Ecommerce and Digital Media Concepts for Entrepreneurs by March Oyinki

Digital Communication & Marketing Office: 1 Ufondu Nnaji Crescent, United Estate, Sangotedo, 504101, Lekki, Lagos. Phone: 08058332988 [email protected]

Business succeed when they know how to sell their brand online to the public and attract the right customers. You need an expert to help you make these far reaching decisions. If you have any questions, call us!

Online Advertising and Digital Media Marketing

1. Social Media 101: Do's and Don'ts ……………………………………………….. 4

2. Why Brand Visibility is Important for Startups ………………………………. 14

3. Social Media: Clash between Business and Pleasure ……………………. 19

4. Affiliate Marketing: Why it Remains the Backbone of Ecommerce? 24

5. Is Eyeo's Ads Blocker Really Hurting the Digital Marketing Industry? 36

6. Online Marketing: Some Hard Facts you should know …………………. 44

7. Why some Online Marketing Campaigns Fail ……………………………….. 53

Contents

Social Media 101: Do's and Don'ts 01

4

© March Oyinki 2017

Introduction

Mobile devices have revolutionized digital communication, especially with the

exponential growth of social media. All kinds of apps are abound, from remote

access to 'jail braking' apps, and there are also a bunch of social media apps that

have completely changed the way people communicate. Both the young and

elderly are caught in this web of inter-connectivity that mobile devices have

provided. While this digital revolution is good for making life a lot more easy, by

allowing us to reconnect and relate with love ones and friends, it comes with its

down side.

Mobile phones and social media apps are so interrelated that one feels almost

incomplete when your phone is without data. While social media brings joy to a

lot of people, it also a reason for many deaths, broken relationships and

financial loss. It is pertinent to understand the rules and guidelines of the use of

social media for you to make the best use of it both in your personal life and

business endeavor as well.

e-Commerce and Digital Media Concepts for Entrepreneurs 5

Social Media 101: Do's and Don'ts

Here are a few tips to help you have an effective and beneficial social media

experience starting with do's:

Do join the social media train: Social Media has come to stay as a form of

communication both for business and personal use. Be part of the social media

crave, shutting yourself out of it only complicate things. Social media has

become the fastest most cost effective communication tool. Allowing you to

share messages, photographs and videos with friends and customers real-time.

It has effectively diminished the application of traditional communication

methods such as facsimile, cable and photocopying machines, particularly for

informal communication.

Do respond to friends post: Participate in discussions, mostly with people you

know, be interactive. If you are cold and passive and do not like or comment on

other people's post, they are more likely to ignore your own post and that may

translate to poor acceptance of product promotion or advertisement.



Do connect to new friends: Building up a steady followers list allows you to

touch base with your family and friends in one go. It also provides you an

audience to promote your product and services particularly for those who are

into business, as a cost effective advertising channel.

Do post regularly: Most social media applications work the same way as search

engines. How visible your page is and are seen by your contacts, depends on

you activity level. Regular but intermittent post on your page or a simple 'like'

or short comment on someone else's post will greatly help to boost your online

visibility and increase your marketing reach.

Do promote your company: Be your company's brand ambassador by sharing

post or tagging photographs from your company's page, add your job title to

your profile. Ensure you clearly mark personal posts from company posts by

way of creating a group or a separate photo album for your team members or



employees, or use a hashtag(#) to clearly indicate that the posts are related to

the company, such as #WorkLifeBalance, #CompanyOfChoice,

#DiversityMoment etc.

Provided below are a few don'ts that you need to pay particular attention to:

Do not share obscenity: Social Media gives you freedom to post any and

everything under heaven, but you must know that every freedom has a limit.

Just as you have freedom to share, others also have the right to decide what

they receive. Keep it modest, because unlike traditional media where you have

control ratings such as G: General audiences, PG: Parental guidance suggested,

PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned, R: Restricted, social media has very limited

or no rating controls other than your privacy settings which most people don’t

even know about anyways.



Do not engage in falsehood: There is a lot of falsehood circulating in social

media. Greater number of information shared in Social Media are falsified,

adulterated or outright made up. There is a high prevalence of impersonation,

fake personalities and fraudulent characters present in Social Media. Sharing

false information will lead to distrust and eventual unfriending.

