Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is a great alternative for businesses that need to reach their customers through today’s very Internet mobile public.

Harness the mobile Internet market with mobile web marketing

Cell phones, Androids, Blackberrys, iPhones, tablet and laptop notebooks are all capable of receiving mobile marketing advertising—and businesses are jumping on the mobile marketing bandwagon with mobile apps, mobile websites, mobile advertising, mobile maps and more. Today we have statics ads, skyscraper ads, banner ads, flash ads, video ads and audio ads, all accompanied by graphics and audio. Any of these are the same ads that you might see on your personal desktop PC, but with allowances for viewing on mobile devices.  Our edoc web developers can create and manage any type of mobile marketing campaign to meet your business’s goals. We were early to the mobile revolution and understand the unique requirements of mobile networks, mobile-to-web applications, and (especially) mobile search.

What is Mobile Marketing?

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audiences in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network. Mobile marketing on web pages specifically meant for access by mobile devices is an increasingly popular option. The Mobile Marketing Association provides a set of guidelines and standards that give the recommended format of ads, presentation, and metrics used in reporting. And when it comes to web forms on web pages, we can integrate custom with mobile texting sources for reminders about meetings, seminars and other important events that assume users are not always at their computers.

Learn more about how we can help your company make better decisions with your online and traditional marketing communications campaigns. Chances are good that we will save you money and increase your results. Our Internet pros will surprise you with their understanding of how the real world of business works and ways we can customize website, marketing and PR solutions that fit your needs.

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Social Networking

edoc is leading the web and online social media networking charge. Every Internet marketing strategy needs to have a social media component. We aggressively position each of our clients as the premier resource for their respective technology or service with relevant industry bloggers and social network communities such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Put the power of your social network to work for your business

In many cases, we develop and manage company pages on social networking sites and company blogs for our busy clients, enabling us to communicate important news and information to key audiences on their behalf and monitor the results of their social networking campaign. The viral aspect of this strategy is proving to be successful in driving increased visibility for our clients with key media targets and prospective buyers. As with all of our services, as a leading Internet marketing company we provide measureable data to illustrate the success of our efforts.

Marketing On Twitter

Twitter is a social media tool for “micro-blogging,” or posting very short updates, comments or thoughts. In fact, since Twitter was designed to be very compatible with mobile phones through text messages, each update is limited to 140 characters—truly a micro-blog. Another way to think of Twitter is like a cross between instant messaging (IM) and a chat room—an open forum, but restricted to the people you choose to connect to. As you get more and more followers and follow more people, you will begin to see the value of Twitter as a marketing and PR tool within an integrated social media strategy. Ideas for How to Use Twitter for Marketing & PR Engage your CEO in social media networking. Keep in touch with bloggers and key media outlets. Monitor your company and brand on Twitter. Announce specials, deals or sales. Promote blog articles, webinars, interesting news and more.  Using Twitter for Marketing, PR and Brand Management—A Step-by-Step Guide Sign-up and post a profile. Visit Twitter and click on the “Get Started – Join” button in the middle of the page. The rest of the instructions are simple to follow. Post some updates. The beauty of Twitter is that the 140-character limit is the great equalizer. Post a link to a news article you like with a one-line comment, mention an interesting thought you had, or tell everyone what you are cooking for dinner. Just write something. Make friends. Making friends on Twitter is easy. Just surf around the web on your favorite blogs, people’s Facebook profiles, et., and when you see a Twitter box that tells you what they are doing click on it. That will bring you to their profile; then just click on the Follow button on the top left—you are now following them. Most of the time they will follow you back, and the audience for your 140 character insights will have grown by one person. How to post URLs. Twitter is based on 140 character updates. If you have a long URL, that doesn't leave much room for what you want to say. Most people on Twitter use www.TinyURL.com to take a long URL and make it short. Give it a shot if you have a long URL that you want to market on Twitter. Monitor conversations about your company. Even if you don't join Twitter, you can monitor what people are saying about any person, company or brand. Twitter has a search engine that is useful from a marketing and PR standpoint. If people are talking about your company, they would probably be happy that someone from that company wants to follow them. How to “chat.” Using the @ symbol before someone’s Twitter username is how people have “conversations” in Twitter. This makes their username a link to their profile.

