You Need Professional Help. Get our Free Pro Consultation Worth £1000

You need professional help!

You want to get more customers. You want to increase your sales. You want to expand your brand. And you want to grow your business.

You have heard of many success stories about those who ventured into online marketing and you definitely want a piece of the action.

But you don’t know where to start. Like many others you may be clueless at this point—scared, or overly hesitant.

Well, before anything else, you need Professional Consulting with Comprehensive Research, and an in-depth Online Marketing Services Blueprint.

Never heard of this before? We’re not really surprised—because agencies that do this are a rare breed.

There are hundreds of online marketing companies talking to you but you do not know who to trust. Possibly you have been burned before and now you’re extra careful.

Well, many business owners like you share the same hesitation.

It is because not many online marketing companies are really serious about looking into your business with thorough online marketing research and analysis.

Without in-depth research and analysis, and without a properly aligned marketing strategy for your business, any online marketing campaign is bound to fail.

And of course, you do not want to fail. You do not want to waste your hard-earned money. You do not want to waste your time. You want every minute and every little effort put into your campaign to build your marketing and business goals.

So what do you do? Go for companies that see the bigger picture and align themselves with your goals. Go for the ones who really make an effort to research and analyse your target market, your brand, your past marketing campaigns, your competitors, and your industry.  They will ask who your customers are:

Go for companies that have strong marketing sense! Go with us!

We will examine your website, your online presence, as well as your rankings and keywords. We will perform for you:

• Search Query Research – what are people typing into the search engines to find you?
• Search Query Traffic Analysis – how many times have people searched for you?
• Competition Analysis –analysing over 10,000 web pages of your competition
• Website Ranking Analysis for your website – where do you show up in the search engines?
• Online Presence Analysis – what directories and social media accounts do you have?
• Website Technical Analysis – is your website search engine compliant?

You need a marketing company with strong technical online marketing knowledge!

After completing extensive analysis, we will come back with comprehensive reports, as well as an online marketing services blueprint with the services, timetable, and marketing budget required to accomplish your business objectives:

We are ready to execute for you!

Why do other marketing companies try to throw you into a marketing campaign right away!? Because they are not willing to do the ground work required to ensure a successful marketing campaign. The industry average for such a consultation is £1000, and most clients are not willing to pay this much before launching a marketing campaign.

Here’s the thing. Our mission is to help business owners become competitive, expand their brands, and grow their companies. Seeing businesses succeed with our help is our passion.

We only want to market for you if we are confident we can HELP YOU SUCCEED!

So for a limited time, we are making our consulting, research, competition analysis, and comprehensive online marketing blueprint available to you for FREE.

What’s the catch, you ask?

Well, not so fast. This is not for everyone. And this may not be for you. You have to qualify for this.

We invest a lot of our time into these consulting sessions, and we cannot give these away for free to ANYONE—no one can.

Additionally we do not service clients who are directly competing with one another at a given location or niche.

You may check to see if you qualify by signing up with us risk-free—no obligation. If you qualify, you will receive a short intake call from us in order to gather the initial information required to perform our research and analysis.

We want to give business owners the chance and privilege to know how we can help.  And this may include you.

So call us now, send us an email, or fill-out our contact form to sign up with us today and get a:

• Professional consultation session,
• With in-depth research and analysis,
• And an online marketing blueprint worth £1000, ALL for FREE…

Let us help you expand your brand online, grow your customers and your business, beat your competition, and achieve your business goals.

Beyond Traditional: Online Marketing Tips for Your Dental Business

In the traditional marketing age, flyers, brochures, billboard and coupons used to be the most popular means of promoting a product or a business. However, since the birth of the Internet and other technologies, these methods were eclipsed by digital marketing. With the rapid growth of people using the internet and the change in their behaviour when looking for services, many businesses have decided to explore online marketing.

Both methods have the same objectives: establish a brand image and get customers. Which of these two can help your dental business the most?

Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing

When it comes to marketing your services – is going digital an imperative in this day and age?

Many local businesses today, including dental offices, still rely on conventional marketing methods to attract customers. They give out flyers and place ads around their area, hoping that people who read these materials will remember them when they need their services.

Is this enough?

