In an effort to help improve the success marketers have with online advertising, Bing has recently published a post that talks about the importance of thinking beyond the search box. Many businesses focus all their digital marketing efforts on the search engines themselves, that they are missing out on some important opportunities.
While spending time and money on SEO is a great thing, and the same can be said with search engine advertising, those are not the end of the road. In fact, they should really just be the beginning of your marketing efforts.
Capitalizing on Social
Most brands find that they can become more successful if they can figure out what types of emotions people have when they make a purchase. Jewelers, for example, tend to sell their products to those who are feeling romantic. Athletic companies may want to target those who are feeling energetic, and weight loss companies may do best with those who want to improve their health and wellness.
When it comes to learning about the emotions and feelings of people, social networks have compiled an endless amount of information. Marketing on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms allows you to get your message in front of the exact people who are likely wanting your products. Whether this is through organic posting, or paid advertising, this is an excellent resource.
Display Advertising
Another option many brands overlook is setting up a relationship directly with specific websites. If you can find a website that has a large audience of people who you believe will be interested in purchasing your product, why not buy ad space directly. This can help give you a much better return on investment, and it can be very helpful to your customers too. A quick email to the website owner can get you advertising on their page in no time.
Using Data Everywhere
Most companies today have access to more data about their customers than they ever have before. The information you can gather from Facebook is nearly endless. You can also learn a lot about their online behaviors from analytics tools. There are many other sources of great information as well. The problem is, many marketers only use the data that they gather in the location where they found it. This is a big mistake.
Instead, gather data from all sources and combine it together to learn as much as you can about your customers. For example, you can learn about what people are looking at online through certain analytics tools, and what some of their needs may be from Facebook. Combined together, you can dramatically improve your marketing efforts. The following is an example of how combined information can paint a fuller picture. This image is provided by Bing:
As you can see, this data will be extremely valuable to anyone who is selling a VW Polo in Germany. Getting this information for your geographic area and your industry should be quite simple, and can lead to dramatic improvement in your overall marketing.