Marketing on Facebook

When you hear that Facebook is yanking Yahoo from its ranks and inching up on Google’s traffic throne, you can’t help but pay attention. And if you work for a business or own one, it’s likely that social media marketing is on your radar. More and more marketing dollars are beginning to shift toward social media marketing—and this trend only continues to climb. Here are five studies that prove Facebook has become the leading online social tool and will continually change the landscape of online engagement and business page loyalty. Average American Spends Seven Hours on Facebook  According to recent findings by Nielson Company, Facebook has officially become a favorite pastime for many. (But we’ve known that for a while now!) However, the findings are astounding when you really break them down: The average time users spend on Facebook is seven hours per month (a 10% increase). To put that into perspective, Yahoo! is in second place, but with only two hours and 28 minutes per month. The fact that people are spending more than four addition hours on Facebook compared to leading sites like Yahoo! and Google is information that marketers should note when creating their social media campaigns. 44% of Social Sharing on the Web is Driven by Facebook  With the surge of social networking over the past years, we have seen social traffic begin to rival search traffic—and the major players, including Google, are paying close attention to this trend. TechCrunch recently looked into the services on the web that drive the most sharing and reached out to Gigya for some stats. (What’s Gigya? Gigya is a company that powers sharing widgets on more than 5,000 content sites, including major players like ABC.com and Reuters.) As TechCrunch explains, “Consumers can click a share button on these sites and send an article link, photo, or video via a menu of different services including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and AOL. Over the past 30 days, people have shared almost a million items over the Gigya network.” Based on Gigya’s data, here’s the distribution of shared items on the web: Facebook: 44% Twitter: 29% Yahoo: 18% MySpace: 9% Some more interesting social networking statistics from Gigya include: For share of authentication via news sites, Facebook took 31% while Google was close behind with 30% and Yahoo at 25%. With entertainment sites, Facebook was the major leader with 52% (Google was second with 17%, Yahoo with 15% and Twitter 11%).   As we have seen with the popularity of social sites, people like to share links with multiple people at one time versus one-on-one via email. Because real results are strongly tied to the amount of online traffic you’re able to generate, it’s important to break down the sources of this traffic when considering where to spend your time and marketing dollars. These stats shed light on where the action is really happening. Facebook Yanks Number 2 Spot From Yahoo  According to a Compete.com report, there has been a changing of the guard in the online world. Facebook has surpassed Yahoo, taking its place as the number two most popular site in the U.S. Facebook drew nearly 134 million unique visitors in January, 2010. According to the site, “It’s been two full years since we’ve seen a shakeup at the top—In February 2008, Google overtook Yahoo as number one and never looked back. Is Facebook’s next conquest the Google traffic throne?” However, as we all know, the real dollars are in the engagement—and Compete.com says it best: “Facebook is second to none.” In January, 11.6% of all time spent online was spent on Facebook, compared to 4.25% for Yahoo and 4.1% for Google. “Faking It” on Facebook Is Rarer Than Previously Imagined  The findings from a recent research study conducted by the journal Psychological Science show that instead of “faking it” online, people are much more likely to reveal their true selves online and not the idealized image of who they want to be. A largely held assumption (supported by analysis) suggests online profiles are less than truthful when looking at true personalities of the users, and the researchers in this study set out to test that hypothesis. “There has been no research on the most fundamental question about OSN (online social networking sites) profiles,” notes the report. “Do they convey accurate impressions of profile owners?” The conclusion of the report was surprising to most. It states, “These results suggest that people are not using their OSN profiles to promote an idealized virtual identity. Instead, OSNs might be an efficient medium for expressing and communicating real personality, which may help explain their popularity.” The study focused on both MySpace and Facebook; however, the popular site Read Write Web stated that the “real personality” results were more likely to have been seen on Facebook than other social sites. They pointed out that because it only allows the use of a user’s legal name and due to its long-standing privacy controls, Facebook “provided its users with a sense of safety, security and comfort—they could be themselves—their real selves, flaws and all, without the world watching.”   Facebook Boosts Sales and Customer Loyalty   The Harvard Business Review recently featured a new study from Utpal Dholakia and Emily Durham of Rice University. For their study, they asked the question, “How much do businesses really influence consumers when they launch pages on the site to attract ‘fans’ and pepper them with messages and offers?” To gauge the effectiveness of Facebook fan pages, the study used one company’s page to measure the effect on customer behavior. For the experiment, the researchers partnered with Dessert Gallery (DG), a popular Houston-based bakery and café chain. They first emailed over 13,000 customers from their mailing list to gather store evaluations and information on shopping behavior. Then they launched the fan page and invited the mailing list to the page. Over the course of three months, the company updated its page several times a week with pictures of goodies, news about contests and promotions, links to favorable reviews, and introductions to DG employees. Three months after that, they resurveyed the fans and here’s the overall result: Facebook changed customer behavior for the better. Those who had replied to both surveys and had become fans stood out as their best customers. Here’s the breakdown of the findings of their new fans: Store visits per month increased after people became fans. The new fans generated more positive word of mouth than nonfans. New fans went to DG 20% more often than nonfans. Fans gave the store the highest share of their overall dining-out dollars. They were the most likely to recommend DG to friends and had the highest average Net Promoter Score—75, compared with 53 for Facebook users who were not fans and 66 for customers not on Facebook DG fans also reported significantly greater emotional attachment to DG—3.4 on a 4-point scale, compared with 3.0 for other customers. Fans were the most likely to say they chose DG over other establishments whenever possible.   “We must be cautious in interpreting the study’s results,” Dholakia said. “The fact that only about 5% of the firm’s 13,000 customers became Facebook fans within three months indicates that Facebook fan pages may work best as niche marketing programs targeted to customers who regularly use Facebook. Social media marketing must be employed judiciously with other types of marketing programs.” But overall, Dholakia stated that the results indicate that Facebook fan pages offer an effective and low-cost way of social media marketing.