Do not allow social media suck you in: Social Media is addictive, just like any

other thing about life, abuse leads to addiction and the consequences of that, in

a lot of cases, are dare in private, social and business life. Ensure social media

does not distract you from more important things like work and relationships. It

is reasonable to maintain a balance. Spending much time on frivolities on social

media, amounts to waste of money.



Do not accept strangers as friends: Do not accept a friend request just

because someone sends you a friend request. Only accept people you know or

have been following for some time and you have reasonable background

information about. Always do background checks of persons before accepting

their friend request. Engaging such persons on a telephone or Skype

conversation helps you understand the personality and disposition of that

individual, as it provides both voice and face-to-face interaction. Above all,

phone numbers are a verifiable form of identification that can easily be traced to

their owner.

Do not be an expert in everything: The saying that “jack of all trade is a

master of none” still holds sway on social media. An audience that is feed with a

barrage of expert advice on varying subject matter, will easily loose their

confidence on such a person. Create a personality for yourself by being focused,

because, multiple personality may confuse your audience and that in turn may

lead to distrust.



Do not download unsolicited files: This is peculiar to mobile phones,

especially WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, where contacts send you

unsolicited large file size images and videos that are of no significance, and they

come in their numbers. Opening or downloading these files, exhaust your data

very fast and increases your phone bill. Delete all such files from unsolicited

sources immediately you see them.



Why Brand Visibility is Important for Startups 02

12


Introduction

The primary reason why businesses are started is to offer service in exchange

for money. The act of creating awareness and making your business visible is

what we term as Brand visibility. This is an important aspect of establishing a

business, because it is only when the public knows you exist would they even

consider whether to patronize you or not.

What is Brand Visibility?

Brand visibility in the digital space, can be referred to as the process of creating

an online brand or web presence that ultimately helps to create brand

awareness. Brand Visibility can be defined as the frequency at which people see

your brand in search results, on social media, email marketing and other online

marketing channels. Brand visibility is about engaging in active online

marketing to help draw attention of your customers to your brand.


Why Brand Visibility is

Important for Startups

Creating a Brand Identity

Promoting brand visibility online requires having a web domain or a web

location where customers can find your brand, get information about your

brand and initiate a transaction. The first item in your communication plan

should be to create a brand identity. The brand identity of an organization are

elements of the company that enables it assume a personality of its own, and

gives it the legal status of a corporate citizen. The brand identity of a company is

the corporate image it wants to be identified with by it customers.

Investopedia defines a company brand identity as how that business entity

wants to be seen by customers of the brand. Some of the visible elements of the

brand, consist of the company name, logo, tone, tagline, typography, and they

are all creation of the business to represent the set value the company is trying

to bring to the market and appeal to its customers.




http://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=nid_VIrXB4eN7AajloDADA&gws_rd=ssl#q=Investopedia+%7C+brand+identity

Once you have created a brand for your company, its time to start creating

brand visibility and spreading the word of your brand through promotions and

advertisement using various available channels.

The reputation of a company is associated with its brand identity, just the same

way the integrity of an individual is associated with their reputation. People like

to do business with companies they can identify and have a name, registered

office address, and good reputation. Customers also use these criteria and

others in rating businesses. Other considerations such as timely service delivery,

good refund policy, courteous customer relation and 24/7 customer service,

and open communication channels such as phone, website, live chat, email,

Skype and social media.




Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

As an entrepreneur, you are expected to have a communication plan with a

small budget that is enough for advertising and brand promotion. If you start up

a company and no one knows you exist, then, what is the essence of starting it

in the first instance. One of the ways you can create brand visibility is through

search engine optimization rankings, which help to position your brand both in

organic and paid search results.

Choosing the Right Keywords

Ensure that you have the right keywords in the meta section of your website

that If your brand is appearing regularly on keyword searches, it tend to

increase traffic from organic to your site, and that helps to establish your brand

among your competitors and gradually move you up the search list. Selecting

appropriate keywords help your brand to gain visibility by appearing each time

a search is conducted using those keywords.




Online Marketing Channels

To promote your brand and engage your target audience, there are a number of

online marketing channels that caters for these needs and also serve a unique

audience. Social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and

Google+ are quite effective, while for promoting visual and video contents,

Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo and YouTube are great channels for creating brand

presence.

