The Local Web – The Single Largest Opportunity For National Brands
This infographic by Balihoo shares the significance of marketing locally to your potential customers. According to this infographic:
- 73% of online search activity is related to local content
- 82% of local Internet searches follow-up offline
- 23.6% the percentage that digital media is expected to represent of advertising by 2015
Featured Team Member Story
Sara Duane-Gladden – Is Facebook Advertising the Problem? Or Are Brands Expectations the Culprit?
GM made waves last week when it pulled $10 million in annual spending from Facebook, but are the ads really at issue or are marketing expectations? According to a recent poll, 61% of US Facebook advertisers used ads for awareness purposes, yet a hefty 44% expected them to generate conversions. So… which is it? Engagement doesn’t necessarily mean sales, and sales don’t necessarily mean engagement. Via eMarketer.
This Week in Online Marketing News
Google Knowledge Graph Claims First Victim
The content box on Google search results that previously showed “People and Pages on Google+” has disappeared. This section has been replaced with with a variety of Knowledge Graph related content. Read more from Search Engine Land.
Your Most Valuable Customers Might Not Be Who You Would Think
Customer feedback is essential for B2B and B2C companies alike. Without that feedback (negative and positive) it will be virtually impossible to improve your offering. This article provides additional insight into why customers that don’t give you immediate praise, could be worth a lot to your organization. Via Inc.
Facebook IPO: Individual investors get burned – The Facebook IPO brought plenty of press and just as much drama due to a falling stock price and stories about NASDAQ technical glitches and communications with large investors that were not shared with the general public. Via CNN Money & SmartMoney.
Desperately Seeking Google’s Approval
As we discussed last week, Google’s Penguin update has left many small businesses lost and looking for help. The first step in fixing your ranking problem is understanding why they fell in the first place. For more read this article by Danny Goodwin from Search Engine Watch.
Facebook’s new Camera app mirrors Instagram – Facebook has agreed to pay $1bn for Instagram, but the acquisition has not been completed. Instagram will be run as a stand alone service and Camera will use Instagram-like features. The new app Camera only works on Apple products. Via BBC.
TopRank Team News
Jolina Pettice – 10 Lessons from Sara Blakely You Wont’ Hear in Business School (or most corporate environments)
The youngest female Billionaire in history, and creator of Spanx, shares 10 business lessons she used in the years it took her to go from idea to prototype to being on Oprah.
Anyone in the Online Marketing industry should take this quick read and think about how it can be applied to the marketing we are doing on behalf of clients or organizations. Any many organizations failure is a bad thing, but as Sara says failure is part of the process. If you aren’t failing, you likely aren’t pushing the envelope and chasing a big enough goal. So marketers, go forth and test, fail, learn and succeed! Via Forbes.
Shawna Kenyon – Why Marketers Should Get to Know Customers’ ‘Digital Selves’
Are today’s marketers under-utilizing the extensive amounts of personalized data their customers and potential customers are sharing online? Chad Warren, Adobe’s senior manager of social media thinks so. When companies can connect with customers based on the things they love, advertising becomes more about applying knowledge and allows for more meaningful engagement with customers. Via Mashable.
Time to Weigh In: In terms of a local Internet marketing strategy what has your organization done to attract local customers? What have you found works well, and what doesn’t? After Facebook’s nose dive in the stock market this week, what do you think is in store for the social media giant?
