It’s a fact: Google Adwords leads the market for content-sensitive web-based marketing solutions. However, as digital marketing becomes commonplace, lack of business competition and the intensification in competition for keywords, the cost of effective paid search has left many small to medium-sized businesses wondering; can I sustain the cost of keywords?

The issue is painfully clear. While the price of keywords has risen, the effectiveness of pay-per-click advertisement hasn’t changed. It is the same service, but there are more advertisers willing to pay and it has created a pressing problem for businesses with limited budgets. ‘Improve the quality of your ads’ says Google, but it is a weak guidance because let’s face it – everyone’s betting on quality in an environment where potential consumers are bombarded with advertisement no matter where they go.

It has hit the small businesses hardest. Those who initially found success in using Adwords have seen their expected investment in pay-per-click advertising efforts increase dramatically over the last 10 years, just to retain their spot at the top of search results. When you can end up paying $10 per click, in some cases an astronomical $20 for some keywords, no wonder some are desperate for an alternative.

But why this increase in cost per keyword? The main argument lies in the increased commonness of online advertising, a boom which owes much of its life and earnings to Google. With a reported 42 percent increase in paid clicks from 2011 to 2012, Google has been the main benefactor of the development. But the increased interest has driven up the price of keywords so radically that small companies need to reconsider their options. And this is despite the fact that an average of 96% of pay-per-click advertisers spend less than $10,000 a month, according to AdGooroo. What can a small online bookshop do to compete with Amazon’s $54 million pay-per-click budget – just in the first half of 2012?

Though Google’s services are popular, people should start realizing that it may not be the best solution for many of the small to medium sized companies. These businesses can really struggle to get their money’s worth through the Adwords program. Since the bid prices (Cost per Click) have entered a pay range labelled “absurd” by some observers, the cost of directing people to your website can almost be prohibitive of effective marketing.

Opening your mind (and wallet) to competing alternatives to Google Adword could significantly increase traffic for a lot less money.

Today, small and diverse ad agencies offer more affordable solutions through social media and new publishing tools to give any type of business a chance to market themselves online. The new type of advertisement works, for example, through 3rd party distribution of the advertiser’s message; the idea is for a business to supply the company a message in the form of a link or media content (image, video, text) and then the agency funnels the content across the web via a variety of channels, depending on who you go to.

The different ad agencies have different business models; some work with major publishers to find augment traffic or spots for ad-driven content while other use social networks and the power of ‘viral’ campaigning to distribute a message.

Besides having shown positive results, the service stands out in comparison to Google Adwords for its simplicity; in some cases, there is little delay between an advertiser uploading his or her content and setting a budget before the message is on its way through the channels. Compare this to Google, which has been blamed for taking up to 5 days to approve content.

The real-time advantage of some of these new agencies is an important step for advertisers and businesses who wish to ride the waves of time-sensitive ad opportunities in the media. One recent example that wooed analyst was the ‘Big Bird’-gate where PBS showed a fascinating resolve and response; one which would not have been achieved if they did not have easy access to purchasing the advertising keyword of their character on Twitter.

So, as the demand for organic search results increase, a new industry of optimization is potentially rocketing into the digital marketing scene. However, grand promises of improved Web site search ranking, more qualified search results and less money spend on pay-per-click, does not always calm the uncomfortable feeling of entering uncharted waters off the coast of the tried and trusted Google Adwords. There is going to be a confidence-building process before more companies will transition into a more hands-on, organic marketing effort.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) still suffers from a very flimsy job description; anticipating search patterns, associations and life-span of words in different context can come off as “black magic” because explaining the intricate workings of search engines often lies beyond the grasping realm of traditional businesses and laypersons.

Would-be competitors to Google Adwords enter a market place where they, under the right conditions, can ignite a new era of more creative digital marketing efforts. But they shouldn’t rely too heavily on businesses interested in saving money; the cost is only the initial motivation. These spawning digital ad agencies’ greatest challenge, by far, is to make sense of their product and deliver easily-understandable plans for their clients. We are not talking ‘dumbing down’ of the process, but if you cannot convince your clients that your initiatives really improve organic search volume and automate their marketing efforts, you have a slim chance of building the much-needed trust in your services.