Regular Content Update

Activity is key to remain top of the pack. Regularly providing fresh information

to customers mains them visit your site for updates when they trust that there

will always be something new from you. Post new products, promotions and

information about your brand helps to keep your site active. Search engine

optimization algorithms are based on several factors including, content




http://www.linkedin.com/post/edit/why-some-online-marketing-campaigns-fail-march-oyinki

http://www.linkedin.com/post/edit/why-some-online-marketing-campaigns-fail-march-oyinki

relevance and title choice, speed of site upload, number of active domain level

links, and many more. Debashre Cchanda in his article 205 Google Ranking

Factors – Ultimate SEO Checklist for 2017, quoted Matt Cutts, Google engineer,

as saying that, in Google algorithm, good content matters more.

Engage in Brand Advertising

In assuming this corporate identity, and trying to project a unique image,

engaging in Brand Marketing and Advertising will help to push the boundary of

your brand visibility even further. As part of your communications plan,

endeavour to create a small budget for online marketing and advertising. In

2017, advertising spend will increase, an indication of a healthy market.

According to a report by Statistas, Digital Advertising revenue will account for

US$198,439m in 2017, and Global mobile advertisement spend in the same

period will account for nearly 62%, while Social Media Advertising will reach

US$27,065m, with U.S. and China leading the market.




Social Media: Clash between Business and Pleasure 03

19


Introduction

The impact of social media on productivity has both negative and positive sides.

For some employers, socializing during office hours is a complete taboo. It is

seen as a big source of distraction to the workflow process, a complete waste of

valuable time and loss of productive man-hour. This position is an extreme case,

pitched by some social commentators on the employer’s side of the divide,

while on the moderate side; there are companies that have established a social

media policy and rolled out guidelines on the use of social media in the

workplace.

These companies understand the important role social media plays in the

online marketing environment and appreciate the benefits it will bring to the

company, by allowing employees to have controlled access and use of social

media platforms to tell their stories, promote and engage prospective customers

and also to advertise the company’s brands, products and services.


Social Media: Clash between

Business and Pleasure

Some organizations have even gone further to develop customized social media

application for company employees.

By no mean can the importance of social media be down-played, because it has

fully become part and parcel of our daily lives. The interactive nature of social

media has made it so relevant, especially with mobile phones, that it has

become a companion to many, almost providing the same level of

companionship as pets, and to others, it is a pre-occupation. For these set of

people, life becomes boring and unbearable without interacting on social

media. Social media has made informal communication so easy and accessible,

particularly with instant messaging Apps, that you just find yourself glued to

your screen.




For both cooperate and private users, it is necessary that we understanding how

to moderate the amount of time that is spent on social media. That is of great

importance and even more so, if time spent on social media are official work

hours or time that you would have used more productively in your private

endeavor. So many persons have lost their jobs on that basis, and relationships

have been severed as a result of over-indulgence in social media.

Social media is no longer just for socializing, they now have commercial aspects

which can help you generating new stream of income. There are quite a number

of social media channels that now provide features that enable users to display

and sell products on their Walls or Pages. The Facebook Storefront is a typical

example of such channels. Other channels such as Affiliate Marketing Networks,

Amazon Resellers, Google Shopping Feeds, eBay Resellers, Google Search

Network also provide ecommerce opportunities.




Social media is not only for sharing family experiences, news, videos and music,

these new storefront features now allow you to share products and services

with your contacts, and to those within networks or groups that you belong.

Instead of using that valuable data credit in your mobile device or laptop to

upload images and videos that are of no economic value to you, rather, an

absolute waste of money and precious time, both to you and the person at the

other end who eventually will have to download or view your post.

Most of these ecommerce features come for free, and for those who want to

promote their products or services, it cost just a little amount to promote or

advertise your storefront. It will definitely pay you better if you divert the energy

you spend posting all sorts, and viewing everything under heaven, to begin to

advertise those products, services or skills that you have. If by any chance you

make any sales and start earning an income, it means you will be able to cover

the cost of your data subscription at the least, and pay some other bills while

you are still socializing and having a great time with friends and family.




