Are Your Marketing Strategies So 1999?

Is traditional advertising working for you? Perhaps you need to try a new paradigm. Learn how to take advantage of social media and internet marketing in the 21st century.

In the days of a booming late 1990s economy, advertisers had it easy. They simply needed to create clever copy to sell their wares via print, television, and radio campaigns. When the internet was still in its infancy, advertising dollars could be better spent on traditional media.

Now that we are nearly a decade into the 21st century, marketing strategies have a new paradigm. They are more diverse, yet simpler. A struggling economy has forced marketers to reduce advertising budgets and come up with creative ways to advertise products and services.

The good news, however, is that with the development of Web 2.0 and social media, the barrier for entry for small to medium sized businesses is lowered. Almost anyone with a home computer can begin to market their small business through social media.

Communication through Social Media

Hundreds of millions of users are now on the internet daily. Social media sites have become a very popular place for the millions of users to congregate and reach out to each other – and savvy advertisers have picked up on this gem of a marketing tool.

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have millions of users sign on each day to read posts, share thoughts, and view videos and photos. Why not join the fray and engage with consumers through these sites?

Recent Nielson studies have shown a tremendous increase in social media usage from 2008 to 2009. In the United States alone, social networking usage increased 83 percent from April 2008 to April 2009. In particular, total minutes spent on Facebook jumped 700 percent, making it the most popular social media website. Other statistics show that over half of Facebook users are over the age of 35, creating a tremendous opportunity to employ new marketing strategies that reach targeted demographics through the site.

Reach Out To Customers through Internet Searches

Besides free marketing ideas through social media, there is a tremendous growth in paid online advertising as well through search engines. Pay per click and pay per call marketing are the standard for many marketers, as these methods provide both cost-effective advertising, as well as ROI metrics that marketers can intelligently use to make decisions.

Pay per call and pay per click marketing allows a business to display a small advertisement at the top of search results for specific keywords and phrases. As the name implies, the business only pays when a potential customer clicks on a link or calls a specific number. Marketers can use real-time reports to view which keywords work best, where calls or clicks are coming from, and provide other important demographic information.

This type of new marketing strategy is important for business to gauge how well their marketing works and make future marketing decisions. With pay-per marketing becoming so popular, it is now becoming an expected standard with other types of traditional media such as television, radio, and print.

Your marketing strategies do not have to fall into the old paradigms of yesteryear. Reach out with new marketing ideas on the internet and communicate with your target audience.

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