Facebook Reveal New Look Right Hand Side Column Ads

As you all know I have been for some time concerned about the true value that Facebook provides those businesses that choose to promote on their platform based on the rules around it and the advertising blocking technologies that are freely available today to users who wish to use them.
However as I've also said all along we would continue to monitor any changes or improvements made by Facebook and discuss them as they happened here. On this point it has been revealed i the last week or so that Facebook will now be introducing a new ad format with the arrrival this week of the right-hand column ads.

What Are the Changes

As you can see from the Facebook blog example, the ads are more pronounced and designed to make a bigger splash in terms of impact to hopefully provide a more valuable return on investment from the businesses point of view, whist also providing better value to the reader and potential customer. On this,
Facebook clearly acknowledge the need for them to continue to refine and provide better value for the customers and users alike and this step is an obvious move in this direction.
Facebook have also sggested that initial observation has significantly higher click-through rates from users shown the new advertising design versus the previous style ad. That feedback suggests that users seeing the ads will certainly get a well targetedand impactful ad. So we certainly give that a tick.

What Will The Changes Mean

Facebook will certainly argue then that the advertisers will receive more value for their ad impressions. These ad sill also mean that users will see fewer ads on Facebook. So what will this mean to advertisers.

The inevitable result of this new format which has also been acknowledged by Facebook, that as the bidding for the space on Facebook will increase the total amount of promotional spend will inevitably also require greater promotional budget to compete at the same level. So the key question here is simply this. Is the presumed increased click through rate going to more than offset the certain increases in ad costs to provide a superior ROI? Obviously Facebook believe as they said in their own media post:
"It is our belief that the overall value delivered through this more engaging ad format will offset any potential decreases in impressions".

The true upside for Facebook of course is that they have a great ability to precisely target an audience for an advertiser based on the membership information that all users provide on joining Facebook which ticks all the segmentation criteria. Namely: demographic, geographic and psycho-graphic.
Ultimately what impact this change delivers but again we will follow it closely and monitor and incremental changes as well as anyadditional innovations facebook deliver to overcome the underlying issue of their continuing, ongoing deterioration of their orgaic reach.  Time will certainly tell.

As always to learn more about Facebook or any other form of digital or social media come long to one of the free two hour workshops of the Digital Enterprise Program and qualify for a free four hour one on one coaching session for your bussiness. Simply log on to the VECCI site and click on the link:
http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops
So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele Lima.

Why Is SEO So Important And Some Simple Keys to Improving Your Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation or S.E.O for short is certainly one of the most important skills in the realm of digital media marketing. Simply put the effectiveness of your S.E.O will determine how high your site ranks in organic search results which appears on the left hand side of the page of the search engine when you perform a search for a key word or term.

On the right hand side of the page you will find the sponsored links or paid ads which of course on the Google Search Engine are Google Adwords, which are the best known and most widely used form of pay per click (PPC) digital ad in the world.

Although the comparative strength of SEO  compared to PPC ads varies from country to country is is generally thought to be around eighty five percent for SEO and fifteen percent for PPC advertising like Google Adwords as a percentage of the total clicks for all search results. For this reason the SEO results remain profoundly important as a primary means of stimulating greater traffic generation for your business website and / or social media marketing platforms.

So what are some of the three biggest drivers of enhanced search engine optimisation that you can use today to achieve better organic rankings? Here are some keys to consider.

1. Key word density.
We know that the search engines and particularly Google are looking for an optimal amount of key words that amount to around three to four percent of the total number of words. So for example if you have a blog post or a page on your website with say five hundred words, then you should not have any more than twenty of those five hundred words as key words (i.e. twenty is 4% of five hundred).

2. Key word distribution.
Apart from the total number of key words, you also need to be sure that those words are fairly evenly spread throughout the course of the entire text as they would naturally flow in an actual conversation, as opposed to being artificially concentrated in say the opening paragraph to try to artificially and improperly improve your SEO. This practice of key word 'stuffing' is a no-no and is frowned upon by the search engines. In short don't do it.

3. Inbound links.
By now the whole world knows that Google and all the other major search engines recognise and reward quality inbound links that come from another with a strong reputation and come to into your website.  This is why you should always look for ways to get other sites and platforms to have your link on their site so individuals that are part of your target market may see and click on such links.