Learn more about how we can help your company make better decisions with your online and traditional marketing communications campaigns. Chances are good that we will save you money and increase your results. Our Internet pros will surprise you with their understanding of how the real world of business works and ways we can customize website, marketing and PR solutions that fit your needs.

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Website Analytics

An important aspect of our SEO and Internet marketing involving monitoring and analyzing website traffic using the latest Internet tracking and webmaster tools.

Maximize your website’s ROI with website analytics and tracking tools

edoc is unique in that we provide weekly analytics reports about specific web page activity for every one of our clients. This site traffic analysis provides an indicator for how well our clients’ Internet marketing, public relations, social networking, marketing communications and event marketing programs are working. Plus, because we also map social media activities to website statistics, we get a complete picture of visitor trends so you can optimally gauge your outreach efforts and adjust your messaging or tactics as needed. Our reports include a list of organizations that spend significant time on a site, enabling our clients to deliver highly profiled targets to their sales teams. This unique approach to website measurement enables you to make necessary adjustments to strategies and programs in real time. When you launch a new website—no matter whether you have chosen a top business hosting package or an inexpensive website hosting package—you will find various website analysis tools in your web hosting admin panel. Typically, these include Google Analytics, Google Adwords or Google Adsense; some providers also include traffic tracking on search engines such as Yahoo!, Bing and Ask. When you work with edoc, you will be provided statistics on all analytics tools and search engine standings.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your Flash, video and social networking sites and applications to get tons of useful data about your site. Google Analytics makes it easy to turn page views into profits.  Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites. Google Analytics monitors your reports and automatically alerts you of significant changes in data patterns. Isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic with a fast interactive segment builder. Get the data you need, organized in the way you want to see it with custom reports, custom variables, and a flexible tracking API Track sales and conversions. Measure your site engagement goals against threshold levels that you define. Trace transactions to campaigns and keywords, get loyalty and latency metrics, and identify your revenue sources. Track web-enabled phones, mobile websites and mobile apps.

Learn more about how we can help your company make better decisions with your online and traditional marketing communications campaigns. Chances are good that we will save you money and increase your results. Our Internet pros will surprise you with their understanding of how the real world of business works and ways we can customize website, marketing and PR solutions that fit your needs.

Let's Talk

Social Media Marketing

If you are selling products or services or only publishing content for ad revenue, social media marketing is a potent method that will make your website profitable over time. There is simply no other low-cost promotional method that will easily drive large numbers of visitors to your website—some of whom may come back to your web pages again and again.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and many other sites. It is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.

