How to survive the massive change to online advertising.

Facebook’s latest change to their algorithm is a massive wake-up call for any business to remain adaptable in an ever-changing online marketing space. What if Social Media algorithms stop showing your posts to your followers? That is exactly what happened recently when Mark Zuckerburg and co announced that their algorithm would show more content from friends in news feeds and less content from businesses. Is it all doom and gloom? No. Should you stay up to date and change with online marketing trends in order to survive? Absolutely.

Even though page followers will see much less “organic” (that’s unpaid) content from pages, there is still buckets of opportunity to advertise to the RIGHT groups with QUALITY content. Having engaging and high quality content will keep enticing potential customers. The upside of the change is that when it comes to your paid ads, there will be less clutter and these types of adverts will potential have an even bigger impact than before. Posting to pages remains important though – imagine how bad it would look to visit a business page which has shown no activity for months…however I am digressing… You cannot bet on Social Media being the effective marketing channel it is today, even in a year’s time. Never become complacent.

This article is not about paid or organic Facebook ads, in fact it is not about Social Media at all. It is about, drum roll please…

The importance of building your OWN marketing lists.

If you are not building your own marketing list, you are making a HUGE mistake and missing out on a potentially business saving strategy. It is never too late! We often use the words “integrated marketing approach” and by this we refer to the different angles and platforms available to online advertisers. What do you think is the most important channel?

Your Website?

Your Social Media Presence?

The answer is actually an older & wiser channel called “Email Marketing”. When you are building up and creating your own marketing list, you are creating a DIRECT channel of marketing between your business and prospective customer base. The aforementioned channels are excellent at helping you grow & supplement this list. The biggest benefit if you have not yet guessed it – YOU CONTROL YOUR LIST. YOU OWN IT. Changes to Social Media Algorithms do not affect your own list & direct marketing – very comforting…if you have a list.

Do you think email is dead? Think again. Did you know that 85% of Internet users are using email daily? According to this studies only 62% of people use social media sites daily. Part of your Integrated Marketing Approach should include building up your database and also marketing to it.

Enlisting the help of an Online Marketing Agency can leverage your business even further. They may help you turn leads into profit by creating beautifully formatted email campaigns worthy of a one-page website. Email has evolved. You can no longer expect any return if you send out a “plain” old email with a few images. There are A LOT of emails which are sent and received each day so either you or your agency will need to up the game by creating engaging copy together with a stand-out design & and high quality image layout. You have an extremely short gap to grab your audience’s attention – usually only the first sentence!

Are you convinced? I hope so! Blessed week to all readers!