Affiliate Marketing: Why it Remains the Backbone of Ecommerce? 04

24


Introduction

Affiliate Marketing is the most popular online advertising channel used

by Publishers to distribute content through various affiliate partners who direct

traffic to Advertisers websites for a commission. It is the highest revenue earner

in the digital marketing space, over-taking Email Marketing. It has provided

many small businesses and home office owners the opportunity to earn

multiple streams of income just by owning a laptop computer and registering

with a Merchant program.

In a survey released in February 2016 by Rakuten Affiliate Network on the

perception and effectiveness of affiliate marketing programs, shows that nearly

90 percent of advertisers said that affiliate programs were important or very

important to their overall marketing strategy, and majority of publishers also

revealed that affiliate partnerships drove more than 20 percent of annual

revenue. According to the report, affiliate marketing spend in the U.S. alone will

increase by a rate of 10% in the next five years, accounting for over USD$6.8bn.

Affiliate Marketing:

Why it Remains the Backbone

of Ecommerce?


25

http://marketing.rakuten.com/independent-survey-commissioned-by-rakuten-affiliate-network-2016





What is Affiliate Marketing?

In the beginning there was the world wide web, and electronic commerce was

the driving force during the early 90's when the technological revolution

now known as the World Wide Web evolved, and Information Technology

companies at the time, upon the realization that there were opportunities in this

new market, quickly rise to the occasion. Website owners started selling contents

created by advertisers to millions of consumers across the globe, turning

the Internet into a market place for ecommerce.

Advancements made in the area of search engine optimization (SEO) availed a

whole new opportunity for rapid growth of the web as it is today. Affiliate

marketing came to be when product owners or advertisers started registering

with Publishers and offering a fee based on traffic directed to their websites

through a process known as pay-per-click (PPC).




of Ecommerce?

Affiliate marketing is defined by Wikipedia as a type of performance-based

marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or

customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. It is a marketing

arrangement by which an online retailer pays commission to an external

website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Affiliate Marketing is a tripod relationship between three key players in the

sector consisting mainly of the Advertiser, who is the product owner; Publisher

as the Merchant; and the Consumer who are the end users. The product owner

registers as Advertiser with the Publisher and offers a fee based on pay-per-click

(PPC) to Publisher. The publisher then distribute these adverts in form of codes

to its Affiliate channel websites either as banners, links or as content to be sent

as email message.




of Ecommerce?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affiliate_marketing

Affiliate marketing programs use cookies to track transactions between the

Publisher, Advertiser and Shopper. A cookie is a technology that works with web

browsers to store information like user preferences, login or registration

information and shopping cart contents. A cookie is what enables your online

account or website remember your password and username, and displays pop-

up banners that are closely related to your search criteria. The reason why such

ads appear is that the browser has already stored your cookie.

In affiliate marketing, one task that cookies manage is to remember the link or

ad the visitor to a website clicks on. Cookies can also store the date and time of

the click, they can even store information about websites or content you like

most. There are several types of cookies and their uses, and the kind of cookie

used for affiliate marketing is the first-party cookie.




of Ecommerce?

Every visitor to a publisher's website and clicks on an advertiser's link or banner

advert are capture by the browser through the tracking cookie of the affiliate-

marketing program using unique identifies provided by the advertiser, and

records of each transaction and commission that is due. This data is stored

within the link information called parameters, and can include several

anonymous data used as attributes.

A link contains some of the identifiers used for proper tracking and auditing of

the affiliate marketing process. These links which contain unique Identifiers or

numbers are attached to the publisher’s website, advertiser and shoppers as

attributes.




of Ecommerce?

What are Identifiers?

Identifiers are a set of codes used by affiliate marketing channels to track

activities of publisher’s websites. In affiliate marketing, there are three levels of

players, the publisher, advertiser and shopper, with each having a unique

identification number known as Identifiers, issued by affiliate marketing

channels. The three Identifiers are the Publisher’s website Identification (PID),

Advertiser’s identification (AID) and Shopper’s Identification (SID).

Publisher’s website Identification is the number used in identifying the

publisher's website. A publisher may have multiple PIDs under one single

account, and multiple websites will have multiple PIDs.




of Ecommerce?

