Week 2 - MKTG347 - Basics for Having Fun and Finding Work

     Marketing has evolved over time with the introduction of social media. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are some of the most prestige’s social media websites out. Social media marketing can be fun and also help you find work. This tool has many options to work with and it can be overwhelming, but it’s doable by leaving intimidation and following a series of steps to build confidence.

     Return on investment is very important to any business because if there is no ROI then the business can’t operate. With social media marketing, return on investment has been fair to those that use it and it’s steadily growing.

     Depending on what the context being marketed, you consider whether you are marketing to a consumer (B2C), or to another business (B2B). Content needs to go in-depth to whom you want to orientate your business too. Taking the B2C or B2B will change how you approach things; its two roads that need be implemented differently through social media. So once you choose a “road” you want to engage your audience through promotions, videos, blogs, etc. Do what you need to do to make this happen and make the target customers aware. Monitoring social media goes on in with social media marketing to help generate a successful webpage because you can scan social media and see what people are saying about a product. There are a number of tools that can be used for this such as Radian6. Even though it is quite expensive, it’s worth the pay. There are other free tools that can be used, but you get what you pay for. Aside from these principles, social media marketing is all about posting and getting the attention of the target customers. Promotions are good ways to get individuals attention and the content must be compelling to the audience. Even though most of social media is free to make post to reach out to your followers, they also offer tools within that aren’t free. They help generate more social media exposure to parties outside of your followers.

     With social media marketing, and all these principles and tools, return of investment can be substantially rewarding. Everything that is done is for that reason and get ROI, so make sure to go thru this fun process and essentially find work

Week 2 - MKTG349 - Adwords: Value of online advertising

Online advertising gives you more control with marketing aspect and having both the sellers and buyers satisfied. Ads reach out to people that are likely to be interested in your products and services, and eliminating those that aren’t. AdWords functions as an online advertising tool run by Google, that can help reach new clients and grow sales. With AdWords an ad will be shown at the right time, place, and people in order to meet goals set for business success.

AdWords offers several benefits.

• Target your ads
• Control your costs
• Measure your success
• Manage your campaigns

With AdWords ads will be shown on both Google Search Network and Google Display Network. Depending on the campaign type chosen you can determine which network is used to show ads. With Google Search Network advertisers can show ads next to search results and reach individuals currently searching for specific goods and service. While Google Display Network helps the advertiser use appealing ad formats to reach wide reach of customers with broad interests, build brand recognition, and choose more specifics on where ads appear and to whom.

Quality is always important in all aspect of business, in relations to ads this is extremely important. For success in online marketing, ads and landing pages need to be significant to customers the more likely it is that you'll have a higher Quality Score. Other things that you can do with AdWords is control the cost of advertising and there is no limit to what to put in. But you get what you put in. You can set a daily budget and money will be spent in the way you choose. You can set a bidding plan to focus on getting clicks, sales, or views. AdWords’ features will give you control over what has been mentioned and plenty more. It’s a tool and skill worth learning. 

Week 2 - MKTG348 - Essentials of an Effective Inbound Strategy

In the marketing world, employees are looking for new innovative ways to reach out to its future customers. They can do this in a number of ways such as emails, television commercials, billboards, and mail. With the advancement in technology and competition, it has become more difficult for employees to market their goods and services thus new strategies must be used. The traditional ways of marketing has always been convenient for the employee but not so much for the customer. The internet has made it more efficient and cost-worthy for both parties. The internet has revolutionized marketing. Anyone can try to use the internet to market, but in order to see real end results an effective strategy must be planned out. This outdated way of marketing shoves information to people’s faces and it can’t be a nice experience for the people when they don’t want it. 

With inbound marketing the marketer can create content specifically designed to appeal to its ideal customers, drawing qualified prospects to the business and continuously keep them coming.  So instead of going out looking for customers and getting their attention, with inbound you skip this excessive step that at times isn’t so effective. Why go out looking for someone? When you can have them find you. This way of doing business empowers potential customers and all the employee does is wait for its cliental to appear. With Inbound it’s about creating marketing that people love.

In the Inbound methodology there are several stages that must be followed in order to have a successful marketing strategy to find the ideal customers. Individuals start off as strangers to the seller and in order to attract them they use such things as blogs, keywords, and social media. They then turn to visitors whom using the conversion process becomes leads. Using landing pages and forms that they fill out with personal information can help with this stage. Now to close the leads turning them into customers use tools like emails and customer relationship management. Now you have the customers you need the process repeats on to get new ones, but they can’t forget about existing customers. With Inbound strategy you continue to delight and engage with the customers which will turn them into promoters of the goods and services they are enjoying and loving.