Four Arguments for Marketing with Social Media

Those who ignore the efficacy of social media marketing usually fall into any of the following three categories: Don’t know much or anything about social media Are interested in social media but don’t know how to use it Don’t believe in the value that a social media strategy can bring to any site or business Why bother exploring social media as a marketing channel for your website or business? After all, you could stick to link exchanges, search advertising or the purchase of banner and editorial ads on relevant sites. Here are some reasons why you should consider using social media and all of its viral advantages:

It’s natural. Not only do you get natural links with no discernible pattern, your website is exposed to large groups of people in a spontaneous fashion. This differs from paid advertising, which has overt commercial overtones. It’s defensible. Once successfully mastered, social communities can be a great source of web traffic on top of any traffic you are already receiving from search engines. While you can’t easily increase your search engine traffic, social media traffic can be very easily controlled through strategic marketing. Its low-cost/high returns. If done by yourself, costs are limited to only time and perhaps the expenses involved in hiring a freelance programmer or designer. The benefits will often exceed the cost. It would take you thousands of dollars to buy many links; social media has the ability to give you that for free. It complements other efforts. Social media optimization and marketing is usually community-specific. It doesn’t interfere with any other methods of getting traffic to your website. It can and will fit perfectly with an advertising campaign targeting other websites or search engines. For those who don’t understand or see the value of social media websites, the benefits of creating viral content and effectively promoting your business’s messages through social media channels are powerful: Primary and Secondary Traffic. Primary traffic is the large amount of visitors who come directly from social media websites. Secondary traffic is referral traffic from websites which link to and send you visitors, after they come across your content through the social sites. High Quality Links. Becoming popular on social news websites like Digg or Reddit will get you a large number of links, some of which may be topically relevant, some not. A good story can realistically acquire a large number of high quality editorial links, most of which cannot be easily bought.

Now let’s translate this into tangible benefits for your website:

1. Links = Better Search Engine Rankings When a website receives a high number of natural, permanent links from trusted domains, it develops authority. Search engines trust it. If you optimize your linkbait and website structure properly, you can easily start ranking for competitive keywords, which will in turn bring in search engine visitors. Do this often enough and your search traffic will increase. In a sense, you are obtaining these quality links through borrowed trust. Many bloggers and webmasters still think that if an article is on the Digg or del.icio.us homepage, then it’s probably worth checking out and referencing through a citation link. A new website may find it difficult to gain links from a critical mass that is unfamiliar with it, but a trusted social news resource makes it easier for links to come in because the community and buzz has somewhat “certified” the value of the site. Note that the actual strength of the article is still of utmost importance for all.2. Primary + Secondary Traffic = Community/Supporters Some people claim that social news websites only send useless traffic—visitors who will often simply view a specific webpage and click away. Yes, that’s often the case. Sites like Digg are notorious for their poor bounce rates; many visitors drop in for the article and then leave after reading it. StumbleUpon is much better in this aspect. But don’t mistake this for a lack of interest. Your subscriber figures will often take a big jump up and then stabilize after a few days. If your entire site is relevant to the general interests of the social media website, there will always be a handful of social users who will start to track your site in order to submit future content. Detractors also ignore the power of ultra-targeted secondary traffic. General sites or blogs in the same niche will link to a story that’s popular on social sites, because it adds value for their readers or users. This is done naturally on a daily basis for many. While primary traffic usually comes in larger volumes, secondary traffic is in fact more valuable. Why? Because links from other websites bring visitors who are very likely to be interested in your content. These citation links demonstrate recognition of your site in the eyes of others—and that builds your brand. Think of the social news site as a platform or a soapbox. As something that gives you a chance to be heard or read, even for a brief moment of a few hours. The people who are drawn to your message will visit your site and recommend it to others.

So How Does Social Media Help You to Make Money?

Because social media websites can be leveraged for links and better search rankings, they can greatly increase your site’s income potential. For example, you can price ads higher, or be in a position to generate revenue from many paid business models. In and of itself, however, social media doesn’t drive revenues straight to your bottom line—at least, not directly. Every site or business that wants to expand and become profitable needs a core group of supporters who will be willing to make purchases or recommend the site to others. In other words: Your site needs to perpetuate itself. The more supporters you have, the faster word spreads about your site. Social media marketing is an excellent way to get people to come into your site to take a look at what you have to offer. Then, your business will grow when you’ve cultivated a group of loyal visitors ready to always act upon what you have to offer.

Learn more about how we can help your company make better decisions with your online and traditional marketing communications campaigns. Chances are good that we will save you money and increase your results. Our Internet pros will surprise you with their understanding of how the real world of business works and ways we can customize website, marketing and PR solutions that fit your needs.

Let's Talk