Mediaboss Marketing

Are you a small to medium business owner who'sthinking of growing your business via the internet

Then you should read this.

Its important to start by saying:

No consultant is a miracle worker. Even though some of them might tell you they are.

Im telling you isbecause unless you have an excellent product or service along with a keenness to deliver every time, then your busines will struggle to grow online.

So the first thing to do is ensure your business provides a product that people love and a delivery process/time that exceeds expectations. Then you can think about hiring a consultant to help you with your strategy.

Once youve decided you do or don't want to hire a consultant, think about what you might want he or she to do.

Do you just want them to give advice so that youor your teamcan go away and make the changes?

If you do, then it is a good idea to at least get a little understanding of the fundamentals first.

Or do you want them to give you advice and implement the tasks or ideas or improvements for you.

Either way, it is always best to work closely with your consultant so that you can build a strong business relationship and build the business together.

Sometimes businesses dont have the technical expertise to deliver the ideas and its therefore quicker (but more costly) to have a 3rd party company do the implementation. Find out from your consultation whether your consultant has the ability to deliver or you need to find your own help once you know what you are doing.

Over timehowever, you may want to bring the expertise in-house so that you dont have to spend money outsourcing. Therefore training is anan important factor as part of the consulting,outsourcing or hiring a new expert.

In the UK and as of this writing, the average cost of a digital marketing manager is between 25,000 and 30,000.

So if youre thinking of hiring a consultant, you should bear this in mind when weighing up the possible returns on your investment.

Your potential consultant should be able to give you an idea of what your return on investment might be depending on the marketing activities that you undertake.

If you were to hire a consultant or 3rd party on 25 per hour for 60 hours per month (part-time) it would cost 1500. Therefore a total of 18,000 for the year. So the expertise of the person delivering the work is slightly lower but you receive less of a focus on your business.

If you decide it's best to hire staff, make sure you look for the following qualities:

There are a number of approaches you can take here.

The first is to do a search in Google and add your local area to the search term. For example

I personally would advise you use a consultant who you can get hold of quickly and easily. You never know when you might have that all important idea you really want to discuss immediately.

Another way of finding a consultant is by looking on the local and national directory listings. Many frelancers will list themselves as a marketing consultant and you can screen them before making that all important decision.

Thirdly, you could speak to people you know who have used consultants in the past. Ask about their services and how good they are. Theres nothing better than someone endorsing a consultant to you because the proof is already there.

Many people jump straight into building a website and only think about the design. This is a huge mistake.

Why?

Because you end up spending thousands on a website and then having to spend thousands on marketing and promotion

Before building a website, you need to think about your internet marketing strategy.

Its so much easier to build your website with your strategy in mind than it is to rework your website after its been built.

I compare it to a house. It would be very difficult to build a house and then decide how you want to lay out the windows.

Well you website is the same. Its much easier to decide on the keywords, tone of voice, customer journey and product offerings well before you build your website.

In essence, you are the only person who can make the final decision but hoepfully this post gives you some things to think about. But ultimately if you dont have the expertise in-house and are confident In your product or service. Try to get a free consultation with an internet marketing consultant before you make the jump into buying a brand new website. It could save you a lot of money in the long run.

No matter what you do, it's always a good idea to farmiliarise yourself with the environment you're business is stepping in to. So remember to give yourself time and add it to your to-do list when necessary.

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How to hire an Internet Marketing Consultant - BusinessZone (blog)

While Altucher himself went to a Ivy League school, Cornell University, he says his computer science degree "was a waste. I put in my 10,000 hours of programming, went to graduate school [at Carnegie Mellon] for computer science and put in probably another 10,000 hours.

"Then I actually got a real job in the real world. ... My programming skills were so bad and this is after graduate school and undergrad at the two best computer science schools in the country, or in the top 10 they had to send me to remedial classes."

Rather than getting degrees, young people should focus on getting skills, he argues, which you can learn online, by going to the library and reading books or simply once you enter the workforce. "I have employees: They're experts on writing, finance, sales, the latest internet marketing, all of these things that are not taught in college at all because a lot of the skills were actually created yesterday and they have to keep up with them on a daily basis," he says. "What they're good at is learning what was created yesterday, and you build that on the job."