According to a study, Seventy-two (72%) of internet users say they looked online for health information within the past year. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of these people say they began at a search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo to look for information. Eighty percent (80%) have looked online for information on health topics, such as specific diseases or treatments. Thirty-four percent (34%) have read about someone else’s experiences with their health or medical issues in an online newsgroup, website, or blog. And twenty-five percent (25%) have watched an online video about health or medical issues.

These numbers are growing steadily year after year.

Nowadays, when potential patients realise they have a dental issue, they will look for a solution online. They will have to find you as their friendly and accessible local solution.

In contrast, when you distribute traditional marketing materials like flyers and brochures, you “hope” that someone will remember and call you or visit you when they have finally acquired a dental issue.

Traditional marketing still helps, but with changes in consumer behaviour, now is the best time to integrate online marketing into your dental practice.

Why? Simply put, online marketing can help your dental office be searchable and more visible to people who are actively searching for and considering a dentist right when they need one.

Put some Teeth into your Online Marketing with these Tips

The reality of the situation is that search engines and local directories have taken the place of the Yellow Pages. As a dental practitioner, it is your responsibility to ensure you invest the majority of your energy into new marketing strategies that can benefit your business.

Here are six major ways you can maximise your online marketing efforts:

1. Have a Great Dental Website. Your website is where your online marketing efforts should start. Usually, potential clients will have a quick look at your website before considering your services and if they find your site boring and outdated, chances are, they’ll quickly navigate away from it. When websites are designed well, clients can acquire the information they are looking for without much trouble. That’s a plus for you and your office!

To guarantee your website’s efficiency and accessibility, be sure to include the following:

• Access to your contact information as well as directions to your clinic
• Details and pricings of your services
• Links to your blog and social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.)
• A corner where customers can place and read reviews about your services
• Your website must be mobile-friendly, employing a responsive web design architecture

2. Learn the Basics of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). You’ve probably heard a lot about search engine optimisation practices such as optimising keywords, or publishing relevant, useful and fresh content. But are you aware that there’s more behind your website that can help too? Things like headers, alt texts and meta descriptions can help search engine crawlers rank your websites higher in search results.

Here are some other tips that can help your website achieve better rankings:

• Provide useful and fresh content like articles, videos, infographics, reviews, etc.
• Integrate promos into your content
• Optimise your URLs, titles, descriptions, alt texts
• Improve your website’s loading time
• Register your website with Google and Bing webmaster tools

3. Invest in Local Visibility. Did you know that search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! offer local listings for businesses? By listing your dental office with these search engines, you increase the possibility of being visible to people looking online for dentists within their area and coming across yours. There are other local directories and internet yellow pages such as Yelp, City Search, SuperPages, and many more.

Here are some ways your local visibility can be boosted:

• Publish your promos on local listings and directories
• Bolt on your SEO and Social Media to your Local Buzz strategy.

4. Utilise the Power of Social Media. A strong presence on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms is essential nowadays, since most of your current and potential clients are probably active social media users.

What should you do to keep up with this growing trend? How can you use social media to market your services? Here are some quick pointers:

• Include testimonials and reviews from past customers
• Have a regular discussion about good dental practices
• Include a quick link back to your website and blog
• Share engaging photos (like pictures of happy clients, quotes, etc.)
• Post announcements of special offers

5. Online Reputation Management. In the digital era, no one and nothing is protecting you from criticism anymore. Such is the case for dentists, whose practice can be hit by negative online reviews once in a while. Do you know how powerful online reviews can be? According to research, fifty-two percent (52%) of those who searched online for referred businesses looked for reviews or ratings. A separate study also showed that eighty percent (80%) of consumers can change their purchase decision after reading a negative review.

What can you do to spare your dental office from the effects of bad reviews about you if ever there are? How can you maintain the good reputation of your office? Here are a few tips:

• Look for in-depth reports detailing where you stand against your competition and what actions you need to take for your ORM campaign
• Publish genuine consumer reviews only in relevant websites
• Optimise your social media accounts
• If you don’t have a blog yet, set up one and start posting content that can push down negative reviews about your services

6. Make use of PPC (Pay per Click) Advertising. When you need traffic, PPC advertising is a great way to get it. In a nutshell, PPC is pretty simple: Search engines have features that allow businesses to buy ad placements in their search results. These listings appear above, below and alongside organic, non-paid results. If someone clicks on your listing, they will be redirected to your website and you, in turn, will be charged the amount you bid. These ads can be a bit expensive, but if you’re looking for immediate results, PPC advertising can offer a guaranteed solution.