Advertiser’s identification is a number, which identifies a specific link and

enables publisher to track creative performance as well as credit the publisher

when they earn a commissionable transaction. Because each link has a unique

AID, it also allows publishers to identify the appropriate advertiser.

Shopper’s Identification is the number that enables publisher to track where

their referred actions originated from, thereby allowing them to identify and

reward their unique shoppers, and whenever a visitor makes a purchase or

completes a lead form; the SID keeps track of transactions and sales records of

shoppers.

There are several Affiliate Network Marketing programs, which are capable of

tracking and processing an enormous volume of actions and transactions.




of Ecommerce?

Commission Junction, Rakuten and One Network Direct are the top Publishers,

and for marketing channels, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are some of the

leading names in the global arena, while the top marketing channels in Nigeria

are Nairaland, Konga and Linda Ikeji.

Why Conversion Rate Drives Sales

The whole essence of affiliate marketing is the rate at which clicks by visitors

convert to purchase. Text and banners with links created by Advertisers are aim

at attracting visits to the websites by inserting attributes with unique Identifiers

in selected top-rated online marketing channels. For a website to achieve a high

conversion rate, the traffic to the site must be high.




of Ecommerce?

Reports from marketing studies estimated the average ratio of conversion as 200

visits to one, meaning that for a website to convert a single paying customer, the

visitors to the site must at least be up 200 in number, and that really does still

does not guarantee sales. For a conversion of 1000 paying customers monthly,

the average traffic will be at least 200,000 visitors. This gives an idea of the

extent of marketing and advertising efforts required to achieve high conversion

rate.

Providing Good Content is Key

Content is the king of Affiliate Marketing. How you coin your messages, and

create visual contents matters a great deal to the success of online marketing

campaign. In an article '205 Google Ranking Factors – Ultimate SEO Checklist

for 2017' written by Debashre Cchanda, quoted Google engineer, Matt Cutts, as

saying that, in Google algorithm, good content matters more.




of Ecommerce?

https://mytasker.com/blog/google-ranking-factors/



Keeping an Eye on the Bottom Line

On the side of the Publisher, the main interest is sales, whereas earning as much

commission as possible, is where the Advertiser's interest lies. For both

publisher and advertiser, the bottom line is profit, and in the Affiliate Marketing

business, the customer is king. If there is no sales, there will be no commission,

and the process of ensuring proper tracking of sales, and payment of

appropriate commissions is of great importance to both Publishers and

Advertisers. Rating the effectiveness of Affiliate marketing programs and how

efficient their tracking and payment processes are, is actually based on this

these and other considerations.

Revenue earnings remain a major driver for the affiliate marketing business, and

market watchers and advertisers are quick in going the direction of current

trends, and are ready to pitch their brands where the money lies. The Rakuten




of Ecommerce?

Affiliate Network report, which shows that Affiliate Marketing will continue to

record the highest revenue earnings globally, accounting for $6.8 billion over

the next five years, has made it clear that advertisers and marketers will

continue to make Affiliate Marketing programs their first choice online

marketing channel.

To give credence to the position, the survey also established the fact that

marketers use affiliate programs at all stages of the customer journey: 83

percent targeted consumers during the discovery and awareness phase, 79

percent during conversion or purchase and 79 percent to create ongoing

customer engagement.




of Ecommerce?

Is Eyeo's Ads Blocker Really Hurting the Digital Marketing Industry? 05

36


Introduction

The digital adverting giant Facebook, is stirring up a storm over Eyeo Ads

Blocker for preventing its ads from displaying. The rift between both companies

has com3e to be known as #AdblockWars, and described in some circle as the

cat and mouse game, with Facebook being the cat and Eyeo, the mouse.

Ironically, since Facebook is a much bigger company, Eyeo is seen as no match

in this Ads Blocker War. Media reports are already clearly in favour of Facebook

as the likely winner of this war, while the battle is still raging.

What is Ads Blocker?

Doc Searls' articles titled 'Marketing bullshit is a Structured problem' gives an

insight into the sordid nature of the battle between advertisers and the public,

of which Ads Blocker are of immense value.


