Picture This—An Infographic’s Role in Content Marketing

What are Infographics?

In short, an infographic is any visual representation of information. These large, creative images (see below for an example) can be found in a variety of places around the web, like on blogs, through some social networks like Pinterest, and on bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon. For the purposes of Internet Marketing, an infographic is normally used to present a large amount or complicated data in an appealing and engaging way. And that’s the key to your business getting the most out of this kind of content—engagement with your target audience. The assumption always seems to be that web users are impatient—they won’t bother with a site if it doesn’t load after a few seconds, and they won’t take the time to read every word on a text-rich web page. To market in this environment, where users want information in (faster than) an instant, visual content like infographics just might be a way to slow people down and get your message across effectively.

How can I use Infographics for Marketing?

Just like any other visual-based piece of content, the marketing value of infographics lies in their portability, opportunities for sharing via social networks, and linking back to your business’s web site.

Portability: Once designed and completed, an infographic can be easily uploaded to an aggregator, repurposed in a presentation, highlighted in an email promotion, or discussed in an article, blog post, press release, or social media post.

Sharing: Your business’s online presence, reach, and credibility can all receive a substantial boost when users share your visual content. Because of their relatively small size and wide range of applications, infographics make for an inexpensive chance for your business’s content to “go viral.”

Backlinking: Just because any text content within an infographic can’t be crawled or indexed by a search engine doesn’t mean that these images don’t have distinct SEO advantages. Anyone that shares and/or publishes an infographic somewhere else typically links back to your business’s website; this link bait results in greater traffic and a higher search ranking.

Conclusion

It’s easy to see the benefits that can come not only from infographics, but from the integration of any visual content into your business’s digital marketing plan. The key is that the content has to be well designed. The best images are appealing and easy to understand, as well as informative and engaging. They can show your business’s expertise on a particular subject as well as increase your reach and web traffic. Finally, infographics are easily repurposed, shared by users, and serve as effective link bait for SEO purposes. For a business owner, it seems a picture can be worth much more than a thousand words.

PPC Experts? - Prove It!

Recently I read an article talking about how there are many "PPC Experts" due to the low barrier of entry. With that said, if you or your company is looking for online adverting assistance, it is crucial to find an agency/person with the right certifications and a proven track record.

The must have as far as certifications are Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter. Google requires an individual to pass 2 different tests to be certified. A general PPC test and a more specific test focused on the Display Advertising, Search Network, or PPC Reporting. Once the individual certification is earned, it must be maintained by retaking at least 1 of the more specific tests annually and the general test bi-annually. Microsoft adCenter, on the other hand, only requires you to pass 1 general PPC test annually to earn and maintain certification.

In addition to being certified, ask to see what the "PPC Experts" have accomplished for other clients, preferably within your industry. Case studies, white papers, and/or a portfolio of their work and accomplishments should be available and easily accessible. I would think that a "PPC Expert" would want you, as potential future client, to know and see their previous success stories.

I hope that this will help you avoid, as the first mentioned article describes, PPC scams. If you have any questions or comments about PPC, AdWords, adCenter, or online advertising in general, please leave a comment or contact us.

Effectiveness of Email Marketing

If you’re looking for an increased return on investment regarding your marketing efforts look no further. When it boils down to it, the most effective marketing channel is still Email Marketing, as indicated in the chart below. The best thing about email marketing is that it gets better as you use it. Once you have the basics, consistent branding, list building, message crafting, and email delivery, you’ll be able to increase the effectiveness. According to a JupiterResearch report, using Web analytics to target email campaigns can produce nine times the revenues and eighteen times the profits of broadcast mailings. With all that being said, implementing sophisticated analytics and tactics such as segmentation, targeting, multichannel integration, A/B testing and social sharing is the best place to start. Nonetheless, it’s almost a no brainer when it comes to using email marketing. Whether you are doing it in-house, just using the basics, or whether you outsource it to an internet marketing agency, for sophisticated analytics and tactics, Email Marketing is an opportunity you can’t pass up.

Are You Using Social Media to Increase Your Business Exposure?

Social media marketing is being used to increase awareness for organizations within their target market. According to eMarketer.com, businesses have been accomplishing their goals regarding social media marketing tactics. For the most part, social media is a useful tool for increasing awareness, attracting new customers, and engaging with current customers.

The most important part is whether or not the tactics are aligned with the business goals and objectives. Businesses have achieved their objectives, but are you seeing the value in generating leads, sales, and revenue for the business? What is the ROI for your social media marketing campaign? Doing the social networking and getting a customer to become a fan of your business on Facebook is great, but are you seeing the benefits in your wallet?

Benefits of Web Analytics for Businesses

Online marketing has become a massive industry over the past decade or so. Its importance for the future growth of companies cannot be overstated. As web traffic continues to increase, web analytics becomes an invaluable tool for business and marketing managers. Web analytics allows companies to gather useful data about the impact their websites and products have on their customers.

With some marketing strategies, it can take time to see relevant results that come directly from a specific promotion. As web analytics continues to grow and change, this problem begins to disappear. With different metrics and analytical methods, it is possible to quickly see what strategies are effective and which ones may need some tweaking. For example, it is very beneficial for improving one’s marketing strategy to see which pages have a high bounce rate or which have high average time-on-page measurements.

It is undoubtedly becoming necessary to have an online presence in the current business world. Through the use of web analytics, businesses can manage their websites effectively and with the highest profit from their investment. The bottom line is that web analytics can help any business grow rapidly, robustly and in a way that ensures they stay relevant into the future.

Web Analytics Trends for 2010

It is becoming increasingly important for companies to employ web analytics in their online marketing strategies. Web analytics is a continuously growing industry despite the recent tough times that many businesses are currently facing. This has made it obvious that web analytics is here to stay and can help companies to reinvent their brand in a changing business environment.

As analytical metrics become more advanced, the basic numbers behind web usage begin to say less than advanced information on the consumers that represent these numbers. A common trend in web analytics is an overall increasingly personalized content of the measurements. Through this approach, companies can have a useful idea of their target and actual audiences and this information is useful in that it can be incorporated into new and improved marketing campaigns!

Social media will play a growing role in the future of marketing, as well. Web analytics will track how successful different social networking sites are at sending buyers to a site; also, mobile devices are being used more and more to access the web, so the necessary web content formatting is critical. Web analytics has a growing impact on the way everyday business is done and the current trends show that it is a necessary component to successful business on the web!