Aside from appearing directly on a search engine’s results pages, you can also run ads through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

7. Tracking, Analytics and Reporting. Making sure your website looks good is one thing; knowing if you’re actually getting traffic is another. You need to have a traffic and analytics system that does the following:

• Allows you to see the total traffic your website is getting, including the breakdown of data from organic, referral, direct, paid and social sources
• Allows you to analyse which of your campaigns are working or not
• Allows you to know if visitors are engaged in your content or if they leave right away
• Alerts you if there are crawl issues on your website
• Allows you to know how often your web page appears in a search query and how many times it has been visited, as well as its average ranking
• Automatically detects every new search query or keyword that a user types in search engines that your web page shows up for

We know you need to focus on doing what you do best, and that is to maintain the overall oral health of your patients. Studying and exploring online marketing strategies on your own can be very time consuming, and that’s why we are here. We can help you in all of areas of online marketing – it’s what we do best!

We provide Responsive Web Design, SEO and Website Audit, Local Buzz, Social Media Optimisation, PPC, Online Reputation Management and Online Presence Tracking and Analytics to grow your business.

Send us an email or call us so we can schedule a free consultation with you today.

It Takes Money to Make Money. Expand your Brand through Online Marketing

If you want to expand your brand, increase sales, and grow your business fast, then you have to invest money into your marketing to make it happen.

You have to invest in digital marketing.  Your business should be very visible in the online world.

Why?  Because your potential customers have moved online.  This is where they’re actively searching for products and services.

Search Engine Optimisation

Ninety-one percent of your potential customers use search engines frequently. This explains why 94% of businesses rank SEO the highest with growing importance as a source of leads.

Can people find you on search engines?

Local Search

Local search has grown 300%, from 1 billion in 2007 to 4 billion in 2013. Seventy-eight percent of local searches on a smartphone result in a purchase, and on tablets, 77%. Your potential customers are now using their mobile devices on-the-go to search for local businesses and buy things!

Is your website ready for mobile commerce?

Responsive Web Design

Is your website mobile responsive? 62% of companies reported an increase in sales after designing a mobile-friendly website.  Global m-commerce sales reached $133 billion in 2013, and will reach $626 billion in 2018!

Social Media Optimisation

Your customers are spending 1 in 6 minutes online on social networks. Do you have a brand presence on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and others?

Do it yourself or Leave it to the Professionals

Sure, you can do everything at the same time.  From directing core aspects of your business: such as business development, finance, supply chain, production, marketing, and sales; right down to online marketing—Web Design, SEO, Local, Social Media, PPC, Online Reputation Management, and etc.

Do Something Now or your Competitors will Crush You

Many of your competitors are already into online marketing. They already have a responsive website.  They are employing SEO, Local Marketing, Social Media Marketing, PPC, and ORM.  They are producing, publishing, and distributing their content to expand their brands.

Doing exactly what they are already doing won’t be of much help.  You have to take your marketing up a notch to surpass the marketing efforts of your competitors.

You have to carefully plan your marketing budget, and entrust your digital marketing to the professionals. This will allow you to focus on growing your business, keeping your sanity, and staying ahead of your competitors!

Increase in Marketing Budgets

Successful businesses calibrate their marketing budgets accordingly. Studies indicate that 60% of companies are planning to increase their overall marketing budgets for the year ahead. There was a 26% average increase in budgets, while 73% of these businesses increased their marketing budgets by 30%.

The same study indicates that 71% of businesses have increased their digital marketing budgets!

Basic Guideline on Marketing Budget Allocation

It is advised to invest at least 10% of your gross annual revenue into your strategic marketing plan. If you’re a startup or will be launching a new product or service, it is advised to invest as much as 20 to 30% of your projected annual gross revenue to really shake things up.  Actual marketing budgets in certain industries can reach as high as 35%.

Yes.  It Takes Money to Make Money!

Maximise your marketing budget by going with us.  Expand your brand through our high-calibre services—Responsive Web Design, SEO, Local Buzz, Social Media, PPC, Online Reputation Management, and more.

So call us now, or send us an email for a free consultation on how to successfully harness your digital marketing budget today!

