Since this is the last week of 2010 many home business owners online are looking forward to 2011 and wondering what will be the best approach to take to their Internet marketing plan for next year? Which strategies will be used most often on the web and which tactics will be most effective? Will the trends of 2010 continue into next year or will you have to revamp your Internet marketing strategy to keep up with your competition on the Internet?
According to all indicators social media networking is still the in-thing online and appears to be more than just a fad. It looks as though this form of online interaction and communication is here to stay and if your current strategy doesn’t include social network advertising it’s time you addressed the situation and developed a plan of attack. If you need more evidence regarding the growth of social media this should help convince you.
According to Harris Interactive:
9 out of 10 (87%) online adults use social media.
Highest percentage (22%) uses social media less than 1 hour per week.
Highest percentage of 18-34 yr-olds (17%) uses social media 6-10 hours per week.
These numbers should convince you there’s a vast market available to any home business owner on the web who wants to tap into to take their enterprise to the next level in 2011.
Video of course has exploded onto the Internet marketing scene and shows no signs of waning in popularity. You should try to incorporate video into your Internet marketing efforts at every possible turn for several reasons. The search engines love it therefore it’s a great way to improve your rankings, it’s inexpensive to create and doesn’t require a technical genius to produce and when you share your ads on the various video sharing websites they may go viral which can produce an endless flood of targeted free traffic to your home business opportunity.
If you still aren’t convinced let’s take a look at some data for you to consider courtesy of B2C Marketing Insider:
“At the 2010 Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo, Greg Jarboe, president and co-founder of SEO-PR revealed that:
Americans watch more videos a month on YouTube than they conduct searches on Google.
A video is 50 times more likely to get a first-page Google ranking than a text page.
If those finding aren’t stunning, coming from an SEO perspective check out Pew Internet Research’s recent study indicating that 7 in 10 adult internet users (69%) have used the internet to watch or download video. That represents 52% of all adults in the United States.”
The third trend setter for 2011 continues to be email marketing. Apparently the money continues to be in the list and any home business owner or Internet marketer online who persists in ignoring this fact may be doomed to failure on the web. According to WSI Market Edge: “92% of online businesses will be starting or increasing their email marketing efforts next year.”
If you’re one of the forward thinking home business owners online and you already have a targeted email list of current and potential customers you should pay close attention to it in 2011 and continue to find ways to grow and add to your directory.
People often change their email address so it’s important to maintain regular contact with your list members in order to nurture your relationship to keep them as loyal patrons of your enterprise. Always remember your customers are gold and your potential clients are the future of your home based business and should be treated as such.
If you incorporate these three Internet marketing techniques into your overall strategy, 2011 should be one of your most successful years ever on the web.