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Are You Doing Enough Online?

Online Marketing
Are you doing enough online?

Having a defined online marketing strategy is becoming more important for any business. Sometimes there seems to be so much online, it is difficult to sift through all the information to find out exactly what you need to be doing. This is a very brief idea of some channels, we think you should be focusing on.

E-commerce in South Africa is growing at a rate of 30% per year according to research firm World Wide Worx. Internationally, the growth in online advertising is staggering. In 2012, revenue from internet advertising in the USA, totalled $36 billion. Our local advertising spend is not readily available but we do know it is growing year on year. If you have marketing in your bones, these stats should be something that appeal to you. To get on board with one of the fastest growing industries in the world is really quite simple.

Online marketing or internet marketing is a way to promote your services or goods to customers who are online. Some channels include email newsletters, SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), Google AdWords and other forms of Pay Per Click advertising. Display advertising such as banner ads are also widely used online as well as social media advertising.

Email newsletters are a cost effective way to communicate with your customers. Free tools such as Mail chimp will assist you with the process of creating a newsletter and these tools are used for sending the newsletter out. You will need a database, so if you haven’t already got one, start creating one now. Sending out a newsletter once or month or even fortnightly should suffice and if you are not a designer, then pay for a graphic designer to create a template for you. Always remember to keep your branding standard and your content interesting.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a way to get your website ranked on search engines like Google. There are many facets to SEO, some content related and some technical aspects, we highly recommend you employ a professional to work on your SEO. Bad SEO can result in your website getting blacklisted so it is not something worth dabbling in. Results are not instantaneous but good SEO can really improve the number of visits to a website.

PPC Advertising, which is mainly Google AdWords in South Africa can be done in-house or can be outsourced. Results and costs vary drastically depending on the competitive nature of the business which will affect the CPC (cost per click). Budgets can be set and therefore full control is granted to the advertiser and there are no minimum budgets set from Google.

Display Advertising are the banner ads that one might see on news24.com and these can also be implemented through Google. Some websites such as ECR.co.za would use their own display advertising pricing guide and would not run this through Google. Prices may vary a lot with this advertising channel depending on the popularity of websites.

Social Media advertising is largely content driven and is especially useful for brands wanting to communicate and engage with their target market. Social media sites such as Facebook also offer paid advertising options which are the adverts that appear, generally on the right hand side of the page.

The world of digital is varied but having your marketing covered in the above mentioned channels will help to bring people to your website, improve your brand awareness and can assist with understanding who your customers are and what they are looking for. Information about some of MJ Media’s services can be found here: https://www.mjmedia.co.za/internet-marketing-services/

Also feel free to contact us with any questions. https://www.mjmedia.co.za/contact-us/

Giselle Chelin

Giselle Chelin is co-owner of the internet marketing company MJ Media. She is fascinated by the on-going developments and improvements of internet marketing and aims to help businesses utilise this powerful marketing tool to its full potential. Connect with Giselle on Google+

Testimonials

Over the past 5 years, MJ Media have fine-tuned our online marketing platforms, improved our Google presence and increased our website visits and enquiries. The end result, leading to greater brand awareness and a growing business. It’s been an exciting journey!

Dale Horne, Symbiotix Group

Bridgette and Giselle have managed our Adwords account for over 12 months and have always provided excellent and efficient service with a flexible and proactive approach. We are very pleased at the results obtained so far and look forward to continuing our successful relationship with MJ Media. We would recommend MJ Media to any organisation seeking to outsource some or all its internet marketing requirements to a trustworthy and transparent supplier.

Rob Schofield, Director, RJ Retail Ltd, trading as WoodenToyShop.co.uk

MJ Media have been amazing since day one, they listen, they are patient and they give advice which is always the best, they are helping me grow my business. I have seen increased quote requests from our web site. MJ Media’s work on internet marketing has made a significant difference to my business. I appreciate the hard work that they put on our marketing and look forward to continuously working with them.

Gisela Oliveira, Mozambique Tourism

Vet Products Online has been operating effectively for 12 years, but this year I thought it was time to progress to the next step of online marketing and social networking. MJ Media was recommended to me to assist and manage Facebook and Google marketing. Bridgette and Giselle are two stars in their field, both professional and enthusiastic. Their support is reliable and their turn around time to requests, queries or project needs is speedy. We have certainly benefited positively from MJ Media input and I highly recommend them to other companies who have internet marketing requirements.

Anne Mullins, Owner, Vet Products Online, www.vetproductsonline.co.za

Bridgette and Giselle have been our online partners for about 4 years now. Flexible Workspace sells office space and related services in the B2B market and as the founder not only am I convinced that Online is the most effective channel for our offering but that MJ are the right service provider for us. Being a relatively small (but growing) business, we need to be nimble and they in turn need to be ready and geared to move with us – MJ gets this. Having access to the decision maker/driver of the business is also important to me – they have a personal touch that larger agencies are unable to replicate. Finally, and most importantly they produce results – from the time MJ took over our account they have increased our lead flow 5-fold. As a business owner this is all I’m interested in – lead generation and conversion – this is the real measure of Return on Investment and they have delivered in spades.

Brad Porter, Flexible Workspace