Digital Marketing – Some Important Aspects to Consider

Significance of Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has become vital as far as contemporary businesses are concerned, especially for small and medium companies. Devoid of a planned digital marketing strategy, companies will find it very hard to combat the present-day fierce market competition. A functional online portal has become essential for all businesses, which will be of great help to the customers who are interested in buying such products. Yet another thing to note is that the company must also perform the related SEO works promptly and proficiently. Hence, if you have plans to promote your brand in China, the professional skills of a trained SEO agency that possesses adequate experience as regards digital marketing in China (adstochina.westwin.com/digital-marketing-in-china) become essential.

Digital marketing in China

The processes of digital marketing in China are very much different, as the globally leading search engines have less significance here. The principal search engines that function in this country are Baidu, Qihoo 360, and Sogou, and the SEO works must precisely match the working patterns of these. Besides, the most popular micro-blogging sites are WeChat and Weibo, and one must use these sites for functional interaction with potential customers.   Hence, for flawless digital marketing in China, the SEO manager must have a comprehensive awareness as regards the varied entailed functions that are significant in the country.

Digital Marketing – Some Important Aspects to Consider

There are quite a few things that one will have to make sure so that digital marketing in China becomes effective. Let us see some of the top points.

The expertise of the Agency: This point is highly significant, and you must pay full attention while hiring an SEO agency for performing digital marketing in China for your company. The agency must be able to provide you flawless professional service as regards the varied entailed tasks such as strategic consulting, search engine marketing, social media marketing, display advertising, website localization, cross border e-commerce, etc. Remember, these tasks are essential and will help you to grow your business prospects in China. It’s always wise to select an experienced company that has relevant experience in digital marketing, especially in China.

Easily Accessible Site: Creating an online portal is of prime importance. The existing and potential customers must be able to enter the company website easily. That said, these days, tablets and smartphones are the most commonly used devices, and hence, the created sites must be compatible as regards these gadgets. This is a significant point, and only when the site is made compatible, customers will be able to enter the site as and when they want, even while on the go.

Content Creation: The details that the companies provide for the customers must be lucid and to the point. Those who enter the site must be able to comprehend the details as regards the products or services easily. The language used must be simple and straightforward.

SEO and SEM: Proper search engine optimization and search engine marketing tactics are unavoidable. Both these tasks are imperative for attracting new clients and thereby enhancing the sales revenue. Here, the expertise of a professionally managed SEO agency will be highly handy.

Social Media: Remember, it is the interaction with the customers that makes any brand popular. This mutual communication is a practical way for company management to comprehend customers’ aspirations so that they can fine-tune their products or services precisely in sync with that knowledge. As regards the Chinese market, the main social sites are WeChat and Weibo. Hence, active participation in these sites is a must. Businesses can hire an SEO agency for conducting their social media marketing effectively. However, the agency must be experienced in performing the varied tasks that are par for the course of digital marketing in China.

That said, the pricing is also significant; the SEO agency must not charge exorbitantly. It is pragmatically prudent to compare the provided services, the winning nature of the same, and the pricing of some of the SEO companies and choose the most affordable agency.

What to Look for When Hiring the SEO Company

To make your company stand out from the crowd, you need an SEO company that will garner potential leads and tunes itself into your requirements and aspirations. But, with so many digital marketing agencies around, finding a good deal is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

So, how should you choose the best SEO company Houston? To choose the right one, you have to think like a manager. Who can help you put your best foot forward by highlighting your strengths, covering up your weaknesses, revealing opportunities, and making you aware of possible threats?

The following points will guide you in making the right decisions.

Free Consultation

First and foremost, does the company offer a free consultation? An SEO company in Houston that is confident in its abilities would even offer a free website audit. This may already give you a new perspective about your business and some ideas regarding what you should do. Such a free consultation will also help build a trusting relationship with your SEO company, which is vital to get the best out of using their services.

Specialties

What types of SEO services does the company offer, and what are their specialties? From their website and through your interactions with them, try to find out in which industries the company has worked as this may give you an idea of their capabilities.

Also, a company is only as good as the people they employ. So, try to learn if the company invests in training its employees in the latest SEO tools and digital marketing practices.

Background Check

One of the best ways to find a good SEO company is to go through its testimonials and online reviews. However, reviews can sometimes be biased. So, if you want to go one step further, ask the company for its portfolio and case studies. This will shine some light on what the company can offer.

Transparency

Is the SEO company being secretive? Companies often don’t reveal their strategies or methods as they consider them trade secrets. But, educating you as the client is important too as you need to know exactly where your money is going. This is especially true as many people have had bad experiences with service providers.