The rest is here:
Self-made millionaires say you should think twice before going to college - CNBC

Lodging Interactive today announced the integration of its fully managed CoMMingle Live Chat services into Facebooks social media platform. As a result hoteliers can now benefit by providing Live Chat services to consumers when they visit their hotels Facebook page.

Lodging Interactive, an award winning digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively serving the hospitality industry, today announced the integration of its fully managed CoMMingle Live Chat services into Facebooks social media platform. As a result hoteliers can now benefit by providing Live Chat services to consumers when they visit their hotels Facebook page.

Consumers are increasingly using Live Chat services to engage with hotels in real time and our Facebook integration ensures the hotel always has fully trained Live Chat agents available 7 days a week to respond to potential guests, stated DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive's Founder and President. Our fully managed CoMMingle Live Chat service is a game changer for hotels who truly are looking to step up their customer service.

In today's fast paced mobile environment, hotels can effectively differentiate themselves against their competitive sets by providing online Live Chat customer service. Engaging with potential guests in real-time while on the hotel website provides opportunities to surprise and delight resulting in more wedding, group and event leads and creates guest loyalty to a hotel. Research continues to show that 65% of consumers would return to a website that had Live Chat services over one that didnt.

Customer service is the NEW MARKETING and hoteliers who understand how low current customer expectations bar is, can deploy our CoMMingle Live Chat service to win new customers, added DJ Vallauri. Our fully managed Live Chat service offers US based, fully trained Live Chat agents and provides coverage 7 days a week. And now with our Facebook integration we're increasing opportunities for hotels to always be available where and when their guests are.

For more information about the fully managed CoMMingle Live Chat services for hotels visit: http://www.LiveChatForHotels.com or call 877-291-4411 extension 701.

About Lodging Interactive

Headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, Lodging Interactive is a full-service digital marketing and social media engagement and reputation management agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry. Through its web design and search optimization division as well as its CoMMingle Social Media Division, Lodging Interactive provides effective Internet marketing services to hundreds of branded and independent properties as well as management companies, restaurants and spas. CoMMingle has established itself as the largest provider of reputation management services for the hospitality industry, handling over 200,000 guest review responses. The company also offers fully managed Live Chat agents for hotel websites through its LiveChatForHotels.com division.

Lodging Interactive is an HSMAI Adrian Award winner, and has won awards from the International Academy of Visual Arts, Interactive Media Awards, Horizon Interactive Awards, Web Marketing Association, Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts, and Travel Weeklys Magellan Awards have recognized Lodging Interactive as an industry leader.

Lodging Interactive is a proud supporter of the Hotel Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) and the companys president, DJ Vallauri, currently serves on the Board of Directors of HSMAIs New York Chapter and is a Forbes.com Agency Council contributor. For more information, please contact sales@lodginginteractive.com, 877-291-4411 or visit the companys website.

Logos, product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

2017 Hotel News Resource

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Lodging Interactive Integrates Live Chat Services Into Facebook For Hotels - Hotel News Resource (press release)

The Storage Group (TSG), an Internet-marketing company serving the self-storage industry, has added a rental-rate tracking tool to its platform. The Market Intel service provides customers with rate-comparison information and average price differences from competing storage operators within local markets. Rates can be viewed by unit size, type and other metrics, and a map displays the facilities used in the comparison, according to a press release.

Facilities will be able to gain a competitive advantage over other self-storage facilities in their local target market with the information that is displayed in Market Intel, the release stated. Facility owners and management can then use this data to make data-driven strategic decisions, such as adjusting prices to make sure they are in line with the local market and deciding which storage unit sizes to build during expansions.

Customers can access Market Intel within the Performance Dashboard of the TSG platform. We are excited to launch this tool and see the success that it will bring to self-storage facilities across the country, said Steve Lucas, chief operating officer.

Based in Maitland, Fla., TSG provides online tools and marketing solutions to the self-storage industry. The company's services include local-listing management, mobile websites, online rentals, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, social media marketing and website development.

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The Storage Group Releases 'Market Intel' Competitor Pricing and Analysis Tool for Self-Storage - Inside Self-Storage

Email marketing is still king of the digital marketing and advertising space. However, given the great strides that the affiliate-marketing sector has taken over the past two decades, it could soon usurp email's coveted position at the top of the heap.

Related:What Makes An Affiliate Site Profitable?

