Normally speaking, a catalog page in pretty boring. It shows pictures or lists items for sale in a particular category. As a buyer, you look over the items and select an item for purchase.
Well… here’s a unique twist. This catalog page is so interesting that it has actually gone viral. I found out about it be being a recipient of one of those mass email forwarding campaigns ( which I hate and usually don’t pay much attention to).
Take a look at HEMA’s product page – just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens. DON’T CLICK on any of the items in the picture; just wait.
http://producten.hema.nl
HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened in 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands.
This company has a sense of humor as well as a great computer programmer, who has too much time on his hands.
( from eMarketer )
Nearly two-thirds of small businesses surveyed by Western Wats in an AT&T-commissioned study said they advertised in a printed yellow pages directory. More than one-half of responding small businesses said they expected to buy online video ads in the next couple of years.
Almost one-quarter said they advertised online, and two-thirds said they had their own site.”Consumers are still going to the book as their primary choice for local business information, but they’re also searching online before they buy,” said Frank Jules, CEO of AT&T Advertising & Publishing.
More than six in 10 US consumers said they still preferred the printed yellow pages to find local business information, according to data from The Kelsey Group released by AT&T as part of the findings.
That was more than the 13% who preferred search engines and the 7% who said they liked the Internet yellow pages best.
With a struggling US economy, many entrepreneurs and sales people are finding that they need to change the way they market their business.
You yourself might be asking the question on how best to use the marketing dollars that you have in your budget. Where can you get the biggest bang for the buck?
I have some good news for you. And by the way, stick those marketing dollars back in your coffers, because the strategy I’m about to share with you is virtually free. Well… it is going to take an hour or two a week of your time, but other than that, it’s free.
I want to make the case for you, that spending time each week on your social media marketing, is very smart business.
So what is social media? Social media is an umbrella term that refers to the technologies and practices that are used to share information, opinions, and thoughts online.
Social media can take many forms, such message boards, blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and videos.
With 70% of people researching online before buying a product or service (which includes local service businesses), and 51% of internet users spending most of their time reading and watching personal content that is created by other people, you’ve got to have an online presence. But, it’s not just about having a website. You need to make sure that your business is in the path of where your target audience is spending their time online.
Here’s another little known fact. According to ongoing research from the Online Publishers Association and Nielsen//NetRatings, US Internet users will spend less than 5% of their online time using search, versus nearly 50% of their time on content sites (social media). Yet, most marketers are putting most of their online marketing dollars into paid search.
Marketing Experiments did a 12 month study, in which they compared the effectiveness of a Google Adwords campaign, to a social media marketing campaign. They created several sites in different niches to gather data from. They compared:
1) Hiring an employee at $10/hour to blog, create content, and in to work to drive traffic to the sites.
-to-
2) Using Google Adwords to drive targeted traffic. (They paid up to .75/click in their adwords campaign).
Result: Social Media Optimization yielded a 1427% greater return on investment!
WOW!
The numbers speak for themselves. But before you jump into social media marketing, be sure that you do your homework. There is a right way to network, and there is a spammy way to network. You want to educate yourself so that you are being effective in the way that you use these online communities.
With the current economic conditions, it’s smart to put your marketing efforts where you get the greatest return on investment. Social media marketing may well be your solution.
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Visit SnapMonkey.com for additional help in marketing your business.
