Mediaboss Marketing

The digital marketing industry is one of the most exciting marketplaces in which to invest. Yet over the last couple of years, companies have struggled for growth.

The digital marketing space provides opportunities for both startups and veteran internet information providers. Currently, nearly every business that is serious about growth has an online selling plan as a crucial catalyst in its growth strategy.

Small businesses are also finding it easy to join the online selling community thanks to platforms like Shopify (NYSE:SHOP), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Pinterest and BigCommerce, among others that facilitate smooth entrance into this exciting marketplace.

The intersection of digital marketing with brick-and-mortar selling has led to the emergence of what is now being referred to as omnichannel marketing. This type of marketing requires businesses to integrate their online marketing strategies with their storefront operations in order to maximize conversion rates on various e-commerce platforms.

Today businesses are engaging their customers in more than one platform. We are talking about social media, Web sites and blogs, mobile phones and tablets and TV and radio as well as face to face via their storefronts.

This has been the trend for the last few years as more businesses continue to launch their online platforms to augment sales from mainstream stores. In fact, as of 2015, more than 62% of businesses indicated that omnichannel marketing was a crucial part of their marketing strategy while 70% of the businesses surveyed said they had thought about it, according to AdWeek. These numbers have obviously increased over the last two years as more businesses continue to embrace the strategy.

Some of the businesses that have launched their products and services online have experienced more success than others. And according to research, their successes could be attributed to some very basic, yet crucially important, aspects of running an online business. Reports indicate that while ranking high on Alphabets (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google search and other search engines is important, the period it takes your landing page to load can determine your conversion rates and online sales.

According to reasearch, if a Web site page takes longer than five seconds to load, the visitor abandons it almost immediately. As such, making the landing pages load faster is as crucial for any e-commerce platform as ranking higher on Google. Google shares in this goal and has recently launched new features aimed at speeding up landing pages. Last year, it launched accelerated mobile pages (AMP) and recently added a web-based version of the same in the form of accelerated landing pages (ALP) for ads and landing pages.

The AMP framework helps Web site developers design lightweight pages that load within a second thereby increasing traffic conversion rates. According to SITE123, a Web site development company that allows designers to build free Web sites with no designing or coding skills necessary, most businesses want to take full advantage of the new features launched by Google as they seek to remain competitive in the online marketing space and they want their developers to optimize their sites accordingly.

As the competition increases in the online selling space, this should boost revenue potential for digital marketing companies. In addition, more features like Outstream Video are also increasing the appeal of digital advertising.

Web site users can easily block Google image ads from displaying while they browse. The introduction of Outstream Video has proved to be a little difficult to dodge when it comes to browsing the internet and publishers are liking this change according to a post on Instapage.

From an investment perspective, most of the stocks that operate in this unique digital space have struggled over the last couple of years thereby raising questions over the long-term future of the industry.

For instance, Rubicon Projects (NYSE:RUBI) shares are down about 80% over the last 12 months while Rocket Fuel (NASDAQ:FUEL) is down nearly 90% since 2014. YuMe Inc. (NYSE:YUME) is pretty much the shining light in this category of small players in the digital marketing space after gaining more than 60% since 2015.

Overall, most of the stocks have experienced a torrid campaign over the last few years. This is despite significant revenue growth due to the increasing number of businesses that seek to capitalize on e-commerce success.

Conclusion

The digital marketing space has massive growth potential. Companies are launching new tools to enhance customer experiences while at the same time helping businesses enjoy more success.

The impact of this growth has not been reflected on the bottom lines of most digital marketing stocks, but as revenues continue to increase profit margins will improve.

Disclosure: I have no position in any stock mentioned in this article.

Nicholas Kitonyi

Nicholas has solid knowledge of both U.S. and European markets. His investment style is focused on undervalued plays and growth stocks. As a trader, Nicholas classifies himself as a swing trader and likes to trade GBP/USD, gold and FTSE 100, among other liquid instruments.

Visit Nicholas Kitonyi's Website

Excerpt from:
Is the Digital Marketing Industry a Sleeping Giant? - GuruFocus.com

The name Ope Banwo certainly rings a bell both in the entertainment and Internet community in Nigeria. This is apart from his primary constituency, which is the legal profession, where he holds a PhD.

Many Nigerians, especially those in the movie and music industries will readily remember his exploits as the founding Managing Director of Dove Media, where he made a strong statement with his activities that Nigerian movies can make mega money if things are done rightly during the production process and distribution.

With an aggressive approach, Dr. Ope Banwo was able to revolutionalise the production and distribution process of the Nigerian movie industry.

After his exploits in the movie industry, Dr. Banwo, who is also a Chattered Accountant, took on the Music Industry with Stingomania Records, combining music label, recording and artistes management in an aggressive way hitherto strange in this clime.