Open wide and Put Some Teeth into Your Online Marketing

As dentists, your most valued number has always been 32, or the total number for a complete set of teeth. But there are now also other numbers and figures to consider with the Internet being such a big part of people’s lives. Here are some quick stats to chew on:

• 8 out of 10 say they began looking for health or medical information, as well as doctors or health professionals at a search engine such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo.
• 72% of users say they looked or health information online within past year.
• 35% of adults say that at one time or another, they have gone online specifically to try to figure out what medical condition they or someone else might have. We call them online diagnosers.
• 46% of online diagnosers say that the information they found online led them to think they needed the attention of a medical professional.
• 53% of online diagnosers followed-up with medical professional after online diagnosis.
• 52% of smartphone owners gather health info and health-related services on their phones.
• 34% of people have read about someone else’s experiences with medical issues online

People are looking online more for health services and resources, and they will obviously go for the ones that are most visible to them when they search.  Your dental service can be more known within your local area, and there are a few steps to take to market yourself better. But it’s important to also remember to not just cater to a portion of potential patients as people from all walks of life are constantly looking for help with their oral hygiene every day.

Here are a few other facts to consider:

What does this mean for you? The Internet has become such a hub for information that people will constantly use it to look up any curiosity they have on medical conditions or treatments. They are most likely to search for any solution to whatever medical issue, dental or otherwise, that they have.   And these people, who looked online to diagnose a condition, are most likely to follow up with a medical professional.

So why not be more visible to them and show you can help?

Unless people know you specifically by name or place, they are going to start with search engines. In your case, they are possibly looking for anything related to dentistry. In fact, eight out of ten people start looking for dental assistance through search engines. If we’re going to put that in familiar terms, that would mean in a room of 32 people, at least 25 or 26 of them will be starting from Google, Yahoo! or Bing.

If you don’t have a proper website just yet, you can always put yourself in local directories like Yelp or the Yellow Pages. You also want to get in the good graces of potential patients, so you need to generate buzz. As directories also work as aggregators of reviews made by different people who go to a business or service, leaving a good impression on patients would, in turn, getting a good review from them. Think for a moment not as a dentist but as patient browsing online. When you see different dental services to choose from, are you likely to choose the one that offers cheap services but has three star reviews, or the slightly pricier clinic but with glowing five star reviews? This is the importance of pushing the positive reviews forward in these sites.

Consider the two earlier chewed on points: 72% of people looked up health information within the past year and among that percentage, a little over half them (52%) used their smartphones to do so. This means that that unless they’re at home and have access to a desktop or laptop, there’s an equally good chance that your potential patients are looking for your services on a mobile device. Why is this significant? Many websites are properly designed and laid out for desktops and laptops, but do not have a corresponding mobile version to them. When you look at those figures again, this would be great for the 48% of patients that don’t use their phones, but can be problematic for the other 52%. Your website cannot just appease one solid half of potential patients just because it is not properly formatted for their preferred device. If you want your dental practice to be known online, you need to have a desktop-friendly and a mobile-friendly website in order to have a wider, compatible reach where people can quickly get the information they need to contact you.

Now it’s possible that you could be shaking your head at any of the things just mentioned. You might not have an entirely mobile compatible site, a local directory listing with good reviews or even a properly managed website that would turn up when people searched online. However, there’s no need to worry like you have a bad cavity if that’s the case. Unlike tooth decay, this situation can still be fixed entirely even if you address it late. There’s a lot that you can do to expand your reach online and make yourself visible to people when they search for oral hygiene care. We offer services that will help build your reputation, establish your social media presence, let local directories know who you are, and make you visible and rank in search engines. As we said earlier, people are always looking out for their health, and if you can be the one that provides them the dental service they need, you can start by letting them know that you exist when they search for help online.

Dentists know that tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the entire human body. So if you’re ready to have an online presence that’s as solid as enamel, fill out a form today or call us for an appointment.

Invest in Digital Marketing and Take Your Company to Greater Heights

As the old business adage goes, it takes money to make money.

You, the business owner wanting to succeed and profit in today’s competitive marketplace need to be implementing optimised and cohesive marketing strategies. If you fail to invest in digital marketing, you will be left behind, as your customers are increasingly turning to the Internet to inform their purchase decisions.

