web development
Online Marketing Communications…Everyone’s Doing it!
Image courtesy of wisewebweasel.com.
It seems that online marketing, search engine optimization and web development have been swept up by a tidal wave of mediocre providers. Desperate to salvage market share after the internet made their business models or corporate jobs obsolete, many are barging with wreckless abandon into the wild, wild west of online communications. Corporate middle managers, phone book companies, newspapers, event companies and physical media suppliers are saying they provide everything a business needs in the world of online marketing communications, including SEO, Social Media, web development and even web video.
The problem is, they don’t have any experience, education or background in these areas, so they’re just marking it up and farming it out. Or worse, learning how to do it on your dime and your time. In business, you want to work directly with the experts because nothing beats their experience and who needs a middle man? Before considering these snake oil sales people, make sure to check their track record: How long have they been in the industry? How many companies are they working with in this capacity? Who does the actual work? With a few pointed questions, you can find out if they are truly experts or just jumping in on the latest trend.
Feed and Nurture Your Web Site with Fresh Content
Your web site and Facebook fanpages are like vegetable gardens. If you simply plant a bunch of seeds and let it go, they might produce some vegetables. But if you really want a garden to bear the most produce, you need to water and nurture it.
Same with your web site and your Facebook fanpage. If you simply slap something up, you might get a few inquiries. But if you really want it to perform, you need to constantly feed and nurture them with fresh content.
Are you frustrated because your web site or Facebook fanpage isn’t performing to your expectations? Are you ready to start nurturing your site or fanpage into a customer-generating machine that it could be?
Let us know, we’d love to help!
82% of B2B Marketers Rely on Content Marketing
A recent article in Entrepreneur explains why content marketing is king. The article quotes research by HiveFire that found that an impressive 82 percent of B2B marketers now employ content marketing as a strategy in their marketing programs. Coming in at a distant second place is search engine marketing at 70 percent, followed by events at 68 percent, public relations at 64 percent and print/TV/radio advertising at 32 percent.
The article goes on to say that “part of the popularity of content marketing is its ability to generate qualified leads while engaging prospects in a branded environment without busting the budget.”
Further proof that content marketing is an important component in a B2B marketing strategy.
Survey Proves Good Web Video Generates Leads
The B2B Technology Marketers on LinkedIn conducted a survey recently to better understand the current state of B2B content marketing and identify key challenges as well as best practices. Here are a few of the findings (direct from their results):
- Content marketing is growing dramatically in popularity with over 71 percent of respondents doing more of it than a year ago (in contrast, only 2 percent are doing less).
- The biggest motivator for content marketing is its ability to drive awareness, leads, and engagement with prospects, to compensate where where traditional tactics are falling short.
- The most popular content formats are case studies, presentations at live events, white papers, online articles and videos.
- The biggest challenge: producing truly engaging content.
- The most popular channels to deliver content are website, live events, email.
- The top performance metric for content marketer is leads.
- Corporate marketing owns content marketing in most organizations and spends an average of 20 percent of budget on content marketing.
Check out the full report here and share it:
http://www.slideshare.net/hschulze/b2b-content-marketing-report
Survey results posted and shared by Holger Schulze
http://www.linkedin.com/in/productmarketingexpert
Put a Face on Your Business
If you’re a business owner, you know the value of personal connections and how they create loyal customers.
In our digital world, we’re often missing that personal connection that can help a business grow.
How can you make that connection online?
At MCG we’re helping bring back the personal touch for business owners by developing personal introduction videos. It’s the next best thing to meeting the owner in person and prospective customers can “meet” you while you’re working. (or sleeping)
Visit our YouTube channel to see how some business owners are putting a face (and personality) on their business via their web site and social media.
Use Mobile Video to Engage Customers
Mobile video is growing at astounding rates. In Google mobile ads blog, Google reports that out of 16,000 surveyed, 75% report that mobile is their primary way of watching YouTube content!
Mobile marketing is the most intimate form of marketing available. Face it, your phone is with you 24/7. What other form of marketing can claim that the consumer has access to ads WHENEVER they want them, WHEREVER they want them and HOWEVER they want them? Mobile marketing is also the least annoying form of marketing because it’s opt-in. MCG is producing digital media for screens large and small. We’re working with mobile tactics to help our clients merge their offline and online marketing.
At MCG we’re ready to help you make the connection and engage your customers. To see an example of one way it works, scan our QR code to see our one minute demo video.
To get a free QR reader – visit http://get.neoreader.com on your device or visit your market store or app store.
Got Video?
It should come as no surprise to you that video is being “consumed” across multiple platforms; TV, Internet and Mobile. In fact, the viewing of video is now considered a “global phenomenon” according to Nielsen’s Global Consumer Report – August 2010.
70% of global online consumers watch online videos. That is good news. The even better news is that North Americans and Europeans lag in adoption. Why is that good news? Because it means that you still have time to be on the forefront of this booming trend by developing a quality video* and get it on your web site to help your customers, members or students understand what exactly it is that you do, sell or teach.
Whats next for us? Since 1904 we’ve been staring at screens. The new screens hitting the market are 3DTV, “Over the Top” (a TV with an internet connection) and Tablets, like the Apple iPad.
*Quality drives quantity in the video arena. If you want your video to be viewed, shared and remembered, it needs to be concise and professionally produced – luckily you know us here at MCG and our reputation for quality.