Aside managing and developing budding music stars, the US registered legal practitioner also managed established music and movie stars under the Stingomania management outfit.

It is however a wonder that, after a recoil, he resurfaced in the relatively new internet marketing arena in the Nigerian space.

Though a lawyer and chartered accountant, he has been championing the cause of internet marketing in a nation where many only go online for social media interactions.

The recent upsurge in the number of Nigerians taking to online marketing and raking in impressive income, in all modesty, is partly due to the aggressiveness with which Dr. Banwo approached his latest love, online marketing. This is the approach he has always used for everything he has been involved in! Though many Nigerians, especially those who have attended his Internet marketing classes in parts of the country, are aware of his impressive exploits in online marketing, Dr. Banwo recently achieved a major feat when he came up with a revolutionary software that has lately redefined Mobile App creation, MOBIMATIC.

Aside the creation of this software, done in conjunction with another Nigerian, he had a product launch on JV Zoo with MOBIMATIC, making a whopping N158,670,000 (One hundred and Fifty Eight Million, Six Hundred and Seventy Thousand Maura) during a five day launch. That has continued to dominate discussions when its comes to first time product launch on JV Zoo.

Intent on giving Nigerians, especially, youths, an opportunity to exploit the several opportunities and the mega money available in online marketing and mobile app sector online, Dr Banwo, in this interview, talks about the MOBIMATIC software, why he is hosting an executive presentation of the software and mobile apps built with it in Nigeria and how Nigerian youths can take advantage of it to better their lives and start living their dreams. He also delved into how the internet provides an answer into the youth unemployment crisis in the country. Excerpts

What is Mobimatic?

Mobimatic is a revolutionary mobile app development and business platform.

With Mobimatic you have a robust mobile app Software that makes it Super easy to build Apps for Business while providing tons of cool Features to make building awesome apps as easy as Drag and Drop.

Mobimatic also provides great Mobile App business setup to enable you earn from the Mobile App Business.

At the moment, hundreds of businesses and Mobile App Agencies across 50 countries use Mobimatic to greatly reduce the time and cost it takes to build high performance Apps.

From drag-and-drop development to app store submission, publishing a mobile app for businesses has become very easy with all the tools you need within reach.

What makes Mobimatic unique

The different features added to the Mobimatic software makes building a mobile app a unique experience.

From the social features that allows you to add a realtime Chat, or allow user posts sharing and comments in just a Click to setting up Loyalty Cards and Discount and Coupons and Scratch cards for Business.

Aside these, Mobimatic also allows you to have beautifully displayed images, videos, feeds and Podcast easily, while you can also build a native ecommerce in mobimatic or display Products from third party ecommerce solutions Setting up sever functions like Radio, Job Portal Click to Call, Contest and much more becomes integrated. With Mobimatic, you can now say goodbye to building different app per Platform.

With a Single click you can build apps across platforms that look and feel and above all, perform amazingly.

The Mobimatic Product Launch Miracle

From all indications, the five day launch of the Mobimatic Software on JV Zoo was a miracle. A miracle many established launchers have never had in their careers.

As a first time product launcher on JV Zoo, I was not expecting to have a six figure launch especially a huge six figure launch, raking in over $430,000 that translated to N158,670,000 over a five day period. We however achieved this.

The Mobimatic Miracle is a function of both doing the right things as well as having the right product. The Mobimatic software is indeed a revolutionary one that allows a total novice to build a mobile app in minutes. You do not need any technical background to build a mobile app you can sell up to $3000 to third parties for their businesses.

Of course such a great opportunity cannot be overlooked by any forward looking person. That, I think, is one of the reasons the launch was so successful and has made the software to continue to be in high demand. Why the Executive Presentation in Lagos, Nigeria?

Now this is the important aspect. I must confess that I am not the first or only Nigerian involved in internet marketing or product development and launch online. There are others who have been doing well with online marketing or product development. The difference, however is my resolve to empower Nigerians, especially youths based in Nigeria to take advantage of what the internet offers. I have been in the forefront of preaching the gospel of internet business in the country for about four years now and I must confess that a lot of young Nigerians are beginning to wake up to the reality that they can rescue themselves from poverty and joblessness by embracing these opportunities.

For me, the Mobimatic software provides Nigerians businesses and youths a great opportunity to move to the next level.

As a business, either small scale or a large enterprise, you do not need a big budget to get an amazingly working mobile app to reach both existing and prospective customer. While any youth in Nigeria, with an eye of doing things for himself and improving his life can take advantage of this software by simply identifying a need and filling the gap with a mobile app he can build with Mobimatic.

That explains why I have decided to present the software on Sunday the 23rd of July at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos to the Nigerian audience. Starting from 4pm, we shall be presenting this wave making software and six apps that have been made with it. There will also be testimonials from other users across the globe who are taking in thousands of dollars using Mobimatic to build mobile apps.