Digital marketing is the way of the future. If you want to expand your brand, boost sales, and grow your businesses exponentially, then you have to invest money into digital marketing to drive these goals. Both your prospects and existing customers are actively searching for different products and services online. They’re also reading reviews and comparing various products and services.

You need to strategise your marketing budget accordingly with the help of online marketing professionals, as well as the application of methodical analysis such as the BCG Growth-Share Matrix.

Applying the BCG Growth-Share Matrix Analysis to Marketing Initiatives

The BCG Growth-Share Matrix is a portfolio planning model that was created by Bruce D. Henderson for the Boston Consulting Group in 1970 to help companies analyse their business units or product lines. The BCG Growth-Share Matrix can help companies allocate resources, and is used as an analytical tool in brand marketing, product management, portfolio analysis, and other disciplines. The BCG Growth-Share Matrix analysis can also be applied to marketing initiatives.

The BCG Growth-Share Matrix classifies a company’s business units into four categories—cash cows, dogs, question marks, and stars—based on combinations of market growth and market share relative to the largest competitor; hence the term “growth-share”.

Cash cows possess high market share in a slow-growing industry and are considered to be leaders in a mature market. Because cash cows have a return on assets that is greater than the market growth rate, they generate more cash than they consume. Like a real cow, such business units should be “milked” for profits and should be invested with as little cash as possible.

Dogs, in contrast, have low market share and a low growth rate, and as a result, neither generate nor consume large amounts of cash. While dogs typically “break even” and generate barely enough cash to maintain the business unit’s market share, they’re considered to be cash traps because of capital that is tied up in a business that has little potential.

Question marks are businesses that operate in high market growth, but have low market share. Their high growth rate ensures that they consume large amounts of cash, but their low market share ensures that they do not generate much cash. This results in considerable net cash consumption. Question marks have the potential to gain market share and become stars, and eventually, cash cows when market growth slows.

On the other hand, if the question mark does not fulfill its potential, then it will eventually degenerate into a dog after years of cash consumption, particularly after the market growth declines. Hence, question marks need to be analysed carefully to determine if they are worth the investment required to grow their market share.

Less problematic are stars, which are business units that possess high market share in a fast-growing industry. While they generate large amounts of cash due to their strong relative market share, they also consume large amounts of cash because of their high growth rate. If a star can maintain its large market share, it will eventually become a cash cow when the market growth rate starts to slow down or after the star reached a level of maturity by gaining efficiency and cost advantage.

As noted earlier, the BCG Growth-Share Matrix analysis can be applied to marketing initiatives. The online marketing campaigns of successful businesses occupy most of the cash cow and the star quadrants because of the high market share (brand expansion, reach and conversions) that have resulted from these optimised, revenue-generating online marketing campaigns.

Typically, the first step is concerned with evolving online marketing campaigns from the question mark phase to the star phase, and finally, to the cash cow phase. Businesses that started early with their online marketing most likely started their campaigns in the question marks quadrant. These businesses have tested and selected the best online marketing campaigns, and in turn, have optimised these campaigns with their online marketing agency for maximum effectiveness until they became stars.

To paraphrase the words of the legendary advertising executive David Ogilvy: “Never stop testing and your [online marketing] will never stop improving”.

While stars generate huge revenues due to their high market share, they also tend to require huge budgets due to their high platform and market growth rate. Stars that eventually reach maturity will become cash cows.

Cash cows are the most effective marketing campaigns and resulting revenues from this quadrant should be coursed out to fund questions marks until they become stars. Also, a greater portion of the marketing budget should be invested in stars to increase their market share until they reach maturity and become cash cows. This process needs to be repeated in order to be always ahead of the curve in digital marketing.

In the infographic, you will see the cash flow and transformation cycle in action. After going through the experience curve, and gaining cost efficiency and cost advantage, these businesses have online marketing campaigns that have matured and have evolved into cash cows. This leads to high overall revenues for the business, which in turn allows them to develop more stars.

We’ll help you identify the ideal marketing budget for your organisation in order to drive your marketing objectives and business goals. By establishing an optimal marketing budget, your business will become more competitive and profitable in an increasingly cutthroat marketplace.

We’ll also help you test and select the best online marketing campaigns, and optimise them to ensure maximum effectiveness to further your brand expansion initiatives.

