Leveraging Holidays For Online Marketing

Throughout the year, the various holidays offer companies special opportunities to get more out of their online marketing. The beauty of online marketing is that its is extremely versatile and dynamic. A company does not have to spend the kind of time or money on an online campaign that it would spend on an offline marketing effort. That means that online marketing can be a little different when it needs to, and it can leverage each holiday to help your company become more profitable.

Show That Your Company Has A Fun Side

When a holiday rolls around, consumers expect companies to be fun with their advertising and play on the holiday theme. While fun holiday advertising can be effective for selling more products around the holiday season, it can also make your company look more accessible all year round.

People like to buy from other people, and you can use your holiday marketing to let your customers and prospects know that your company has a heart. This helps to create an emotional bond with your customers and enhance their desire to buy from you.

Get More Customer Input

Your holiday marketing is going to bring in more potential customers, and that gives you the chance to interact with more people to improve your company and your products. As you collect more email addresses during your holiday marketing campaigns, you can also reach out to those new contacts to get brand new perspectives on your company.

The window you have to communicate with new people who are interested in your company during a holiday is very short. The more you do to maximize that time and get valuable input from new customers, the more improvements you will be able to make to your company to help improve sales all year round.

Heighten Your Local Marketing

If your company relies on local customers, then you will be enhancing your local online marketing during the holidays. When the holiday is over, you should use the momentum from your local online marketing to continue to attract new local clients.

There is a period after each holiday where local consumers will be looking for any type of after holiday promotions to save money. You can use that period of time to enhance the local marketing you did during the holidays by staying in touch with the local customers who want even more deals.

Great Time To Experiment

Since your online marketing traffic will be higher during a holiday than any other time of the year, it gives you the perfect opportunity to experiment with your marketing to see what works and what does not. The heightened attention your company gets during a holiday is the ideal time to gauge the reaction to your marketing efforts and create new marketing programs that will last all year round.

Your company engages in online marketing all year round, but your marketing gets more attention during holiday shopping periods than any other time of the year. Instead of just focusing on selling more products during those holidays, you should be leveraging the exposure and marketing data you gather during the holidays to increase your revenue throughout the entire year.

How Important Are Google Reviews?

Google is always trying to evolve into the ultimate online service for anything that users would ever need and that includes honest reviews for businesses. Google reviews have been around for several years and they are one of the best kept secrets in the Internet marketing world.

What Are Google Reviews?

Google reviews are business reviews submitted by real customers about real businesses. Customers can apply one to five stars to indicate the quality of service and a composite score for those reviews appears whenever the business’ profile shows up in local search results. With Google reviews, Google has developed what it feels is the ultimate review system.

How Do Customers Use Google Reviews?

In order for your business to get Google reviews from clients, your business must have an active profile on Google+. Your customers must also have an active profile on Google+ in order to submit reviews about your business. Unfortunately, the need for a Google+ account to utilize Google reviews has not caused a significant rise in Google+ registration. That means that, while it would be nice to get reviews from your clients, it may not happen very much because your clients simply do not use Google+.

Why Are Google Reviews Important?

Google reviews are important because they rank businesses based on the number and quality of the reviews the businesses get. Whenever your business shows up in Google’s local business search results, a quick snapshot of your Google reviews accompanies your company profile in the search listings. That means that Google reviews not only determine where your business shows up in Google search results, they can also help to make your business appear to be more reputable than the competition. When it comes to getting new customers, Google reviews can be extremely powerful.

How Do I Start Getting Google Reviews?

ASK FOR THEM! If you do a great job for your clients they will want to leave you reviews so the key is just to ask. The good thing about Google reviews is that anyone can see them, whether they are on Google+ or not. Since the number and quality of your Google reviews has a direct effect on where your business shows up in the Google search results, it is a good idea to start implementing a Google reviews strategy in your Internet marketing plan.

Google reviews is an attempt by Google to make its Google+ social network more relevant. Whether you like Google+ or not, the broad-reaching effects of getting positive Google reviews means that you should get your company a Google+ account and plan on having a professional Internet marketing company put a Google reviews program together for you. Google reviews can be the thing that separates your business from the competition in the Google results pages.

The Synergy Between Your Print And Online Marketing

One of the things we always talk about is the need for online as well as offline marketing to promote your website. We could talk for hours about the need to maintain a consistent marketing look along your website and marketing pamphlets to help boost brand recognition. But what does all of that really mean? How does your print marketing work together with your online efforts to create a strong marketing approach?

Some People Still Need To See It In Print

Online marketing is not quite as prevalent as you may think and it often needs print marketing to prop it up and make it effective. We want to believe that the younger generation gets everything it needs off the Internet, but that is not the case. We also tend to believe that older generations shy away from the Internet when it comes to getting new information, but that would also be inaccurate.

The dynamic between generations and their reliance on information makes for an interesting study. We may look at that in detail later, but right now it helps to know that younger generations still look to their local newspapers and entertainment magazines to get a big portion of their information. The older generations tend to not trust online advertising that is not reinforced with offline efforts. So it is safe to say that some people need to see your advertising in print in order to find it effective.

Print Travels Better In Some Cases

A potential business client who is getting ready to board an airplane may spend more time reading a magazine than surfing the Internet on their phone or laptop. Magazines and newspapers are easier to carry and so are product pamphlets. When a potential client is looking for some fast and convenient reading, it is not unusual for print content to be their first choice.

Print Can Be Bigger

A big marketing message needs a big medium and with online marketing you are limited by the size of the screens your target audience is using. Even the largest tablets cannot compare to the visual impact of a full-page print ad in a national newspaper. It can sometimes be more effective to kick-off a marketing campaign with a huge, full-color ad in a newspaper or large-format magazine than to rely on someone else’s smartphone screen to get the impact you are looking for.

Always Use The Two Together

Our marketing experts can roll out a complete marketing plan for you that would include printed materials to compliment your online advertising. It has been our experience that a comprehensive marketing plan consisting of offline and online elements is exponentially more effective than relying solely on one or the other.

Of course, the ratio of offline to online content depends on your message and your audience. In some cases, you may not need the ratification of a print advertising campaign to bring legitimacy to your online efforts, but you will still need effective pamphlets for your trade shows. Let our experts review your marketing needs and prepare the perfect mix of print and online content to exceed your marketing expectations.

You are putting a lot of money and effort into your website and it is showing excellent results. But we know from experience that you can enhance those results by also including a strong offline campaign as well. Give us a call and let one of our experts explain the synergy between print and online marketing to help bring the maximum amount of attention to your advertising efforts.