This list is far from exhaustive and in future posts we will revisit SEO and provide additional methods of driving up your ranking but for now you have three proven methods to work on to improve incoming traffic to your website.

For opportunity to learn more about SEO and all other aspects of digital media go to the VECCI website and enroll for any of the seven free workshops on:
http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops

And until next time, good luck and good marketing.



Regards,
Daniele.





 

How To Write Great Product Positioning Statements For Your Business or Brands

There is no doubt in my mind that many business owners are still very much in the dark about how to position their business or brand and based on that positioning,  how to go about writing a formal business or brand positioning statement.

This is in spite of the fact that brands that are shrewdly positioned in the market based on the prevailing customer needs, market conditions and competitive landscape, generally tend to out perform those businesses and brands that are not.

The statement should describe a distinct place that the brand occupies with the target market that you want to attract to your business through the use of promotion. AS well the statement should clearly differentiate the brand in a meaningful and sustainable way from other, rival brands that are trying to attract the same target audience you are.

Thirdly the positioning statement should include a core benefit that will assist the user to better understand why your market offering will benefit them with their specific need, issue or problem.

Finally you should be aware that these statement include: Target, Brand, Category, Core Benefit and Reason to Believe in what is being said in the statement. So it is so much more that a simple tag line from an advertising ad campaign.

And to demonstrate this concept in more depth, I would like to provide a real world example of a major global hypertension brand Monopril, for which I was the marketing brand manager for four years.

Now for anyone that knows anything about the high blood pressure market, they know that this is one of the most saturated and highly competitive markets anywhere in the world and subject to an inordinate amount of political and regulatory scrutiny to boot.

There are not only many classes of agents proven to be effective in the area but also several brands of each class of agent that doctors can easily prescribe to their patients, so against this type of  market background it is imperative to find and clearly articulate the place for your brand, who it will assist, how it will help them and why.

So to that end I put this statement together:

Monopril Is the ACE inhibitor of choice (Category) for mature hypertensives (Target Market) that offers superior tolerability for those who have declining kidney function (Desired Outcome) because of its dual elimination pathway (Reason to Believe).

I'm pleased to say that this positioning that underpinned the marketing plan and promotional campaign energised the market and helped the brand grow to meet and exceed its challenging market share and dollar sales objectives.

Regardless of what market your business or brands operate in, they will always require a similar positioning statement to anchor the rest of the marketing plan. For more insights on this and all other marketing related areas go to the Digital Enterprise Program site and sign up for any of the seven free workshops or personal one on one coaching at:
http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.

      Specifically the Benchmark study showed that the newer digital options dominated the most used category with E-mail being the single most used option at 98% with Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation  (S.E.O) and Online Paid Search coming in second, third and fourth places.

The fact that email marketing is almost universal used by the businesses being surveyed comes as no surprise and acts to reaffirm the many benefits it presents by way of being able to personalise the message to each specific customer, deliver it at optimal times in terms of time and day and craft it based on previous conversations with all previous leanings able to be applied.  It goes without saying then that the importance of building and maintaining up to date email lists has never been higher than is at the core of running an effective email campaign.

 

In second place social media marketing continues to win over businesses that a few short years ago laughed at the idea of tweeting their customers or having a Facebook business page. But a lot can and has changed in that time and all but the most recalcitrant businesses have conceded that to be and remain relevant today, it is vital to be engaged with them and there is no better way to do this and maintain this ongoing connection than to be linked through social media.

At the other end of the popularity scale we find both radio and television ads, which for so many years dominated the advertising media landscape but today are relegated to the back of the long cue highlighting both the number of options people have but also the highly segmented nature of the media market today compared to twenty years ago.

Also noteworthy is the fact that currently mobile marketing is still the least of the digital mediums but I can assure you that this will change quickly and I anticipate that within 2-3 years, mobile marketing will outgrow and outperform more popular options based on the fact that we already know that today over 80% of Facebook users for example, log in Facebook via mobile devices. Consequently I have no doubt that the dollars will quickly follow the behavioural curve and invest accordingly there.

Regardless of what you have or haven't used till point, it is important to start making planes to integrate these other digital forms into your plan and drive your performance higher. For more on digital and social media, check out the digital enterprise program at the VECCI website on:

http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops

To book in for any of the seven free workshops around the state.
Until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.