Building,your,Brand,Interactiv marketing Building your Brand Interactively

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Welcome to the world of touch screens, mobile phones and onlineshopping. It seems interacting with businesses via technology isbecoming increasingly popular each year and the horizon indicates thatthis isn’t going to change. Interactive marketing is undoubtedly thefuture of advertising and is a cost effective means of attracting newaudiences from just about any location in the world. With over 34million users online in the Oceania/Australia region and approximately15 million mobile users in Australia, the people are there and willingto indulge and interact with any content you can throw at them. Inorder to determine whether interactive marketing could assist you andyour business, we must first define such a technology. To put itsimply, Interactive marketing is the method of advertisinginteractively utilising technologies such as the World Wide Web,DVD-ROM’s, mobile devices and online gaming. Users are able to stumbleupon products and/or services you offer and then dig deeper if theychoose to find out more. It’s all about enticing the user to clickfurther and ultimately contacting you for more information. Suchmarketing techniques, either online or offline, are not new tomarketers although it is a method of advertising that is often ignoredor neglected. Many businesses, especially those ran by people who arenot familiar with such technologies, are hesitant to invest insomething they are not sure about. It is understandable though. TheInternet is a diverse place and there are many contributing factorsthat shy people away from utilising it to its full extent, howeverthere is also a huge amount of potential in advertising in such amedium that cannot be ignored. Take this example; the idea ofposting an advertisement for a PC gaming centre within an online gamingworld is just phenomenal. In one advertisement, you have instantlygained the attention of thousands of different gamers who are allextremely interested in the service that you offer for an extendedperiod of time. It’s being able to target your market so specificallyand so easily without spending a fortune that makes interactivemarketing such a brilliant opportunity for small and large businessesalike. There are obviously a number of different platforms thatbusiness owners can employ to market their organisation interactively.These branch over a number of technologies and can also interact witheach other by linking users from one medium to the next. It is the ideathat a user can be playing a game, see a great advertisement, click ona link and view the website at his/her own leisure that makes the worldof difference. To ensure that your business is making good use of thetechnologies available to it, a marketing plan designed specificallyfor interactive marketing should be developed and the following methodsof advertising should be considered.Interactive CD’s:The thought of handing someone a business card that can also providethem with copious amounts of information relating to your business isan exceptionally unique method of marketing. People swap business cardseach and every day and half the time those cards end up in the trash.Wouldn’t it be great if there was a means of enticing them to learn alittle more about your company and all they had to do was insert yourcard into their computer? We all sit in front of a PC for numeroushours a day and inserting a CD into one’s CD-ROM drive is just assimple as opening a book.Marketing DVD’s: Advertising attradeshows, exhibitions and large events is all about catching people’sattention. So many potential customers walk in and out those doorswithout even looking twice at half of the stands on display. MarketingDVD-ROM’s can provide business owners with the facility of showcasingtheir products and services on a larger screen. Should a potentialbuyer be interested, they have the opportunity to interact with the DVDto find out more whilst asking questions along the way. Businesses canalso offer copies of the Marketing DVD in order to reinforce theirproducts, services and branding.Brand Building Online Games:The most important and compelling reason behind using online games forbrand building is that sending marketing messages to potentialcustomers by associating the messages with online games is anon-obtrusive, entertaining, and interactive method of advertising.Utilising such a method ensures that your prospective customers arereceiving your marketing messages because they want to and not becausethey have to.In-game Advertising: Separate to onlinegames designed specifically for brand building, in-game advertising isa method of marketing and brand building within existing online games.Studies have shown that when advertisements were placed within the gamespace of popular games, click-throughs had increased ten fold. Not onlyare you advertising specifically to your target market but you alsogain increased exposure time for your dollar. Think of it this way,even if a gamer only joined a game for five minutes, you’re alreadygaining more exposure than you would through television or radio. Dynamic Websites & RSS Feeds:Providing users with new content via your website is just one method ofhaving them return on a regular basis. Content driven websites are alsofar more likely to be recommended to others. If you are constantlyadding content to your website, you may want to consider using RSSfeeds to let your users know that new content is online. RSS feeds arebasically a simple and elegant means of notifying users that selectedwebsites have been updated.Mobile Advertising: Last butnot least is the ever growing world of mobile advertising. In today’sday and age, everybody seems to have a mobile phone. They are usedfrequently and are often no more than a few metres reach at any onetime. Users now have the ability of viewing SMS messages, browsing WAPsites, clicking-through to web sites and reading emails all from theirmobile and marketing in each of these mediums is the ideal method ofutilising the technology to its full extent. So, where do yougo from here? The straight forward approach is to implement a marketingplan that includes some if not all of the above mentioned methods ofinteractive marketing. Implementing marketing strategies within each ofthese mediums is not an overnight job and chances are you will need tocontact a number of marketing agencies or service providers in order toget the job done. Think carefully, plan thoroughly and stick to yourbudget. These are cost effective marketing alternatives and should notset you back more than you’d expect. If ever in doubt, get a secondopinion. Interactive marketing definitely isn’t for everyoneand certainly works better for some more than others, however It allboils down to whether you’re willing to give it a try. Start small butthink big. Try one medium and then move on to the next. No matter whatavenue you take though, you will notice increased exposure and thatshould ultimately hit your bottom line. Exceptional marketing should beengaging, unique yet non-obtrusive. Interactive marketing is just that.