We’ll drive your growth, boost your profits, expand your brand online, and increase your leads and sales.

Contact our professional digital marketing agency today, and get a FREE consultation on how to strategically increase your marketing budget.

Call us now or send us a message so we can schedule your free consultation and bring your business to new heights.

Establish an Optimal Marketing Budget to Drive Growth and Beat the Competition

Developing a dynamic and cohesive marketing strategy has become essential for businesses that want to profit in today’s competitive marketplace. While some business owners believe that they don’t need to implement strong digital marketing strategies to be successful, their customers are increasingly turning to the Internet to inform their purchase decisions.

Several trends are shaping the direction of digital marketing in 2014 and beyond; aside from increasing mobile adoption (which is fueling the growth of m-commerce), an increasing number of consumers are becoming multi-platform users. Multi-platform users are consumers who use both mobile and desktop devices to consume digital media.

Meanwhile, the growth and influence of social media websites—such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn—have transformed strategic social media marketing, turning it into a vital and lucrative aspect of digital marketing. Consequentially, many of the largest companies are evolving enterprise class social media marketing platforms and infrastructure to help them consolidate their social media marketing campaigns.

Different B2B, B2C, and mixed B2B and B2C companies understand that if they want to expand their brands, increase their sales, and grow their businesses quickly, they need to invest money into their digital marketing efforts. Both your prospects and existing customers have moved online, where they’re actively searching for different products and services, and are reading the recommendations of friends and other consumers. Businesses that aren’t visible in the online world will lose out to savvier businesses that have increased the focus and intensity of their digital marketing efforts.

Your Competitors are Increasing their Overall Marketing Budgets

The latest reports indicate that more marketers are increasing their overall marketing budgets in 2014 than maintaining or decreasing their overall marketing budgets. According to the fifth annual Marketing Budgets Report, which was published by Econsultancy and sponsored by Responsys, 60% of client-side respondents say their companies are increasing their overall marketing budgets in 2014—which is significantly higher compared to 54% in 2013 and 45% in 2012.

The same report stated that 34% of client-side respondents say their companies are maintaining the same overall marketing budgets for 2014, while only 6% of client-side respondents say their companies are decreasing their overall marketing budgets for 2014.

Forty-four percent of supply-side respondents say their clients are increasing their overall marketing budgets in 2014—up from 39% in 2013 and 30% in 2012. As for digital marketing budgets, the number of companies increasing their spending has been remarkably consistent since 2009, and is 71% this year. Digital budgets have largely been insulated from spending cuts as more companies focus on their digital channels to drive business growth, as well as leads and sales conversions.

Meanwhile, only 20% of companies are planning to increase their traditional (offline) marketing budgets in 2014, with 55% of companies planning to keep their traditional (offline) marketing budgets the same over the next year.

As for the average increase in overall marketing budgets, the fifth annual Marketing Budgets Report stated that companies will be increasing their overall marketing budgets by an average of 26% in 2014. Meanwhile, approximately three in every four companies (73%) stated that they will be increasing their budgets by up to 30% this year.

Budget Allocation across Digital Marketing Channels

When it comes to budget allocation, the lion’s share of budget increases will go to content marketing, followed by SEO and mobile marketing for acquisition in 2014. According to the fifth annual Marketing Budgets Report, 74% of client-side responding companies stated they will be increasing their content marketing budgets in 2014, 63% stated they will be increasing their search engine optimisation budgets in 2014, and 63% stated they will be increasing their mobile marketing budgets in 2014.

On the other hand, the digital channels marketers will most likely be decreasing their expenditure in 2014 are paid search and online display advertising for acquisition/engagement. Meanwhile, the majority of supply-side respondents stated that their clients are planning to increase their budgets in content marketing (80%), mobile marketing for acquisition (67%), and mobile marketing for engagement/retention (61%) in 2014.

According to Gartner's Digital Marketing Spending Survey, overall expenditure for digital advertising will grow in 2014 as brands, ad agencies, and publishers invest in diversified channels in order to deliver more relevant advertising to target audiences. The use of programmatic media, which allows marketers to target their desired audience and automate bidding rules for ads based on the business value they deliver, is a major impetus for this growth.

