Global ad spending is set to rise almost 5% this year to reach a total of $465.5 billion according to new numbers from research firm Strategy Analytics.
The total U.S. spending rate is set to grow 2.7%, up from .6% in 2011. Global online spending is predicted to grow the fastest, by 12.8% to $83.2 billion – meaning 18% of total ad spend.
Online ad spending is still leading the way, though growth has slowed due to the growing maturity of online spending. In 2011, Internet media revenue grew by 21.4%, but is set to only grow 10.9% in 2012.
Despite the slowdown in growth, digital advertising is set to increase its share of the global ad market from 15.9% in 2011 to 21.2% in 2014.
So what do we know from these numbers? Well, for starters, digital advertising is growing rapidly, and is eroding TV’s 40% global share of all advertising dollars. These numbers represent important trends that you must acknowledge as a small business owner. Gone are the days where creating a radio or TV ad was enough; now, you need to be invested in social marketing, banner advertising, search optimization and have a killer website.
So who is going to help you wade through these treacherous waters? Well, that’s why we’re here. We’ve created hundreds of digital marketing campaigns, and we’ve successfully increased sales and revenue for all our clients.
If you have any other questions about what we do or ways we can help out your business, let us know in the comments or contact us on our website.
So Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, which means millions of couples around the U.S. will be purchasing traditional Valentine’s Day things such as flowers, jewelry, candy, and clothes. So how can you use this to your advantage? The answer is with digital marketing and advertising.
Even if you don’t sell any of the traditional Valentine’s Day gifts, use this holiday as a chance to offer a special promotion, and perhaps even persuade your customers that a new car or hot tub is a better alternative to blowing money on an expensive dinner and diamond bracelet. Sending these kinds of updates through email gives you an easy way to tell all your customers that you’re offering a special.
Follow these three tips to make your Valentine’s email blast successful.
1. Target men
Segment your email list to your male customers. The reason you do this is simple: men spend more than twice as much as women on Valentine’s Day. That means you need to use language targeted to males. Stress the importance of coming up with a gift for their special someone, and highlight the idea of giving a unique gift, depending on what it is that you’re selling.
2. Timing is everything
Depending on how much your product costs, you might want to send the email out a couple of weeks in advance. If your product is a little cheaper, a few days before – or even on – Valentine’s Day will work because it will be fresh in their mind about buying a gift for their significant other.
3. Promote it via social channels
Social Media is a great way to promote your Valentine’s Day offer. Provided that you have a fair amount of followers, sending out timely updates leading up to Valentine’s Day can give your fans and followers a reason to check out your store.
There you have it. Follow these three tips, and you could capitalize on thousands of local Valentine’s Day shoppers. For more tips on local marketing and advertising, check out the rest of our blog or go to our website.
Digital marketing is continuing to grow compared to traditional forms of advertising among small and medium-sized companies (SMBs).
According to BIA/Kelsey, digital spending for US SMBs is expected to reach $16.6 billion annually by 2016.
That means 70 percent of SMB marketing budgets will be spent on digital. In 2010, SMBs spent 52 percent of their budgets on traditional marketing and advertising, but that number will shrink to 30 percent in 2015.
Digital marketing includes mobile, social, online directories, online display, retargeting, search, and more.
Neal Polachek, president of BIA/Kelsey, said SMBs are using digital practices to engage their customers for longer periods of time.
“With the advent of daily deals to drive customer acquisition, SMBs are now increasingly focused on leveraging technological solutions to engage, grow and retain a higher percentage of their customers,” said Polachek. “As this trend accelerates, these SMBs will turn to outside providers to harness simple tools, which will enable them to maximize the long-term value of each new customer they acquire.”
Some of the other Key takeaways from the report are as follows:
Overall, U.S. SMB spending on media, marketing and business solutions will grow from $22.4 billion in 2010 to $40.2 billion in 2015, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 percent.
SMB spending on traditional advertising will be essentially flat during the forecast period, experiencing a 0.6 percent CAGR, from $11.8 billion in 2010 to $12.1 billion in 2015.
SMB spending on digital/online media will grow from $5.4 billion in 2010 to $16.6 billion in 2015 (24.9 percent CAGR).
SMBs will also increase spending on performance-based commerce and transaction platforms, from $1.7 billion in 2010 to $4.6 billion in 2015 (21.5 percent CAGR).
Spending by SMBs on customer retention business solutions will grow from $3.5 billion in 2010 to $6.9 billion in 2015 (14.6 percent CAGR).
