maximise its marketing plan and start reaping profits.
With technology continually evolving, so do the behaviours of consumers. As a result, we have seen how traditional forms of advertising has continued to decline. We have also watched how digital advertising have grown from strength to strength. Some reasons for this include, an increase in the way we access information, news and an increased activity on digital devices. In addition, digital marketing is affordable, which allows any sized business with any size budget to target specific markets effectively. Today, just having a website is no longer enough to engage your audience and convert them to new customers. It is now important to consider implementing a complete digital plan that works across multiple channels.
With this in mind, here are 7 reasons why you need digital marketing for your business:
With the growth of the internet, more people are spending their time online. Over 
With digital marketing you know the following about your ads and audience:
The ability to target the right audience is one of the most obvious reasons why digital marketing is important. Imagine being able to market directly to people who have an interest in your products or services. You have the capability to directly reach leads interested in your business.
With digital marketing, you can target your audience more precisely than traditional methods. You can input important information about your audience and use that information to shape your marketing campaigns. It makes it easy for you to reach the right people. When you better target your audience, you drive better results with your campaign and reach more leads.
The importance of digital marketing is that you can easily track and monitor your campaigns. When you invest time and money into your campaigns, you want to know that they are working. Internet marketing makes it easy for you to track your campaigns, which allows you to adapt and drive better results.
It can be challenging using traditional methods to know the results of your campaign. If you run a TV ad, you may have to ask every person that comes into the store about what brought them to your business. It would be a very time-consuming effort that could annoy people who visit your business. You don’t need to worry about bothering your audience with online ads. Every campaign you run is easily trackable to see if it is driving valuable results for your business. In addition, metrics such as impressions, clicks, views, comments, conversions, and more can be analysed.
When you track your campaign’s performance, it’s easier to fix it and adapt to changes. With traditional advertising campaign, you typically can’t make changes until the campaign is over. It only benefits the next campaign you run, which can feel like you wasted money on the previous campaign. Whereas with online ads, you can see if they are successful or need improvement. If they need improvement, you can make immediate changes and implement them at any point during your campaign. In addition, online marketing helps you spend your budget more wisely to get more out of your campaigns.
If you want to know the importance of digital media, look at the results it drives for businesses. Marketing strategies online have awesome return on investment (ROI). When you invest in these methods, you’ll get more out of them. For example, email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing method. Every $1 spent, you have the potential to earn a whopping 4400% in return. This is a great opportunity for you to grow and earn a profit from your marketing efforts.
Internet marketing is also cost-effective and hence, leaves room for a great ROI. It doesn’t cost much to run a social media ad campaign, compared to certain traditional methods, and this gives businesses an opportunity to grow.
For small businesses, it becomes very clear when you see how easy it is to scale and adapt as your business grows. Example, with social media campaigns, you can choose a daily budget and know how much it will cost without having to renegotiate an ad spot on TV. As you continue to convert that traffic, you just increase your daily spend and revenues with it. If you got a massive order from a customer and need to scale back to avoid getting backlogged, it’s just as easy. The power of 
At SEO Digital, we recommend a professional online plan to raise awareness of your business and engage with prospective customers. Hence, strong digital marketing strategy should consist of the following elements:
Digital marketing is becoming more complex, as we develop new ways of effectively reaching clients and driving revenues online. Your digital marketing strategy and assets are essential in driving business success. Contact SEO Digital today on info@seoghana.com or +233 50 664 3847 if you would like to review your business’ online marketing to increase your client base and profits. 
The eCommerce industry is a big game in Ghana now. There are different phases that depict the success of an eCommerce Business. Each of these phases has a distinct role to play in the making of a website to outstand competitive grounds. Ghana has experienced large setups venturing into the web eCommerce and Courier business but the problem is, are they doing it right?
Research has shown that more than 50% of the total world’s population is now going online shopping with over 30% increase every year. E-commerce will develop at a twice faster rate in the coming years. It has already been found that more than 40% of the purchased done by the millennial is through eCommerce and predicted to rise to more than 60 % by the year 2021.
Investing in e-commerce platforms is fairly simple but not easy. Allocating money can be fun but you will have to do your due diligence and choose to select the right few to generate the most gains over your investing horizon. Investing in these companies will have lower downsides and will take much less time.
The first thing that comes to the mind of eCommerce entrepreneurs, is BUDGET! But it is never a good practice to start an eCommerce web development project based on budget. Though a prime factor, your budget should not limit your progression and analysis of potentials, only the choice that you make after exploring all the possibilities. Also, talk to SEOGHANA to explore the options you have to set your eCommerce business as a brand because a brand always comes with a better competitive advantage.
