Gen Y’s Place in the World of Digital Marketing
Self-absorbed, coddled, selfish, over-confident, arrogant, and accused of suffering from a deep epidemic of narcissism, Gen Y’s are constantly battered and bruised from those of earlier generations.
However, in the world of digital marketing it is Gen Y’s that are the cornerstone of our ever-expanding business; offering professional and cutting edge advice while showing our clients real results.
Here’s why:
- For starters, Gen Y’s are techy. Sure many Gen X’s and Baby Boomers are relatively active in the digital space, but Gen Y’s have shown older generations massive time-saving tech shortcuts that increase their productivity.
- Gen Y’s speak digital as their first language. They sleep with their iPhone under the pillow, are searching the net whilst watching TV, and are usually involved in 5-10 asynchronous conversations at any given time of the day. This convergence of media, technology and communication has unwittingly bred a generation of very capable multi-taskers and digital natives. They can take in huge amounts of information and filter out what is most useful to THEM. It’s no wonder that they are the most digitally targeted marketing segment. Which leads to my next point…
- They’re sponges. Some of us might see facebook, or just surfing the net as a mere pass time. However, these guys are communicating and absorbing a wide range of information from various sources. If your business is looking to delve into the murky waters of Social Media, do you know what social media channels and strategies are right for your business? We rely on the Gen Y’s in our office to provide extensive advice on how your company can capitalise on the social media boom through social media marketing and promotion.
- They’re natural Googlers. Gen Y’s have been using the internet for as long as they can remember. They rely on it for information and use it to source the most up-to-date products. They will rarely go beyond the first page of Google searches; therefore SEO & SEM is imperative when attempting to target them. And due to Gen Y emerging as the largest demographic in Australia (with 4.67million of them floating around), Reload Media understands your business is likely interested in a slice of the Gen Y pie! We have Gen Y SEO & SEM specialists who know how to effectively target Gen Y’s and take your online presence to the next level.
- They buzz! Gen Y’s are switched on and full of energy. They provide a company with that much needed positive momentum that uplifts everyone in the room. Is your business currently running on empty? Maybe you need a Gen Y to come in and add some spark.
- Opportunity drives them. Some of the biggest complaints people have about Gen Y’s are that:
- They don’t have the patience to stay at one job for long enough,
- They will inevitably leave and work overseas, and
- That they expect to reach the top immediately.
This simply isn’t true. However, we have found that, by simply offering Gen Y’s a Gen Y working environment and presenting them with actual responsibility and trust to grow your business, they will relish the opportunity and exceed your expectations.
- They’re not into 9-5. They’re more 24/7. Shoot a Gen Y an email at 11pm and I would bet my bottom dollar that you’ll get a quick reply. They are not phased about putting in extra time to get the job done. Our Gen Y staff members put endless hours in to ensure our clients get industry leading service.
- Finally, Gen Y’s are adaptable. They thrive on change and learning a plethora of new information. Just ask a Gen Y to learn something new and report the findings to you and they’ll enthusiastically jump on it.
So if you’re still unsure about Gen Y’s, then you should employ one and witness the momentum they can add to your business given the right mix of responsibility and opportunity. In digital marketing, we depend on their natural digital expertise in order to keep up to date with the latest trends and maximise our clients results. This is what makes us the leader in search optimisation and internet marketing that we are today.
As a business owner who employs Gen Y’s, I know firsthand how efficient they can be given the right motivation and working atmosphere.
As a matter of fact, a Gen Y is writing this article for me right now… Now that’s efficiency!
Popularity: 12%
Read MoreDomain Age and SEO
Domain names have been around for a while. Decades in fact. But how important in 2010 is domain age to SEO and your website ranking results?
At Reload Media we believe it’s very important to Google and your search engine rankings.
If you combine domain age with URL matches and good on-page optimisation, you are setting yourself up to have some great results.
Many businesses such as Digital Point are selling people (and spammers) older domains than what they can buy brand new on say Go Daddy.
At Reload, what we prefer to do is work with clients that have existing domain age and a good website, and therefore relevancy in the Google search algorithm.
That way, you aren’t artificially creating a result with a domain you don’t personally know or control and one that might have been in ‘blacklisting’ trouble in the past.
If you buy a business in the future it’s worth considering the value of the domain. With many baby boomers selling up in the next few years there are going to be many domains out there that aren’t valued properly if domain age isn’t factored in.
Popularity: 22%
Read MoreSEO Companies Need to Act Like Home Lenders
To get great results on a website with search engine optimisation (SEO), a business and their SEO firm need to be able to work in partnership.
For example, a site brought to an SEO company that is technically very sound but poorly visually designed won’t convert well, meaning no amount of SEO will be able to increase revenue because users will simply arrive at the site from Google, take one look at it and never come back.
By the same token, a fantastic looking site that is SEO-technically challenged will not look attractive to the search engines when being crawled. This means you’ve got a great looking site that no-one ever sees.
If the SEO industry wants to gain more credibility, then SEO providers need to start acting more like banks that process home loans. In a nutshell, not every home loan is approved.