Thus, as digital effort becomes more commonplace at an exhilarating pace, I predict more businesses will take the jump in the next year or two, and engage with the powerful world of SEO via new channels. Then hopefully, the future of digital content marketing for smaller companies will break free of the hands of Adwords – to everyone’s mutual benefit.

Image credit: marciookabe via Flickr.com

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It’s the business of engagement, of interpretation, of reaching people before they reach the product or service they love. Social media from an instrumental perspective has helped evolve a sub-class of new society based on their participation in online activities. It has changed the way we look around us.

Earlier it was considered a platform for socializing, a window that connects people, an auxiliary for leisure, a corner to share emotions and share ideas. Over a period of time it transformed into a major marketing pillar. From start-ups to local business and multinational corporations, all businesses recognized the need to expand their presence online using sites that connect and involve direct human participation.

Days of traditional marketing through newspapers, magazine advertisements, posters and television commercials seem to be fading. The size of human engagement online is greater than conventional marketing mediums.

Marketing, no matter conventional or technocratic, blows away barriers and distance between potential customers and the product. A real-time analogy tells us that online marketing through social media sites makes far-reaching interactions with millions of people at the same time easy.

Simple Facebook or LinkedIn user statistics are enough to support the view that, in comparison of conventional marketing, digital marketing through social media is powerful tool because it engages an unthinkably large number of people.

It all takes places beyond fun, games, status updates and tweets; an unimaginably vast playground filled with digitized thinking.

According to the Digital Marketing Ramblings‘ website release of statistics of the number of people using the most popular social media sites, Facebook is on the top slot with 1 billion users, followed by YouTube with 800 million users and 4 billion views per day, QQ with 700 million users, and the Micro-blogging platform Twitter has 500 million users.

Further, Sina Weibo has 400 million users and LinkedIn has 175 million users. According to Media bistro, in their social media marketing industry report, 83 percent of marketers believe that social media is important, and about 94 percent of marketers use social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter for business purposes.

A tally among the tools reveals that Facebook is in the top slot on the preference list of marketers, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn. This is testimonial information with an indication that social connectivity will be helpful for businesses based on customers’ presence.

However, some critics argue that as users gradually move to mobile phones from the computer, advertisements need to undergo technical renovation to keep the communication line alive, or else days are numbered for online marketers.

According to Mashable, Kleiner Perkins’ partner Mary Meeker illustrated the financial gap in her annual trend report that says mobile phones occupy 10 percent of people’s media consumption time and commands only 1 percent of advertising budgets.

It’s an indication that marketing will undergo change following consumer decisions; it means that as screen size expands or contracts (from personal computer to laptops, from tablets to mobile phones), advertisements will change to fit them.

But perhaps, no matter to what platform on-line marketing may divert, it is for sure days of digital marketing are greatly radiant.

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Chapel Hill, U.S.A. — According to recent research, more than 50% of leading pharma companies expect social networking, online video, and other types of Digital Marketing to grow in use as critical tools for communicating disease state and product information.

New pharmaceutical products – particularly those that are first-in-class – require not only external disease state communication but also internal communication to win support in the marketplace.

Now, a critical Best Practices, LLC benchmarking report, “Raising Disease State Awareness: Best Practices in Internal Brand Messaging for New Products,” examines how companies communicate at the brand and disease state levels in order to educate employees internally and create a consistent, credible external message surrounding new products.

The study spells out 10 key best practices culled from in-depth interviews with benchmark participants, who were involved in pre-launch, internal communication for Viagra, Gardasil, Prozac and many other successful brands.

Comprising in-depth surveys and interviews with 32 top biopharma companies, this report enables marketing and brand team leaders to implement the type of well-timed and well-targeted internal communications strategies essential for cementing both the medical and commercial framework for a new product’s market entry and supporting its overall success as a brand.

Key topic areas analyzed in this study include:

• Effective communication channels & use of new communication technologies
• Timing of communication activities by product development phase
• Advantages & disadvantages of employee message segmentation
• Tracking internal message effectiveness
• Preventing sensitive-information leaks
• Using KOLs to influence employees
• Needs creation marketing tactics

For a free summary of this 67-page report, visit http://www.best-in-class.com/rr1183.htm.

Image Courtesy : Novartis AG / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

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Some question the potential that social media has to offer, while others are utilizing and benefiting through what social media has to offer. Social media may be one of the greatest tools in marketing today, for several reasons.