Content Marketing Expenditure is on the Rise for B2C and B2B Marketers

High-quality content will become increasingly vital to the success of businesses in 2014, as consumers use search engines to look for products and services, and find the answers to their queries. Leads on the lookout for particular products and services use the Internet as their first port of call; they check out business websites and social media profiles, and sign up for newsletters to get more valuable information.

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s “B2C Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends” report, 90% of B2C marketers are using content marketing this year, compared with 86% last year. Furthermore, 60% of B2C marketers are planning to increase their content marketing budget over the next 12 months. Of this percentage, 15% are planning to significantly increase their content marketing budgets over the next 12 months.

As for B2B marketers, according to the Content Marketing Institute’s “B2B Content Marketing 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends” report, 93% of B2B marketers are using content marketing in 2014, compared with 91% last year. 58% of B2B marketers are planning to increase their content marketing budget over the next 12 months, while more B2B marketers are planning to increase their content marketing budgets in 2014, compared with last year (54%).

The Content Marketing Institute’s report also stated that all B2B marketers are planning to increase their content marketing spending at similar rates—even marketers who rate themselves as “least effective”. Meanwhile, more small companies (with 10-99 employees) than large companies (with 1,000 or more employees) are planning to increase their content marketing budgets over the next 12 months (60% versus 52%).

Marketers are Focusing on Acquisition Rather than Engagement/Retention Marketing 

According to the fifth annual Marketing Budgets Report, 34% of client-side respondents said they were investing more in acquisition marketing rather than engagement/retention marketing in 2014. This percentage is slightly higher than in 2013, when 31% of client-side respondents said they were investing more in acquisition rather than engagement/retention marketing. This modest boost in acquisition marketing can be partially attributed to the more positive economic climate and the corresponding increase in marketing budgets.

Only 18% of client-side respondents said they were investing more in engagement/retention marketing rather than acquisition marketing in 2014. This was a slight drop from 2013, when 24% of client-side respondents said they were investing more in engagement/retention marketing rather than acquisition marketing.

Adjust your Marketing Budget Accordingly to Industry Growth to Fuel your own Growth

Businesses that want to expand their brands, increase their sales, and grow their businesses quickly will need to calibrate their marketing budgets accordingly to meet these goals. The majority of your competitors are increasing their overall marketing budgets, especially in digital channels like content marketing, search engine optimisation, mobile marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing.

Unfortunately, doing exactly what your competitors are doing won’t be enough. If you want to surpass your competitors, you’ll need to hire a professional digital marketing agency with a proven track record of success and years of experience. In other words, you should hire us!

We’ll help you identify the ideal marketing budget for your organisation in order to drive your marketing objectives and business goals. By establishing an optimal marketing budget, your business will become more competitive and profitable in an increasingly cutthroat marketplace. We’ll also develop a dynamic marketing strategy for your business that will drive growth, boost your profits, expand your brand online, and increase your leads and sales conversions.

Contact our professional digital marketing agency, and get first-rate consultation and digital marketing services from the experts.

Call us now, or send us an email to sign up with us today and take your business to new heights!

Free Pro Consultation Worth £1000 with Competition Analysis Reports, and an Online Marketing Services Blueprint

While some business owners believe that they don’t need to implement strong digital marketing strategies to be successful (with some maintaining and even growing their revenues without a coherent digital marketing strategy), their customers are increasingly turning to the Internet to help themselves with their buying decisions. Furthermore, with the increase in mobile adoption, more and more consumers are using their mobile devices to help them with their buying decisions.

If you want to profit in today’s marketplace, you need to develop and implement strong multi-device and cross-channel digital marketing strategies to effectively reach their potential and existing customers.

How Much Budget Should You Allocate to Your Marketing?

As a general rule of thumb, new businesses are advised to invest at least 10% of their gross annual income into a strategic marketing action plan that covers appropriate online, print, and networking initiatives. However, Entrepreneur magazine advises businesses that want to advance their objectives and sales to invest more time and money into their strategic marketing action plan—as much as 20-30% of their anticipated annual gross revenues, particularly if they are introducing new products or services.

These figures, of course, aren’t set in stone. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses with revenues of less than £3 million should allocate between 7-8% of their revenues to marketing. This allocated budget should be split between brand development costs and the costs of promoting the business.