The lunch, where the presentation with be made is free but CEOs, Directors, Product Managers and all that other executives willing to attend will have to text their names and their organisations to these numbers: 08076244694 or 08068148300. This will confirm their attendance and also enable us reserve their seats. The confirmation text has to be done latest by Saturday July 22.

First internet summit

We have several initiatives that we have started because I love to innovate. We did the first internet summit last year, the African Internet Business Summit, which took place in November and soon, I will be launching the first internet school in Africa American Internet Business School in Lagos. It is the equivalent of Lagos Business School but for internet businesses where people can go online and learn different aspects of internet business like how to do social media marketing, reputation management on the internet; customer management, how to sell products and services on the internet. People can get certification in these different areas. Many of the companies employing people to manage their social media or sell online do not have trained people so we are setting up that school to provide capacity-building for individuals as well as companies on internet business-related subjects. We are partnering with foreign professionals who are experts in this field to provide the curriculum, the training etc and then we put it online and people can register as students and take courses and get certified.

Awards

To encourage internet businesses in Nigeria, Afrinet instituted two awards. We feel that one of the ways to develop internet business in Africa is to start to recognise people who are doing great in internet business. So we are organising the first dot.com awards in Africa, the Nigeria dot.com awards. The idea is to honour people in different areas of internet business like the best bank online, best newspaper online etc. We will bring together internet business professionals from within and outside Nigeria to do research online to get us the best in different categories like entertainment blog, news blog, best newspaper, best internet service provider, best insurance company online etc., about 25 categories. We will then narrow down to the best four or five in each category and the public will vote.

Two Awards

There are two awards in each category one is called Viewers Choice. Here, the candidate with the most votes from the public wins regardless of whether he is number one in terms of visit or not. In other words, the person that the public voted as number one based on their experience. Then there is the Practitioners Choice award i.e by the African Academy of Internet Business People. They will critically look at all the finalists and pick the best based on criteria we will give them. They will also come up with their own winner, so each category will have two winners. Of course, it is possible for one person to win both awards but one will be based strictly on voting from the public while the other will be based on technical evaluation by the technical crew.

Free Training

We also organise periodic trainings for youths. I did a freelancing course at Ajah, Lagos for unemployed youths because I believe that government should focus more on training the youths. If you can provide training that will cost little or even free training like I did, and the average person can learn how to do freelancing online, they can get to the point where they can be making $500 to $600 monthly in less than six months. So they dont need to apply for jobs.

There is this man I trained at our summit last year, now, he is making more than $4,000 $5,000 on the average every month, just doing proofreading online for people all over the world. So rather than complaining and waiting for government to create jobs, people can go online now and get jobs from all over the world. Today, you can stay here and get clients from Bangladesh, Australia etc., so you can employ yourself with minimal training at minimal cost to the government. Government should focus more on training people to be self-employed online. I feel that is one of the biggest solutions to unemployment among the youths because anybody can go to a cybercaf and learn how to do legitimate business. Anybody can get a laptop and employ himself; they dont need to go complaining about President Muhamadu Buhari and unemployment in the country just because they have submitted applications everywhere for non-existent jobs. If they can take three or six months to learn legitimate businesses online, they can be liberated and that has motivated me as I see people who have been unemployed for four, five years starting to earn their first $100 online.

I am not saying that people will become millionaires overnight, that is a myth, you have to work hard to get there but I believe that the average person can become self-employed and can make N50,000 to N80,000 a month within three months of learning this business. That is why I am committed to internet business capacity-building in Nigeria. I feel the Press can point attention to this area, organise free seminars.

It is not all about making money for me because I believe that as you grow, our business will also grow and that is why I do a monthly free training.

Continued here:
Ope Banwo returns with a Bang! Launches Wonder Mobile App Building Software in Lagos - Daily Post Nigeria

Marketing budgets and business confidence

Marketers have revised their budgets for digital ad spend up by the greatest extent in almost a decadeas they shift priority to more activation-based marketing amid growing economic uncertainty and a murky outlook.

In the IPAs latest quarterly Bellwether survey, covering the second quarter, 32% of respondents said they increased their internet marketing budgets, versus 9% that recorded a fall. That means an overall net balance of 22.7%, up from 16.9% in Q1 and the highest level since the third quarter of 2007.

That growth in internet ad budgets has also helped drive marketing budgets up. Some 28% of the survey panel recorded an upward revision to budgets in the second quarter, compared to 15% that said it had fallen, resulting in a net balance of 13.8% seeing increased budgets.

That was again higher than the 11.8% recorded in the previous quarter and means the majority of marketers have been increasing their budgets for almost five continuous years.