As you can see, digital marketing and advertising are becoming increasingly important. There’s no excuse for why you shouldn’t have your own digital marketing campaign. Contact us today to learn more.
I’m glad you asked. An SMS campaign is a form of marketing that allows you to interact with your customers via text. It’s similar to an email campaign, but is faster and easier to create since it requires no creative other than an initial campaign to get your customers’ numbers, and your 160 character message.
What happens is this:
We set up your SMS shortcode and keyword. For example, if you owned a pizza place it might be PIZZA at 96000. This is basically your business’ texting phone number. That way, if your customer texts PIZZA to 96000, they’ll be included in your texting database, and be eligible for future promotions.
We create a campaign to get your customers to sign up for text alerts. We might say “Text PIZZA to 96000 and receive exclusive discounts!” This way, you can use your existing advertising to market your SMS campaign, increasing the number of sign-ups.
We send out updates. We’ll manage your entire customer base and send out the message for you. All you have to do is think of the promotion you want to do.
Why do I want one?
Someone probably told you 15 years ago that you need to be collecting email addresses of your customers so you can communicate with your client base. You might not have listened. Now, I’m here to tell you that getting your customer’s phone numbers is arguably more important than getting email addresses.
SMS campaigns have extremely high open and opt-in rates, and help you reach a broad customers base. Not everyone has a smartphone, but virtually everyone has a phone with texting capabilities.
Also, SMS Messages have a 95 percent open rate, compared to just 11 percent for email marketing messages. This means you can be sure your message doesn’t get lost or ignored.
Our phone is the most intimate form of technology we have. It’s always with us, allowing you to offer the right deal to the right person at the right time. SMS campaigns are an easy way to increase communication and develop a strategy to reach more customers than you ever have before.
Still not convinced? Check out our posts here and here for more stats about the importance and relevance of doing an SMS campaign.
Contact us today and we’ll give you a free consultation for an SMS campaign of your own.
That title is misleading. To have a great online presence you need more than just search, display ads and retargeting, but these points are a good starting place for any local business who wants to convert more online shoppers and increase its revenue.
Each of these parts can be used on their own, but function stronger when used together. Just look at the title, we called it a trifecta, and everyone knows that a triangle is the strongest shape. If you didn’t, well you just got a geometry lesson as well as a digital advertising lesson. You’re welcome.
If you want to visualize how these three aspects work better together, take a look at the chart below. As you can see, using search and display ads together gives much higher returns than using them separately. .
Search The first part of the equation is search. As we covered in a previous post, search is huge, and should not be taken for granted. Search has become the gateway to the Internet, so you need to start using search advertising to appear at the top of search rankings. It’s called SEM, and it looks like this:
Those big red circles are where your ads show up. That means that when someone searches for products or services that your business delivers, your ads appears, increasing hits to your website.
The only problem with search is that only 4% of time on the Internet is spent in search engines, and 96% is spent doing everything else. You might think search isn’t worth it, but everything on the Internet stems from search, so it should remain an important piece of your online strategy. Search gets your foot in the door, but the next two parts help you walk through it and sell your products. . Display Ads The second aspect is display advertising. Display ads show up on websites around the world, and their main goal is to boost traffic to the owner’s website. The first display ad was in 1994, and looked like this:
Since 1994, display advertising has grown tremendously. In Q2 2011, more than 1.1 trillion display ads were served across the world, and this number is only going to increase as more and more people come online. The only problem with display advertising is that, a lot of the time, it gets ignored. Internet users train themselves to overlook the ads, thinking they’re irrelevant. That’s where the third part comes in.
Retargeting Retargeting is the last piece of the puzzle, and the part that ties it all together. If you weren’t aware, 97% of your website visitors leave and never come back. Retargeting is display advertising that essentially follows up with the customer after they visit your website. It works like this: the consumer visits your website; they pick up a special line of code that places a cookie in their browser; your ads get delivered to the consumer as they are surfing the web, reminding them of your website. ComScore created a handy cartoon to show how it works from the consumer’s end:
Retargeting is unique because it displays ads to consumers who have already shown interest in your products, making them easier to convert. It’s a win-win situation because the user gets ads that are relevant to their desires, and you get more sales in return.
Let us Help you!
As you can see, our trifecta of online advertising will help you see a greater return on your online ad spend. Check out our website and our past products and see how we can help you. Fill out a form on our site or call us to learn more.
