Major Developments Major Developments by Calendar Year

September 20, 2013

Payment Methods in Internet Advertising

Filed under: 2012 — Tags: , , — Ralph C Dreher @ 8:57 AM

Payment methods in Internet advertising are very flexible. It is an understanding between the advertiser and the publisher to decide how the advertiser pays for the advertisement posted in publishers’ website. There are three ways in which an advertiser can pay the publisher. They are as follows.

Cost-Per-Mille (CPM) or Cost-Per-Thousand impressions (CPT)
“Mille” means 1000 in Roman numbers. In CPM/CPT, the advertiser has to pay the hosting website (publisher), when the number of users to the advertisement reaches 1000. The advertiser is not responsible for any crashes or malfunctioning in the publisher’s website. The advertiser need not pay if the number has not reached the 1000 mark.

It is helpful for businesses if the advertiser publishes the advertisement on any popular website where traffic of users is high. This makes the brand visible to many visitors.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
In CPC, the advertiser has to pay the publisher when the banner ad is posted on the publisher’s website and gets noticed by users and users click on the link of the advertisers ad from the publishers website.

Care should be taken while designing the banner ad. It should be attractive and informative to impress the visitor. Link of the company’s website must also be present on the banner, otherwise visitors might not visit the website. Make sure to post advertisements in websites that are related to your business.

Cost-Per-Action (CPA) or Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA)
In CPA, advertiser pays to publisher only when visitor visits the advertisers website and performs some action in the site. Action here means a transaction with the company. This may be either registering or purchasing a product. The advertiser need not pay the publisher, if the visitor just clicked on the banner ad.

CPA has become popular, as the number of websites are in millions and competition is high for posting an ad. This is a fair method, as the company pays to publishers only if he gets any lead or sale. There are two more types of payment schemes within CPC. They are:

  • Cost-Per-Sale (CPS): CPS is the best payment method for advertisers because they can pay for the advertisement only if someone visits the website and purchases the product.
  • Cost-Per-Lead (CPL): In CPL, advertiser pays the publisher only if any potential customer visits the website and registers or orders a product which leads to a sale.

Fixed payment
Fixed payment is the oldest method of payment that was used during the initial stages of Internet marketing. In this type of payment, advertisers pay fixed amount either monthly or yearly to the hosting website for advertising their ad. This method of payment is hardly followed these days.

Of all the different methods of payment in Internet advertising, Cost-Per-Action (CPA) is beneficial for businesses. (more…)

September 19, 2013

A SWOT Analysis of Digital Marketing

Filed under: 2012 — Tags: , — Ralph C Dreher @ 9:47 AM

SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is one of the structured planning tools used to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to a business. As digital marketing is getting more popular when it comes promoting businesses, it is worthwhile to consider a SWOT analysis. The analysis helps businesses make informed decisions and simplifies decision making. This article deals with SWOT analysis of digital marketing.

  • Strengths
  • Cost effective: Digital marketing is cost effective when compared to other means of advertising.
  • Fast and easy to reach: Advertising businesses happens on the Internet in a short period of time. Your products, services and special offers reach local and global quickly.
  • 24/7 operation: Services on the Internet are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This helps the customers purchase products/services at their convenient time whether it is day or night.
  • Customer relationship: Digital marketing helps businesses in building relationship with the clients, prospects and new customers by giving auto-response to their queries related to products/services.
  • Brand development: Digital marketing enables businesses to spread awareness of their product/service widely to target audience, and in the long run helps build brand image by performing consistently.
  • Real time results: You will get to see real time results of transactions by knowing the number of customers visited your website, how many of them have purchased from your site, and what the peak trading times are. It will help you know customers purchasing behavior and you could plan your business accordingly.
  • Weaknesses
  • Absence of physical presence: Some customers are hesitant to buy products online because they don’t get to check the product physically.
  • No direct seller-customer interaction: As transactions in digital marketing happen online without personal interaction between seller and customer, there is no direct interaction.
  • Vulnerable to fraudulent transactions: It will be difficult to evaluate the legitimacy of a transaction. Unauthorized people might access credit card, and other information to do online transaction. Of course, it has become foolproof today.
  • Opportunities
  • Strong online presence: In this digital age, Internet users are rapidly increasing day by day. Users are more comfortable in purchasing products online as it saves their time. They also get good deals when compared to offline purchases.
  • Global reach: You can promote your company’s products/services to audiences across the globe without any geographical barriers or constraints.
  • Level playing field: Digital marketing opens doors to all businesses irrespective of the size and the type of business.
  • Threats
  • Entry of competitors: In this competitive world, everyone wants to give their best and apply various Internet marketing strategies to promote their products/services to reach wide audiences. Competition is more intense in digital marketing.