Two of the most commonly used social media pages are Facebook and Twitter. Most companies are starting to pick up on their benefits of having social media accounts set up within these sites. According to InsideFacebook.com, Facebook has 712.4 million users worldwide in September and Twitter has 100 million active users.

Facebook is being used as a form of communication and interaction between the consumer and the brand. Brand pages allow not only the brand to interact with consumers, but also for others to review and share their feelings towards the brand. From this feedback, companies are creating more of an interpersonal relationship with their customers.

Marketers also, are able to target a certain audience with paid ads, ensuring that these are placed on the page that fits their defined audience. This ensures that the ad is appearing primarily to people who are more likely to click the ad. Twitter is another great tool that elicits some confusion. Twitter can be used as a mouthpiece for the company, which makes it excellent for PR purposes.

On Twitter, companies share news regarding their company, this allows followers to keep up with said company. By giving your brand a voice on Twitter, Twitter will categorize your Page and place your page under recommendation for followers, related to the content posted by users on twitter.

Through Facebook and Twitter, companies are creating a niche for themselves. It’s possible to get an understanding of what these brands represent and how these companies want consumers to view their brands. Social media is a great way to provide customer service to followers, and keep an audience engaged and updated at the same time.

That is why it is important for company pages to always respond to consumers’ posts. In a study done by Evolve24, about 83% of Consumers have positive feelings when contacted from a company from a tweet a user posts. Traditional marketing is slowly declining, yet it is not to say that is dying out.

There is still a lot of power in traditional marketing, that may be too hard for social media to convey. If a brand were to reposition itself, television ads would be a powerful medium to display this new position for the brand. Combined, these two create a powerful voice and should be included in successful marketing campaigns.

The more impressions from, traditional marketing and inbound marketing, the better odds are of being noticed by potential clients.

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Social Media continues to expand around the world and impact it, in its own way. In Guatemala, e-Marketing didn’t start picking up until about 3 to 4 years ago and it wasn’t only until about a year and a half to two years ago that agencies started to develop social media strategies.

After seeing some of the success from local companies, restaurants started taking advantage of it, to get their share of the market. It continues to expand throughout the years, with Facebook being the biggest social media platform utilized in Guatemala today. With only 2.5 million people with access to the internet in Guatemala, 1.6 million people have a Facebook account.

However, before Facebook, hi5 was considered one of the most popular social networking sites. In 2008 hi5 had 12,831,000 Latin American unique visitors ages 15 and up, while Facebook had only 7,711,000. MySpace became very big 2 years ago. According to comScore, social media has always been huge in Latin American countries. They are heavy internet users and mainly use the internet as a way to communicate with others.

According to Enrique Parros of TPP Emarketing, Twitter is a Social Media platform that is starting to grow in Guatemala and the reason for this growth is that mobile phones are becoming more easily attainable. The demographic segment in Guatemala that is currently active on twitter is mostly made up of kids, but 24- 35 year olds are starting to pick up on Twitter. This is why twitter is still an educational process in Guatemala.

The main social media Platform used for marketing in Guatemala is currently Facebook, due to the high concentration of people logged into Facebook. Facebook, to TPP Emarketing, is a great way for consumers to communicate with a brand. It is also a great way for people to interact with the brand, which will later help them to decide the future of the brand, and where it is heading. Another way Facebook is being used in Guatemala is as a focus group.

One major success story for TPP Emarketing is from the Facebook page Claro, which has 264,196 likes on Facebook. Gallo was also another great example of how successful Facebook was in helping to boost sales. In April of 2011, Gallo had about 90% of the market share in the country.

TPP Emarketing works with so many brands, such as Claro, P & G, and McDonald’s, that it would be hard to manage each account separately. This is why they use Hootsuite. It is a service used to manage social media accounts on one dashboard. With Hootsuite, companies like TPP E-marketing can manage their Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Foursquare and myspace accounts at once, and even schedule posts for later dates.

E-marketing is still growing in Guatemala, and for some it is still a learning experience, but digital marketing is always growing and expanding. Agencies are starting to pick up on it and take advantage of the marketing tools that are accessible. Some of the services offered today are SEO marketing, Public Relations, E-Mobile, Social Media and E-Advertising.

Digital marketing may be growing but TPP E-marketing understands the importance of utilizing it in their marketing campaigns and strategies.

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