The Small Business Administration states that a small business’s allocated marketing budget should also take into account the business’s industry, the size of the business, and its growth stage. How the marketing budget is spent is equally important, and the budget should be used to outline the costs of the business’s marketing goals within a certain time period.

Your Competitors are Increasing their Marketing Budget in 2014

As the economy continues to recover, more and more marketers are stating that they’ll be increasing their marketing budgets this year to fuel business growth. According to the fifth annual Marketing Budgets Report, which was published by Econsultancy and sponsored by Responsys, 60% of client-side respondents say their companies are increasing their overall marketing budgets for 2014—which is significantly higher compared to 54% in 2013 and 45% in 2012.

Forty- four percent of supply-side respondents say their clients are increasing their overall marketing budgets this year—up from 39% in 2013 and 30% in 2012. As for digital marketing budgets, the number of companies increasing their spending has been remarkably consistent since 2009, and is 71% this year. Digital budgets have largely been insulated from spending cuts as more companies focus on their digital channels to drive business growth, as well as leads and sales conversions.

Meanwhile, only 20% of companies are planning to increase their traditional (offline) marketing budgets over the next year, with 55% of companies planning to keep their traditional (offline) marketing budgets the same over the next year.

Your Competitors are Focusing on Acquisition Marketing

The fifth annual Marketing Budgets Report also stated that more companies say they will be focusing their investments on marketing for new customers (acquisition marketing) over keeping their existing ones (engagement/retention) in 2014. 34% of respondents say they are focusing on acquisition marketing (up from 31% in 2013), while retention/engagement is down from 24% in 2013 to 18% this year.

The modest boost in acquisition marketing can be partially attributed to the more positive economic climate and the corresponding increase in marketing budgets.

Marketing Spend in 2014: Email Marketing, Social Media, & Search (SEO/PPC) Lead the Way

The latest StrongView survey, which was conducted with SENSORPRO, examines business leaders and their planned marketing budgets for 2014. According to the survey, 52% of respondents plan to increase their spend on email marketing, 46% on social media, and 41% on search (SEO/PPC) this year.

In contrast, some traditional advertising channels are seeing a significant decrease in spend.  According to the StrongView survey, 32% of respondents plan to decrease their print advertising spend, while 21% of respondents plan to decrease their direct mail spend.

A prevailing challenge for marketers this year is accessing and leveraging the enormous amount of data being generated by a growing number of marketing channels. 40% of respondents cited accessing and leveraging customer data as the biggest email marketing challenge, while 32% of respondents say they’re struggling to develop more relevant engagements.

How Professional Consultation Can Drive Your Marketing Objectives & Business Goals

While developing a dynamic marketing strategy is important for businesses that want to drive growth, boost their profits, and increase their leads and sales conversions, setting aside the optimal marketing budget to drive these objectives can be a tricky process. This is a problem frequently encountered not just by small and medium businesses, but by large enterprises as well.

Fortunately, we can help business owners like you identify the ideal marketing budget for your organisation in order to drive your marketing objectives and business goals. For a limited time, we’re providing FREE PROFESSIONAL CONSULTATIONS WORTH £1000 to business owners who want to establish optimal marketing budgets and become more competitive and profitable in an increasingly cutthroat marketplace.

Our free professional consultation worth £1000 includes a comprehensive research and analysis report, and an in-depth online marketing services blueprint, so that you’ll better understand your current online presence, what your competitors are doing, and what actions need to be taken in order to drive your marketing and business goals.

We typically charge £1000 per consultation because of the extensive research and analysis—not to mention expertise—that is required. Indeed, no other company will offer such comprehensive and superior consultation for free. If you want to compete in the online marketing world, you’ll need serious intelligence and the advice of an experienced, knowledgeable consultant.

We’ll make the effort to research and analyse your target market, your brand, your marketing goals, your past marketing campaigns, your competitors, and your industry to help us devise a sound online marketing strategy for you. Armed with this knowledge, we’ll then proceed with implementation, and every step in the process and every milestone will be aligned with your marketing goals.

Our online marketing services blueprint will outline the services that you need to meet your marketing objectives and business goals, with the corresponding timetable and well-justified marketing budget.

Don’t miss this chance to obtain valuable intelligence and first-rate consultation from the experts. Call us now or send us a message so we can schedule your free consultation.