(more…)

May 14, 2011

US Online Advertising Revenues Reached $7.3 billion in the First Quarter of 2011

Filed under: Business — Tags: , — Winson @ 7:39 AM

Advertising has its own role in the success and growth of a business. Today’s trend of online advertising proves the growth of the businesses worldwide. With people turning more towards using Internet, many firms have been enjoying the increase in online advertisement revenues. As per the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the US online advertising revenues reached $7.3 billion in the first quarter of 2011.

A survey was conducted by the New Media Group of PwC to gather the revenue information. It included data of the online advertising revenues from commercial online services, websites, free e-mail providers and other companies selling online advertising.

The online advertising revenues experienced a 23% increase over the first quarter of 2010. It represent the best first quarter performance in the industry. In the first quarter of 2010, the revenues reached $5.9 billion. The revenues were nearly $5 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2007. These were found to be around $6 billion approximately in the first quarters of 2008 and 2009. The increase in online advertising revenues as of 2011 indicated that the Internet advertising industry had been growing with dynamic energy.

It is found that Americans spend more time online for gathering information and for entertainment purposes. Businesses drag this opportunity, therefore, attracting and retaining customers through digital advertising and marketing. This is meant to further enhance the growth of online advertising trends in the US.

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February 18, 2011

Strategies in Implementing SMS Marketing In a Business

Filed under: Business — Tags: , — Winson @ 2:14 AM

As the number of companies and businesses are entering the market to satisfy the customers the competition is increasing. One of the strategies used by the companies to sustain in this competitive market is to make use of SMS marketing. Sending messages to people via SMS messages is a great strategy because the message is delivered to the customer directly. Bulk SMS services are in great demand, due to their cost effectiveness. Bulk SMS service helps in sending a message to large number of people at one instance.

The strategies used for SMS marketing for a business are:

Mobile Coupon Marketing Campaign:
Coupons are one of the methods used by marketers to attract customers to make a purchase. An SMS coupon promotion can have several layers. The mobile number can be published in different ways, which when called by the customer, gives a brief message and then instantly a text message is received by the customer which has the coupon code or discount amount.
Customer Surveys:
Using customer polls or surveys is an effective way to gain insight into your customers’ needs and wants and also promote your products or services. Customers could be given a link to a URL where they can see options for the new spring line and be provided a discount.
Service Reminders:
The appointment attendance can be improved by communicating through SMS, which is found to strengthen communication between business and customer. SMS is a very easy and affordable method of improving the business communication with customers. Professional services can use this strategy as a reminder for services such as oil changes, pest control visits, lawn servicing calls, home repair etc. SMS communication is not only used for communication with customers, but also used in business-to-business calls related to maintenance contracts.

The reasons for using SMS marketing strategy by a business:

  • It is interactive, personalized and cost effective.
  • They can reach the customers anytime at any place.

SMS marketing is affordable for companies or businesses to promote and sell their products and services. This will also help in creating brand awareness.

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January 4, 2011

Web Holdouts of Small Businesses are Unsearched, Unfound, Unfulfilled

Filed under: Small Business — Tags: , , , — Winson @ 4:50 AM

Web marketing plays a major part in company’s development by transferring messages, advertising goods and services, all over the Internet. It has high potential of reaching a large market effectively. But many small businesses in U.S are unable to make their business presence felt in internet. It is major drawback for the development of small business.

According to a survey conducted by Neilsen and Webvisible, in last November, though searching for local product or service in Internet by various search engines like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft’s live search, is the No.1 priority for both consumers and small business owners, a huge segment of customer population, is missing out by the small businesses. It is because small businesses spent less than 10% of their marketing budgets on advertising in Internet. It is to be kept in mind that, 44% consumers turn to Internet when looking for local products and services.

According to other data, 40% of consumers say that problem finding a local business exists, as only 44% of the small businesses have their own websites. Small businesses are very reluctant to change their traditional way of running a business, as they found web marketing to be very expensive.

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