Also, people are resistant to change in general, and you need to understand that no harm will come to you if you accept the SEO company’s proposed changes.

Black Hat Practices

Some companies resort to black hat practices to attain higher rankings. You may initially be impressed by their jargon, but they will ultimately do your company more harm than good as your site may be punished and even eventually removed from search results.

So, check what the SEO company plans to do with your site. Ethics and values are important and so they only hire a company that endorses white hat practices.

Do Your Own Research

Read about them and talk to them to find out who they are. Make sure that you get reports about the work they do and are aware of the dangers.

Also, consider whether what they are offering is too tempting. Ideally, don’t go to an SEO company that offers everything. Consider what you need and stick to that by being specific and focusing on what is essential.

The Importance of Sticking to a Budget

Different SEO companies have different payment structures. Experts opine that a great SEO company will never charge low prices. That being said, a high price cannot necessarily guarantee success. You may be faced with the need to work within a limited budget. In that case, the best you can do is look for a company that will allow you to do so without hurting your interests.

Also, cut costs by finding out if your SEO company in Houston can multitask. Strong decision making and perseverance will yield the desired results at an affordable price.

You also need to align your SEO efforts with other marketing endeavors. Hence the need to work within a budget constraint.

We have tried to put forward what will come in handy. Did we miss anything? Please feel free to leave your comments below. We’d love to hear from you.

How a Lifecycle Marketing Agency Can Help?

The way to succeed at business is to correctly identify your target audience, encourage them to buy your product or service, retain them as customers over a long period of time, and eventually have them become an ambassador of sorts for your service or product. This is known as the customer lifecycle, and it is a cycle that knowledgeable and clever marketing agencies can directly tailor to. These types of marketing agencies are termed lifecycle marketing agencies, and are a guaranteed way to attract customers, get them to stick around, and to eventually have them giving your product or service glowing praise to those around them.

What is Lifecycle Marketing?

Simply put, lifecycle marketing provides your audience with the types of communication and experiences they want, like, or need as they shift from a prospective customer, to a customer, and to hopefully an advocate of your service or product. Lifecycle marketing agencies create a strategy which spans the entire customer lifecycle in order to increase customer engagement and retention. To truly succeed in lifestyle marketing, you must possess an in-depth understanding of your target audience and you must be willing to work on retaining and cultivating customer value over a long period of time. Unfortunately, not every business owner possesses the in-depth knowledge to successfully implement a lifecycle marketing campaign, and this is where a lifecycle marketing agency comes in to play.

How Can Lifecycle Marketing Agencies Help Me?

Lifecycle marketing agencies implement strategies to attract customers, sell to these customers, and to then hopefully create ambassadors of these customers for the business’ product or service. Lifecycle marketing agencies achieve this in a variety of ways.

1. Lifecycle marketing agencies snags the attention of potential consumers by specifically targeting select groups (which is also known as a target audience) and crafting content that specifically addresses these target audiences through marketing strategies. Some ways to target an audience include demographics, location, and interests. Lifecycle marketing agencies also help catch potential consumers attention and divert them to your website through interesting and engaging content, such as webinars or blog posts.

2. Lifecycle marketing agencies then work to ensure that your potential consumers become your actual consumers. These agencies achieve this by ensuring that these potential customers know that your product or service is the obvious, and best, choice. These agencies do this by educating potential customers about the product or service and by creating unbeatable offers.

3. Finally, lifecycle marketing agencies can create product ambassadors for your business by successfully fulfilling commitments on time, create special offers that align with your consumers interests, and encouraging referrals by offering incentives for your customers.

What Should I Look for in a Lifecycle Marketing Agency?

There are a number of things you will want to look for when you are trying to locate the best lifecycle marketing agency.

1) Does your lifecycle marketing agency specify whether they are experienced in b2b or b2c lifecycle marketing? Business to client marketing strategies are a lot different from business to business marketing strategies, and this is no different for your lifecycle marketing campaigns. You want to ensure that your lifecycle marketing agency is equipped and knowledgeable in the type of lifecycle marketing you need to do.

2) Is your lifecycle marketing agency transparent and easy to communicate with? They should be clear about their plan, their requirements, and the expected results, and they should create a strong communication system to keep you as engaged and informed as you need to be about the progress of the campaign and the decisions that are being made on your behalf.

3) Is your lifecycle marketing agency able to formulate a clear plan for your long-term marketing strategy, preferably one that accounts for any adaptations and fluctuations that may need to be incorporated as the campaign progresses?

4) Is your lifecycle marketing agency budget-friendly? You shouldn’t have to go over budget to accommodate your lifecycle marketing needs. Your agency should be able to accommodate your budget, create a campaign within that budget that will best accommodate your end goals, and make recommendations to you about how to best allocate your funds to get the best results out of your marketing strategy.