On the surface, the corporate sector seems to be in good health, says Paul Smith, senior economist at IHS Markit. Our headline data shows that underlying budget growth is being sustained at a robust clip, extending a current record sequence of expansion to just short of five years.

Companies report that product demand remains positive, underpinning the expansion of marketing budgets, particularly for use in the digital space.

Search and SEO saw some of the biggest increases, with a net balance of 15.6% of marketers planning to increase spend, the highest level in 2.5 years. Main media advertising also saw a net balance of 9.8%, but this was down from 10.7% in the previous quarter.

Among the sectors to see declines are direct marketing, market research and sales promotions, which saw the biggest net balance reduction at -10.7%, the weakest level since the same quarter seven years ago.

Paul Bainsfair, director general at the IPA, says the figures suggest marketers are seeking out more activation-driven marketing but he warns against brands shifting too much of their spend away from campaigns focused on brand building.

While it is good to see spend up in internet, it is worth remembering that IPA studies have consistently shown that the most effective marketing results from a 60:40 brand building (emotional) to sales activation (rational) ratio, he explains.

While marketing budgets have continued their run of growth, Smith cautions that there are threats on the horizon that will weigh on ad spend growth in the foreseeable future.

Marketers are becoming increasingly concerned about the financial prospects for both their businesses and their industry. While 30% of the survey panel are more optimistic about their own companys financial prospects, more than 20% are less confident meaning a net balance of 9.8%, the lowest level since the end of 2012.

On balance we think the threats to the outlook are real and will weigh on ad spend growth in the foreseeable future.

And perceptions of the wider industry prospects fared even worse. While 14% are more confident, 26% are less so leading to a net balance of -12.6% and marking the second lowest reading in 4.5 years.

Smith says: Brexit and government paralysis were widely noted as key threats to future industry performance and by definition are likely to weigh on marketing budgets over the coming year. Marketers are concerned that the terms of Brexit remain unclear, especially in areas such as regulation and trade, while political uncertainty is seen as adding to fears in the private sector to invest.

While Smith admits it is notoriously difficult to quantify the effects of political uncertainty, what is clearer, he says, is the impact of rising inflation on company costs and household incomes. The IPA has kept its annual ad spend forecast through 2020 the same, but there are suggestions it could lower expectations if the next update from the Office for Budget Responsibility predicts a slowdown.

On balance we think the threats to the outlook are real and will weigh on ad spend growth in the foreseeable future, says Smith.

Higher frequency indicators suggest that private sector consumption is already on the slide, and marketing executives are indicating to us that recent budget expansion has been partly defensive in nature to protect market share and sales in a softening economic environment.

Read more from the original source:
Digital ad budgets see biggest rise in almost 10 years - Marketing Week

Sacramento Bee

California takes on Trump again on internet privacy rules Sacramento Bee It would force internet providers to get permission to sell or share private data such as a customer's web browsing history and personal identifying information with third parties, which could use the information for targeted ads and other marketing ... and more »

Originally posted here:
California takes on Trump again on internet privacy rules - Sacramento Bee

Customer reviews often frustrate small business owners. Manta's latest resource offers actionable tips for taking control of reviews and turning online feedback into a powerful marketing tool.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (PRWEB) July 18, 2017

Manta, one of the largest online resources dedicated to small business, today released a new white paper entitled "How to Harness the Marketing Power of Online Reviews." The white paper outlines how small business owners can engage customers who actively share online reviews, how to solicit more positive reviews, and how to approach negative reviews.

"How to Harness the Marketing Power of Online Reviews" aims to educate small business owners on the best ways to engage with their local communities and current customers while building their online reputations to acquire new business. As the white paper explains, small business owners must first understand the importance of online reviews, which are key to both optimizing search engine results and convincing prospective customers to patronize your business once they find it online. Only then can they move onto accumulating new reviews, promoting positive reviews, and turning negative reviews into opportunities to positively interact with customers.

"Online reviews are the most important form of customer feedback available to any business," said Dario Ambrosini, COO of Manta. "Customers are turning to the internet for recommendations. Google and Bing have taken notice, and businesses with more reviews will see better search engine results. Once small businesses realize this, they will see the value of online reviews, make a concerted effort to engage customers this way, and capture new business as a result."

"How to Harness the Marketing Power of Online Reviews" provides small business owners with actionable recommendations for taking control of online reviews, including:

Download Manta's full white paper here to learn more about how small businesses can leverage online reviews to boost their digital presence and increase customer acquisition.

About Manta Manta, an online resource for small businesses, educates, supports and empowers small business owners to succeed and grow on their own terms. Manta provides its small business members with the education and marketing tools they need to reach local customers and grow their businesses. More than 2.6 million small business members use Manta's simple and effective solutions.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/07/prweb14516532.htm

See the rest here:
New Manta White Paper Delivers Best Practices for Managing Online Reviews - Benzinga