For SEO companies, we must look at a range of conversion, design, technical and financial factors during the assessment period to ascertain whether the client is serious about SEO, whether they have the right website for SEO and whether they understand that it’s a long term process, and not something that happens overnight by throwing a few bad links around.
When a bank is assessing a loan, they determine whether or not a person is capable of paying back the loan over a period of say 30 years.
With SEO, we need to make sure that the client has the shared vision and commitment to ensure the website is initially designed well to suit their target audience, they are ready to add SEO friendly content when requested and most importantly they are prepared to take the time to read the FAQs and understand how the SEO process works.
Without this shared commitment, sometimes there isn’t any point in doing SEO for a client as it may leave “a bad taste in the mouth” for all parties involved and eventually hurt the industry itself.
For Reload Media’s SEO FAQs, please see: http://www.reloadmedia.com.au/seo-faqs.php
Popularity: 18%
Read MoreSEO: What to Expect?
As Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) becomes more mainstream and a key part of the marketing mix, it is important to ensure client expectations are met. After all, it’s the clients who are paying for the SEO service with their hard earned dollars.
At Reload Media, we make sure we stick to a quality process to measure expectation management that includes:
- Clearly defining that a good quality SEO program is a long term process. We work over 12 month SEO programs as SEO needs this amount of time to meet keyword position targets and guarantees.
- Gain a clear understanding of the most important keywords to the client. Although we might optimise for numerous keywords as part of our SEO programs, there are always ones that the client really wants to get higher up the rankings. Sometimes however, these generic keywords they select may be too ambitious for the amount the client is paying per month. This is often due to their industry already being highly competitive on these generic terms.
- If in a given month a search engine bounces some keywords around, then clearly discussing this movement with the client is important. As often other sites will have experienced the same reshuffle of positions as things always don’t stay the same in search engine land.
- Discussing with the client that we need to access their website to make changes to the meta, footers and other key areas. Some clients haven’t understood that we actually need to change their web pages. Working with them is important to gain the required trust that we won’t crash their site!
- Finally, re-emphasising that it takes patience to be on the first page of the search engines.
If some or all of these areas are done on an ongoing basis, the expectation “bar” can be raised for everyone in the industry. And this will be a good thing for us all.
Popularity: 14%
Read MoreSmall Business SEO – The Great Equaliser
One of the reasons small business can’t live without SEO is that fact that it is one of the only marketing channels available where the smaller players can compete with, and even trump big business.
Consider the marketing alternatives to SEO and the costs associated with achieving global exposure on TV, Radio or Newspaper?
So how exactly can small business utilise search marketing to compete and even thrive on the web while big business can’t?
1. Focus on the Longtail
The basic premise of the Longtail is that our culture and economy is shifting away from mainstream products and markets to a number of small, specific niches. Many of the typical constraints such as production, distribution and marketing (SEO) are changing and being alleviated by technology and the internet.
Take a big site like Amazon, they must cover all their bases and sell a large number of unique items in smaller quantity. However, when consumers are faced with unlimited choice, shopping around to get exactly what you’re after becomes much easier. Niches are so successful because they allow people to satisfy and fulfill their specific interests.
With SEO and SEM it is easy to measure exactly how profitable your different niches are so that you can focus on the highest performing ones.
2. Unlimited Ad Budget
Traditional marketing tells us that we need to ‘set a budget’ for our marketing costs. When you can measure the exact cost of a conversion, why not simply keep purchasing ads while it’s profitable? As long as every ad click is costing you less than you’re making from that click (accounting for overheads), then there’s no reason to threshold your budget.
In big business, how often have you heard a marketer tell you ‘we don’t have the budget for that at the moment‘?
As a small business, armed with the tangible information of digital ads, you can now say ‘we have an unlimited budget for ads that work‘.
3. Create Valuable Alliances
Unburdened by bureaucracy, small business can easily align with other business’ when it mutually beneficial. Big business can often be slow to change because of procedures and legal issues making it take much longer to create strategic partnerships.
Ask your strategic partners to link to you and they will do your marketing for you. Make it easy and beneficial for them to talk about you and they won’t be able to help themselves.
4. The Personal Touch
How often have you phoned a call centre, only to be greeted by a faceless voice that tells you they can’t help because ‘it’s not standard procedure‘?
Small business has the luxury of taking the time to add that personal touch. If it makes sense to both the business and the customer, why not break the rules? When you can give people something they don’t expect you’re giving them a reason to remember and talk about you.
Rather than trying to disguise it, emphasise the fact that you’re small. Shout out the advantages to the customer; lower overheads, faster responses and savings passed onto the customer.
5. Change Often, and Quickly
With so many freely available research tools, it’s easy to stay on top of trends and discover new niches. When there is a shift in direction in a market, how long does it take a big business to react?
Small business has the advantage of flexibility. If it makes sense to change, you can do something totally different tomorrow. If it doesn’t work out, change again. That’s where the beauty of SEO comes out.
photo by fisserman
Popularity: 9%
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