37

Is Eyeo's Ads Blocker Really

Hurting the Digital Marketing Industry?

http://bit.ly/mktgbs

Why Advertisers are Kicking

Ads Blockers are making Advertisers to lose about $3.45 Billion annually, and

that is not good for the industry. Mihir Patkar's Blocking statistics firm, PageFair,

estimates that usage grew by 70% between June 2013-June 2014, with 41% of

18-29 year olds using it. In total, there are 144 million active adblock users on

the web. That’s roughly 5% of the total Internet population. Dwindling

advertising revenue has led many publishers and content provides to fight back

by offering their customers the choice of unblocking before they can access full

news feed.

This whole crises started 12 Aug, 2016, when news filtered out that Adblock

Plus was blocking both posts and ads, and that prompted a swift reaction from

Facebook, which immediately announced that it has written a code to unblock

Ad Blocker Plus, removing all ads blockers in its News Feed. Just after two days

of the Facebook's announcement,


38



Eyeo also released a 'workaround' filter upgrade of its Adblock Plus software

which unblocks and then reblock Facebook's unblocker. The tussle between

Facebook and Eyeo became a case of who is better at Ads Blocking or

Unblocking.

Eyeo's side of the Story

Ad blockers have provided a quick fix by allow customers to take control and

filter out bad ads, and that is the crux of the matter, and at the center of this

Adblock War are Mark Elliot Zuckerberg's Facebook and Eyeo's founder

Wladimir Palant's Adblock Plus. The war is actually between the public and

some unscrupulous Ad companies, that places deceptive advertisements on

Facebook that leads unsuspecting public to scam websites.


39



According to Ben Williams of Adblock Plus, Facebook’s action is a “dark path

against user choice.” This action and counter-action escalated the Adblock War,

and Facebook promptly followed with an counter-announcement that it would

regularly release updates of its unblocker to knock Adblock Plus completely out.

Now, it looks like Adblock Plus’s workaround is dead, according to Matthew

Ingram, in his article in Fortune magazine, titled "Here is Why Facebook is

Aways Going to Win the Adblockers War," the social media gaint will always

muster its tech team to find a way around Eyeo's Adblock Plus.

The current trend is indicative that consumers are not pleased with publishers

and online content merchants, who allow the proliferation of 'Bait Advertising'

on social media and news feeds channels, that misleads customers to products

or services that are completely different from what the ads display. In other

cases, ads are displays with low price, but on visiting the online store, the

customers discover that the advertised products are of inferior quality, and

often at higher prices.


40



According to Ben Williams of Adblock Plus, Facebook’s action is a “dark path

against user choice.” This action and counter-action escalated the Adblock War,

and Facebook promptly followed with an counter-announcement that it would

regularly release updates of its unblocker to knock Adblock Plus completely out.

Now, it looks like Adblock Plus’s workaround is dead, according to Matthew

Ingram, in his article in Fortune magazine, titled "Here is Why Facebook is

Aways Going to Win the Adblockers War," the social media gaint will always

muster its tech team to find a way around Eyeo's Adblock Plus.

The current trend is indicative that consumers are not pleased with publishers

and online content merchants, who allow the proliferation of 'Bait Advertising'

on social media and news feeds channels, that misleads customers to products

or services that are completely different from what the ads display. In other

cases, ads are displays with low price, but on visiting the online store, the

customers discover that the advertised products are of inferior quality, and

often at higher prices.




https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1407/bait-advertising

Technopedia defined 'Bait Advertising' as an unethical advertising technique that

involves luring the customer in with a promise of a sale or an inexpensive item

they may be interested in, and once their attention is captured, the online

advertiser changes the scheme by making the product unavailable and then

directing the consumer to like a product that is more expensive.

The Future of Ads Blockers

Matthew Ingram believes that one advantage Facebook has over Eyeo is the fact

that Facebook users don have to know when they find a way around Adblockers

patches, while for Eyeo's Adblock Plus, users must update these patches each

time it creates a filter.

Personally, I do not agree with Ingram that Adblock Plus will or has been

completely wiped out, because the Ads blocker War will be just like the Virus

War. Just as new anti-viruses are released, so too are new strands viruses

introduced, and the battle continues.




. This war will not end so soon, because this is a war of right of control by users

over steady revenue earnings from advertisements by publishers. It is a tough

battle and this is just the beginning.

