Identifying target audience 'is vital for online marketing'

Ecommerce firms looking to develop their online marketing strategy could benefit from recent advice from an industry expert.

According to Mike Seddon, founder of KKSmarts.com, it is vital for businesses to identify their target audience in order to reap the benefits provided by the internet.

By doing so, companies are able to establish a method of promotion by assessing the main reason members of the public visit their website, he argued.

In addition, Mr Seddon highlighted the need for firms to work out the reasons behind the development of a page in a bid to ensure they are successful in online marketing.

"Some businesses decide that the website is going to be the vehicle by which they sell their services, some businesses will decide that it's not where they're going to sell from," he explained.

Mr Seddon also encouraged companies to be specific when considering phrases for search engine optimisation, rather than concentrating on broader terms.

"If you're a well-known brand name you probably want to rank highest on the name of your brand," he remarked.

Earlier this month, the Las Vegas Review Journal highlighted the importance of high-quality online marketing techniques for small businesses to achieve success.

Regardless of limited IT staff, the newspaper claimed that firms could use technology to their advantage in a bid to keep computer-savvy consumers interested in their services.

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4 first world marketing mistakes to avoid making

There’s an old adage that goes, “you need to break a few eggs to make a cake”. This doesn’t mean, however, that you have to break every egg you have in order to get the cake just right. There is a bit of an advantage to being in an emerging economy. The fact that first world markets have gone through the pain of developing and learning online marketing techniques first means there is a wealth of knowledge which emerging economies can learn from in order to ensure that their online marketing strategy is optimally efficient and not always exploratory.

Why do emerging economies need to learn from first world mistakes?

In first world economies, and especially in big business, there is a lot of cash to go around and it takes a little while before the mistakes pile up enough to be a catastrophic failure to the point where the business may fall over. So, what are some of the mistakes that first world marketers have made (and continue to make)?

1. Huge, Big, Awesome Complicated Ideas
Just because an idea is clever, doesn’t mean that it is going to work. When planning your marketing campaign, always look through to the action that you need your users to take. Amazon is brilliant at doing this. They are constantly testing and evaluating their site to ensure that users who interact with it have an intuitive sense of where to go and what to do. Ensure that there are as few hurdles your users need to jump to do business with you as possible.

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Tips for finding customers online

Jay Bean is CEO of OrangeSoda of American Fork, which helps small businesses market themselves online. He offers answers to common questions business owners have about online marketing.

What’s the first step to an online marketing strategy?

Everyone wants more customers but they don’t always think about how the customers will arrive. I’ve seen dozens of service companies that will drive traffic to a website that doesn’t have a phone number listed. Once you have a goal set, everything else will fall into place. Everything you do should be built around that goal.

What does search engine optimization mean and how does it affect my business?

It’s just a fancy way of saying "make [my] stuff show up on Google (or Bing)." When people look for a business, they don’t use the Yellow Pages anymore; instead, they search online. Search engine optimization, either through keywords or key phrases, helps businesses show up before their competitors.

What is the best strategy for combining and optimizing social, mobile and search online marketing tools to help consumers find a local business on the Internet?

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Google, Telekom Malaysia team up on online marketing services

Malaysia's Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM), one of Asia's top telecommunications company, has entered into a year-long strategic partnership with Internet search engine giant Google Inc to provide an online marketing tool for the small and medium enterprises using its services.

Under the collaboration, selected TM SME customers will be offered Google AdWords marketing coupons worth 150-500 RM (Malaysian ringgit) (about Rs 2,000 to Rs 7,000) to advertise on the Google advertising platform, Google AdWords.

The coupons will only be given out free during the initial stage of the collaboration.

TM Executive Vice-President overlooking SME Azizi A Hadi said currently, there are about 398,000 SMEs registered with the company.

"With SMEs contributing to 37 per cent of Malaysia's GDP, they are a force to be reckoned with in the nation's economic development. This year, TM is continuing the focus on collaborating with local industry players as part of our efforts to increase our outreach to SME communities," he said.

He added that for now there was no revenue-generation from this collaboration.

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Best At Cruises appoints Absolute Internet Marketing

Online cruise retailer, Best At Cruises, has appointed Absolute Internet Marketing to work on search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) marketing.

The company is appointing the Leicestershire based internet marketing agency to make its website prominent when prospective customers use search engines to look for holiday or cruise companies.

Simon Colley, Absolute's managing director, said: “The opportunity to work with a well established UK tour operator who already operates a suite of successful travel websites is fantastic news.

“Each year more and more British holidaymakers are opting for a cruise holiday, and with many leading cruise operators growing the number of exciting itineraries tailored purely towards the UK market, there's never been a better time and choice for those wishing to try a cruise. So it's a great time for us to be involved in this sector.”

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Online Stores Have a New Social Media Marketing Tool

Facebook Marketing Leverages Friends Network with Clever Ecommerce Tool

Vista, CA. – Do You Buddy, Inc. (BBB), a California-based marketing company, has launched its social media shopping companion "Buddy Buddy Buddy", viewable at http://www.doyoubuddy.com. After over 2 years of creation, program development, and planning, BBB is set to take social networking and marketing to a new level of compatibility, giving online merchants the ability to leverage the power of the internet's largest social media platform, while at the same time providing attractive incentives for online shoppers to participate in the program. In addition, BBB gives online retailers the ability to custom market their products on an individual basis.

"Social media is the hottest thing on the internet right now," Do You Buddy co-founder Dale Wozny says. "But so far no one has come up with a way to properly monetize these social connections. We believe we've addressed this problem by providing online shoppers with rewards when their Facebook friends make purchases. This incentivizes them to tell their friends about the items they are buying online."

For online merchants, Buddy Buddy Buddy seems to be a naturally progressive move. By becoming a participating BBB e-tailer, merchants can gain a steady stream of customers motivated to buy their products and let their friends know about their purchases.

"Finally, online sellers will have a way to leverage the viral power of social networking to bring in loads of new customers without all the costs associated with pay per click and other forms of online advertising," Wozny continues. "We believe this will truly revolutionize the way products are bought and sold online."

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