With a lifecycle marketing agency on your side, you will increase customer engagement, retain more customers, and create a word-of-mouth marketing campaign that you would otherwise have been unable to achieve. Why wait? Look into lifecycle marketing agencies today!

Five Key Advantages of Advertising on Baidu

China has one of the largest online communities in the world with an Internet user base of 840 million and counting. And Baidu is the largest search engine in China with 76.05% market share. Advertising on Baidu can help you reach millions of Internet users. Here we look at five key advantages of Baidu advertising (adstochina.westwin.com/Baidu-Advertising).

Baidu covers 95% of Netizens in China

Baidu holds a large search engine market share in China and none of the competitors close to it. When you advertise on Baidu, you can easily reach a large number of Chinese consumers looking for services and products in your business category.

Baidu holds 59% of the desktop search market. The local search engine covers 95% of Chinese Netizens and there are more than 1 million searches daily. The search engine has more than 80 million alliance websites and hundreds of billions of Chinese webpages which allows Chinese Netizens to instantly find the information they are looking for.

Accurate Finding of Target Customers

Baidu advertising can give rapid exposure to your brand and the result is the target audience would easily find your brand when looking for similar products or services. Baidu PPC is highly effective and offers a faster digital promotion of your brand with immediate results.

Baidu paid to advertise can rapidly bring quality traffic to your website, generate inquiries, enhance visitor numbers, and drive online conversions and sales. Baidu’s advertising tools are built entirely around the customers and it offers fantastic features to leverage that includes

· Newsfeed ads

· The Baike Wiki

· Image and video search

· Zhidao Q&A

There are several other features of paid search like Broad match, phrase match-core phrase, phrase match-synonym phrase, and exact match. The broad match feature in Baidu advertising will trigger your ads by search words that are relevant to your target keywords even if the characters are not specified in the keyword.

Baidu will also show your ads when someone uses a phrase that has the same core meaning as your phrase. These features help in increased exposure even when users are not using exact target keywords you have used in your marketing or PPC campaign. In other words, Baidu PPC will help in increasing website traffic that ultimately helps in conversions.

Good Return on Investment

Online advertising is a great way to increase the visibility of your business. When done right, Baidu advertising can bring you good traffic and help increase conversions. With Baidu advertising, you can expect a good return on your paid advertising.

Anyone who uses the Internet to search for products and services in your business category is most likely to use Baidu for their search. You can plan your paid advertising campaigns to include popular search terms and phrases used by Chinese users on Baidu. This will direct consumers to your Chinese website and you can reap rich rewards in the form of higher conversions.

The paid search features like Broad match, phrase match-core phrase, phrase match-synonym phrase, and exact match will ensure your ads are displayed on SERP even when someone uses relevant keywords. All this can lead to a greater increase in traffic and your business will experience an increase in sales.

Cost-effective Marketing

Businesses can cost-effectively advertise on Baidu. Baidu follows a pre-pay model for ad credit and the minimum initial credit deposit is $2000. If you compare the average cost-per-click of Baidu, it is lower in comparison to Google. The average cost-per-click on Google Ads is $1 to $2 for the Google Search Network whereas the average cost-per-click on Baidu is in the range of 0.5-1 USD. However, the costs can go up in case of a competitive niche.

Availability of Helpful Resources

When it comes to advertising in Baidu, there is no shortage of helpful resources. There is a variety of tools and features that can help businesses reach their customers in the best way possible.

Baidu offers a keyword planner and several tools can help businesses analyze the data and plan their advertising campaigns for a better success rate.

The search engine landscape is different in China. Baidu is one of the key digital marketing platforms for businesses and the first port of call for running advertising campaigns in China.

SEO Company: What Do They Do?

SEO Company in Houston: Why You Need Them?

Search Engine Optimization is the means by which you make your company website more visible to the population and thereby, increase traffic for your website. It is to be remembered that this excludes the traffic your company otherwise gets.

As the name suggests, the process involves optimizing your website on popular search engines to allow more and more people to have access to your website. As with anything else, if you want the best results for your company, you need to invest in the best marketing company out there. This article will help you see why it is important to hire the best Houston SEO company for your brand to flourish!

Look For Leading SEO Companies in Houston

Might as well go for the best while you’re on the hunt. Find the SEO company in Houston that has a good reputation in the marketplace, thereby confirming they are experienced enough to lead your company to greater heights. Find a company that has won numerous accolades and mentions for their friendliness, expertise, and professionalism. Whether you are a firm that is just starting off and could use all the help you could get, or an age-old company simply looking for tweaks to stay ahead of the game, you need an SEO company in Houston that has got your back.