The side of the divide I will pitch tent with depends absolutely on where my

interest lies at any particular time. If I become a publisher, sure, I will swing

towards unblocking Adblocker, but if I am a victim of bait advertising, like most

of us are, Eyeo's Adblock Plus will be my first choice.




Online Marketing: Some Hard Facts you should know 06


Introduction

Online marketing provides businesses with readily available audience and a

large array of channels that allow you to promote your products and services.

There are many success stories of businesses that have made a wind fall from

online marketing, and so also are there many cases of woeful failures.

Online marketing in simple terms means advertising and promoting your

products and services on the internet. By definition, it is the use of marketing

software applications, such as social media channels and email to promote,

advertise and market your corporate brand identity, and products and services

on the internet.

Online Marketing: Some Hard Facts you should know


According to Invespro, global online retail sales for 2016 hit $1.888 trillion and

a growth rate of 7.4% with a projection of $2,489 trillion and estimated growth

8.8% in 2018. United States is eight on the list of countries with the most

online retail sales, with countries like china and United Kingdom occupying

second and first places with 12.0% and 14.4% growth rates respectively. In

Africa, Nigeria tops the online retail sales with 2.3%, followed closely by Kenya

2.0% and Algeria 1.6%.

The online marketplace avails users with different methods of marketing their

products and services. There is the option of marketing by email, often called

email marketing, and we also have online merchandising, pay-per-click, network

marketing and affiliate marketing channels. These marketing channels have one

basic objective, and they are primarily to stimulate interest and entice customers

to make that online purchase.



http://www.invespcro.com/blog/global-online-retail-spending-statistics-and-trends/

http://www.invespcro.com/blog/global-online-retail-spending-statistics-and-trends/

The online marketplace avails users with different methods of marketing their

products and services. There is the option of marketing by email, often called

email marketing, and we also have online merchandising, pay-per-click, network

marketing and affiliate marketing channels. These marketing channels have one

basic objective, and they are primarily to stimulate interest and entice customers

to make that online purchase.

The questions you want to ask are, how effective are these channels, and how

much work and time do you have to put to make them work and how much

funds do you need to commit to achieve results? If you have answers to these

questions, you are likely to find somewhere in the answers the reason why

marketing experts say that there are no easy ways to achieving online marketing

success.



Successful online marketing depends largely on the target audience, the

marketing channels and of course the product itself. You really require a wide

audience as out of every 200 views of your promotional advert, it has been

statistically proven that you are likely to get no more than one click, and to get

just one willing buyer, you are required to generate another 200 clicks, meaning

that your product much reach at least 40,000 people for you to make a

successful sales.

This same reason is why it is very difficult for businesses that are not using paid

services of already established marketing channels such as Google, Yahoo!,

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the Affiliate Marketing channels, can hardly

succeed on their own. Most businesses are unable to drive sufficient traffic to

their sites to make the required sales figure that they expect.



Engaging the services of these established marketing channels that have the

audience and capacity to drive traffic to your site is costly, and you are still not

guaranteed sales. All they can do is help to drive traffic to you site. Many

business owners have spent invested much on online advertising and have

nothing to show for it in terms of sales. Just being online does not guarantee

sales, neither does online promotion guarantee sales.

It depends mostly on the size of the audience, advertising medium or

marketing channel, and product branding and product quality. Often times,

business owners try on their own to use social media platforms to promote

their products and services without actually using the paid advertising plans

available in these social media platforms, and they end up wasting time and

effort and at the end of the day, they fail to make any sales.



Just because you have a website for your products and services does not mean

you will start making online sales. There are certain minimum requirements.

Your site must be light, navigable, that is, it must be user friendly, and must

have a clear and simply product display or list, competitive pricing and quality

service or goods. The site must also have a merchant account for payment in the

currency in which you expect to be paid. It must also have a secure site stamp

from a reputable organization to guarantee that the customer can trust your

site. There must be a live chat and 24/7 customer care phone number on the

site.

It is at this point it can be said that you have setup a workable website for your

business. All these still does not guarantee instant online sales, if as mention

earlier, you do not have the required large following online to support your in-

house marketing efforts, whether it is on social media, email or affiliate

marketing channels. The hard fact is that even with all these in place, and you

use paid online marketing platforms, your sales expectations are still hanging in

the balance – 50/50.