Affiliate marketing-- in which online retailers pay commissions to other sitesfor traffic or sales prompted by those others' referrals--has come a long way from its humble beginnings.

Before Amazon popularized the concept in 1996, William J. Topin, founder of PC Flowers & Gifts, had already set himself up nicely by starting his own affiliate-marketing campaign.

By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts was bringing in annual revenue north of $6 million dollars.

Since J. Topin and Amazon, this performance-based marketing strategy has spread and evolved into an industry of its own. Over the years, we have witnessed many marketing models, such as CPM (cost per impression), CPC (cost per click), CPA (cost per action) and pay per sale. Programs like Google AdSense, Clickbank andAmazon Associates, meanwhile, have come on the scene as affiliate marketers leveraging big-data analytics to optimize their marketing efforts.

Affiliate marketing, in fact, is now a mainstay in the world of online marketing and advertising. Advertisers increasingly prefer using itto running ads themselves; the fact that many people now use ad blockers only serves to establish affiliate marketing's importance.

Indeed, using this strategy helps advertisers cut costs on their marketing budgetswhile leveraging the promotional channels of marketers (publishers) to ring in conversions and sales.

One of the most important victories of the affiliate marketing industry came in the form of the introduction of affiliate networks. This affiliate marketing structure is simple in its aim:It acts as a bridge, a meeting point for publishers and advertisers to meet and conduct business as seamlessly as possible. It'ssort of like a Fiverr for internet marketers and advertisers.

Before, affiliate networks, advertisers and publishers had to find one other on their own --a tiresome and costytask compared to how affiliate networks today broker these relationships. Affiliate networks are virtual marketplaces that offer advertisers access to a pool of publishers (or potential affiliates) to choose from, and vice versa.

Affiliate networks work: The vast majority of advertisers today --a whopping 83 percent ,according to a survey by the Forrester Group--use them to secure deals with publishers, and there are many reasons why.

One reason is that online consumers have become more critical of online content, which means that they've increasingly come to value content offering what they perceive gives them the greatest relevance and engagement.

Advertisers know what contenttheir audience needs and can create it themselves. However, they have quickly discovered that trying to create and distribute such content on their own can seriously deplete their resources without having the desired return on investment.

Affiliate networks, therefore, make it easy for these advertisers to link up with relevant publishers. Advertisers can outsource the bulk of their content-marketing responsibilities to these publisherswhile gaining a larger targeted audience that would have been inaccessible without that publisher relationship.

What'sin it for the publishers? The simpleanswer is revenue. According to this Business Insider report, commissions from affiliate marketing endeavors are the fastest avenue of revenue growth for publishers, making up 15 percentof their revenue --thanks to those affiliate networks making access to deals easier.

So, how are affiliate networks positioning themselves for the future? In our fast-paced and constantly evolving digital world, it's suicide for any business to sit and bask in its previous success. Affiliate networks understand this and are constantly tweaking their offerings to remain relevant and enticing to publishers and advertisers alike.

According to the above-mentioned Forrester Group survey, publishers particularly love to seek affiliate deals through networks that are global in their perspective. Affiliate networks are responding by seeking to broker exclusive deals with global brands in order to sweeten the deal for publishers and to stand out.

The need for networks to constantly adjust and tweak their offerings has left the door wide open for newcomers to the industry to establish and perhaps gain some market share from industry heavy-weights, likeShareASale and CJ Affiliate.

A recent example is Alexander Bachmanns admitad, a known European affiliate network that has recently expanded aggressively into North America and Asia. The company is obviously seeking to position itself as a technologically preferred option, as itworks on developing technological priorities in the area of fraud prevention, fingerprint and cross-device tracking, ad-block technology and more.

Publishers and advertisers still have to be wary, though, of these networks, both new and old, as they experiment with new technology and features to improve what they have to sell.

Related:The Affiliate Marketing Model: A Blueprint for Success in the Gig Economy

One thing, however, is sure: Affiliate networks are here to stay and will only get bigger as they improve their offerings and assume more marketing responsibilities and market share from other affiliate programs.

Toby Nwazor is an consumer-goods entrepreneur andfreelance writer.Get in touch with him for ghost writing, website content creationand otherprofessional writing services.

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Why Affiliate Networks Are So Important to Online Affiliate Marketing - Entrepreneur