What SEO Companies in Houston Do

Simply put, SEO companies in Houston enable clients to have been driven to the top of the Google Search results.

While you are busy focusing on building and maintaining your firm, your marketing company will ensure you are doing everything possible to grab the attention of the general public and make your presence known. Their experts know how to make that happen.

1. Extensive Research

Their skilled professionals dive into your website and take into consideration some crucial facts such as your target demographic, your current visibility and website traffic and the overall layout of your website. They then come up with alternate content and keywords to plug into your website so that Google Search can deem you fit to make it to the top of their list!

2. User-Friendly

In order for your website to get the kind of attention you desire for it, it is important that it is user-friendly. While you may think your website is interactive and user-friendly, your expert marketing team has experience in what to look for and thereby helps you modify or even recreate your website if needed, to provide you with the best possible outcome!

While it is true that focusing only on backlinks is not going to get you very far nowadays, it is also crucial to note that they are still important and should not be neglected. The value of backlinks is everchanging with Google and so it is important for the best SEO company in Houston to be on your side, helping you earn high-quality backlinks. This way, you can concentrate on what you are well versed with while knowing your company’s marketing schemes are in good hands.

The Ultimate Guide to Weibo Advertising in 2020

Weibo Advertising – Beneficial for Chinese Marketing

Social media has become an unavoidable part of human life in this day and age, and people across the globe are getting involved in such online platforms actively. Hence, all such sites have become a worthy place for varied promotional activities. By active involvement in such public participation platforms, companies will be able to interact with the existing and potential customers, which will be very beneficial. Marketing through social media sites is one of the main advertisement-strategies that companies will have to follow as far as the Chinese market is concerned, as elsewhere in the globe. Weibo is one of the well-accepted social media sites in China, and active participation in Weibo will be very much fruitful for companies. Weibo enjoys a massive reach, and by going for Weibo advertising (adstochina.westwin.com/weibo-advertising), companies will be able to attract new customers, and simultaneously, can retain the present clientele.

The Ultimate Guide to Weibo Advertising in 2020

• Weibo, the top micro-blogging network, gives businesses a practical leeway to interact successfully with their clientele. Advertising through Weibo is one of the best promotional activities that companies can make use of to make their online marketing efforts in China thriving. It is possible to conduct extensive marketing campaigns, through which companies can convey all the pertinent details regarding the plus points of their products to the Chinese population. In short, businesses can create comprehensive brand awareness among all customer segments.

• Sina Weibo is the Chinese twitter and is one among the popular social media platform for micro-blogging. Because of the high acceptance and volume of visitors, Weibo is the right platform to communicate with customers through micro-blogging and enhance brand awareness among the different customer segments. It will not be hyperbolic to say that when you start your account right with Weibo, half of the marketing efforts are over; your company is sure to get a big start as regards the brand promotion.

• According to a rough estimation, the number of active monthly users comes around to 13 million, and there are almost 2 billion average daily video viewers. The best part is that virtually 90% of the Weibo traffic comes from mobiles, and this, in the practical sense, means that a substantially high percentage of the population uses this site daily. They use the site even while on the move. Moreover, the average posts that occur in Weibo in a minute come around to 64,000. Weibo is a winning platform for promotional activities in China. In brief, Weibo advertising is a guarantee for business success in China. It is possible to share all the details that are relevant as regards the company products or services with your existing and prospective customers through Weibo.

• Weibo has an integral power advertising mechanism, which helps the branding process easy and effective. Besides, when compared to the other available options, this method is cost-effective. The combined effect of these factors makes Weibo advertising highly popular. This advertising method also gives advertisers the leeway to target the users who have participated in the earlier marketing campaigns, which practically means that companies will be able to retain their existing clientele.

• It is also possible to make use of the KOL marketing method via Weibo advertising. You can make business agreements with ‘key opinion leaders (KOL)’ by providing gifts or pay, whichever they agree to, for promoting your products or services. One special aspect about Weibo is that there is a business relationship with the online portals such as Tmall (Chinese website for B2C promotion) and Taobao (Chinese website for online shopping). This feature gives the freedom to KOLs to post the product links or promotional coupons straight away on the related pages of such online portals.

• Weibo lottery is another method. You can incorporate Weibo lottery into the marketing campaign, wherein the customers share the lottery; this method will augment the visibility of your brand considerably.

• The B2B cross-promotion is a different method; here, you can collaborate with another business to create brand visibility.

That said, practically, to make the Weibo advertising successful, you must hire the services of a professionally capable SEO company. The company must have relevant experience in marketing in the Chinese market.