No advertiser will ever offer you a sales guarantee, all they can do is to ensure

that your promotion gets to the target audience and in the numbers that your

advertising budget covers. It a very dicey situation, that is why organizations that

understand these principles, tread carefully not to get entangled in the

marketplace on the web.



Why some Online Marketing Campaigns Fail 07


As a result of better and secure online payment systems, a lot more people have

come to embrace ecommerce, and doing business online has now become the

trend. Consequent of this development, companies and individuals have

thronged the Internet, trying to catch-in on the opportunities created by the

ever expanding e-Commerce business. Online marketing continues to play an

extremely valuable part in the whole ecommerce system, and the main reason

why companies and individuals engage in online marketing is to create brand

awareness, generate lead and traffic, and educate customers.

Online advertising and promotion attracts enormous investments by companies

and individuals who are trying to secure a market for their products and

services. There are many who engage in online marketing without the required

understand of the principles of the market. Therefore, it is not unfamiliar to

hear argument or read about how many have invested their time, energy and

resources in marketing campaigns that have ended up to be ineffective because

they delved into it without understanding or considering the principles behind

the online market place.

Why some Online Marketing

Campaigns Fail


Many companies and individuals make the mistake of signing up with

advertising channels to promote their products and services without giving

consideration to the target audience. Every product or service has its own

peculiar target audience; it is not a one size fits all marketing campaign. It is

definitely unproductive to promote car products in an online channel that has

dedicated patronage mostly by teenagers and young adults.

To appropriately promote your brand and engage your target audience, there

are a number of online marketing channels that caters for these needs and also

serving a unique audience. Social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook,

LinkedIn and Google+ are quite effective, while for promoting visual and video

contents, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo and YouTube are great channels for

creating brand presence.


Campaigns Fail


The whole essence of corporate brands, products and services is to promote

online marketing and generate sales. Generating sales is an entirely different

ball game, and the channels used for this purpose are equally different too.

Ecommerce sites and other storefronts use these specific channels to generate

sales. Affiliate Marketing Networks, Amazon Resellers, Google Shopping Feeds,

Facebook Storefront, eBay Resellers, Google Search Network are some of these

channels.

Lead generation is an aspect of online marketing, whereby information of

potential customers are collected through links placed on specific marketing

channels that are more suitable for that purpose. These channels include, Pay-

Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Email marketing, Blogs and

Feeds, and Display Advertising.


Campaigns Fail


Understanding the role of each channel and combining them to derive the

desired goal is paramount to the success of online marketing. The key word

here is ‘target market’. The market is broadly categorized into three segments;

male, female and general, with further segmentation into children, teenagers,

adolescent and the elderly. In proposing a marketing campaign, it is critical to

understand that every single product or service is targeted at one or all of these

categorization.

Certain online channels are more suitable to promote products targeting

children, some are best for teenager and adolescent, while others are more

effective for general and the elderly, all depending on the type of product or

services that you intend to promote. Choosing a channel that will provide the

most efficient and effective results are key to a successful marketing campaign.


Campaigns Fail


In an article published by Selligent, it maintained that there is no such thing as

a best marketing channel for your business and customers, instead, it is about

what is the best mix of efficient channels for different consumer segments,

rather than about which channels show the best results, but it failed to identify

the fact that products and services have target audience, and so also are their

different market segments.

While channels such as Affiliate Marketing Networks, Amazon Resellers, Google

Shopping Feeds, Facebook Storefront, eBay Resellers, Google Search Network

attract elderly individuals who are looking for tangible items, ranging from

home appliances to machine tools, and they have the means to pay for products

and services straight on. On the other hand channels such as Twitter, Facebook,

and Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo and YouTube, are patronized by

teenagers and adolescents who are mostly following the latest trends in fashion,

games, movies and music.


Campaigns Fail


Often times the teenage and adolescent market segment may not have the

ability to convert their interest for items they find online to instant purchase,

and may have to fall back on their parents to make the purchase for them at a

later time. Same applies to children, whenever they find anything item online

that is of interest to them, they call the attention of mommy or daddy and

request for it to be bought for them. While it is strategic for online marketers to

target children and adolescent market, they should know that indirectly

targeting it is still the adult population that has the power to convert lead to

purchase.


Campaigns Fail
