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How to create a marketing plan for your small business - build a brand, target customers and set prices that will maximise sales.

The internet has transformed business marketing. No matter what you do, the internet is likely to be at the heart of your marketing strategy.

Social media is firmly established as a marketing tool. Having a presence opens up new lines of communication with existing and potential customers.

Good advertising puts the right marketing message in front of the right people at the right time, raising awareness of your business.

Customer care is at the heart of all successful companies. It can help you develop customer loyalty and improve relationships with your customers.

Sales bring in the money that enables your business to survive and grow. Your sales strategy will be driven by your sales objectives.

Market research exists to guide your business decisions by giving you insight into your market, competitors, products, marketing and your customers.

Exhibitions and events are valuable for businesses because they allow face-to-face communication and offer opportunities for networking.

Google search volumes show massive digital shift

13 April 2021

Analysis of Google search volumes has highlighted the extent to which businesses have embraced digital marketing and ecommerce as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

There has been a massive increase in Google searches for terms related to online marketing and ecommerce in the past year, according to analysis by Aura Ads. The findings demonstrate how businesses are shifting to online marketing and searching for experts to help them.

Terms with the biggest uplift (comparing March 2020 with February 2021) include:

  • Video marketing services (up 242%);
  • Online advertising agencies (up 188%);
  • Ecommerce video marketing (up 120%).

There have also been more searches for agencies that specialise in specific social media platforms. Popular terms include:

  • Instagram marketing services (up 2700%);
  • Tiktok marketing agency (up 500%);
  • Facebook marketing services (up 250%);
  • YouTube marketing services (up 120%).

At the same time, there have been decreases for some non-digital forms of advertising. The number of searches for "magazine advertising space" has decreased by 63%, while searches for "billboard adverts" have gone down by 37%.

"Those that were nervous about purchasing online previously have now had to make it part of their everyday life, so we expect online shopping to continue to rise, even when the lockdowns are over," said Ryan Walton, founder of Aura Ads. "This trend was always going to come, but the pandemic has just made the shift from in-person shopping and advertising to online shopping and advertising happen at a faster pace."

Meanwhile, another new study reveals that nearly half (45%) of all online content goes unseen. Contentsquare examined 20 billion web sessions across 900 websites from the world's biggest brands for its 2021 Digital Experience Benchmark report.

The research shows that the rates of unseen content are highest for the beauty (60%) and clothing (59%) industries, which tend to have a lot of product display pages. The travel (33%), business-to-business (35%), and financial services (36%) sectors had the lowest content unseen rates.

"Sometimes more isn't better," said Niki Hall, cmo at Contentsquare. "With 45% of your site content going unseen, maybe it's time to take a step back from creating new materials and re-evaluate how your brand is promoting top performing content. Our advice is to focus your energy on identifying the key pieces of content that give value to your customers, then optimise and increase the visibility of this content to drive the maximum engagement from your investments. This could include revisiting and promoting existing pieces of content, or even just fixing the navigation on your website to ensure it isn't being buried."

Written by Rachel Miller.

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