‘marketing tool’

The newest marketing tool that has hit the online marketing world is the virtual actor or virtual sales person. You don’t have to have an animated avatar, but can have a rather real life looking cyber actor introduce your website and its contents to the visitor.

Why Buy Into The Concept Of Virtual Actors For Online Marketing?

Users want interactivity and often struggle to navigate through websites, especially comprehensive websites with various options. Helping the user by means of audio is one way, but getting more personal, takes online marketing to a whole new level. The cyber actors or virtual sales persons can be compared to someone greeting a shopper at the counter or perhaps acting as guide through a resort. People want to know that they are not interacting with computers alone. They need some personalisation because we now live in a world where distance is placed between the supplier and the customer. Virtual actors or sales persons who are professionally dressed and speak with real human voices help to bridge the distance.

How Does It Work?

Saying real life may just be a bit confusing. The cyber characters are still animated, but sure do look like the real persons. You as the website owner will create the wording and where and when you want the virtual sales persons to appear. You can even have the avatar walk around, point to products and show a bit of humour. Facial expressions are possible and as such the user gets the feeling of interacting with a real person. Should the user want a question answered you can add little question boxes and also immediate contact boxes. On the other end you can have a call centre agent ready to answer and explain.  The virtual sales person is another one of your team members with the difference being that the cyber character sells to the online audience. It is a definite enhancement to the website and one online marketing tool that can set your website apart from that of competitors in the same industry.

More Convenience For The Customer

Users get tired of having to read through one sales letter after the other. If you want your Pay Per Click sales conversion levels to increase then a virtual sales person waiting on the landing page will do the trick. Instead of the user having to read through endless wording, you can have a friendly virtual sales person talk to the user and do the selling. As such virtual actors and cyber sales persons are ideal for sales landing pages. The virtual character relates to the specific audience and creates trust, something that a sales letter simply cannot always achieve.

More Applications For The Virtual Characters:

• Add a cyber character to an auction site.
• Use an avatar as host to a games site.
• Let a virtual actor introduce new concepts.

Some Of The Advantages Of Using Cyber Characters For A Website:

• Loads fast ensuring that the user gets immediate response.
• Creates a personal touch.
• Saves the user time as the user doesn’t have to read through long pieces of information.
• Especially helpful for users who have reading disabilities or who have difficulty seeing on computers screens.
• Helpful to the blind web users.
• Makes a site more accessible to a wider audience.

How To Add A Cyber Character To Your Website:

• Download a virtual actor software package from the Internet.
• You can find such cyber character packages by doing a search at Google for “cyber character” or “virtual actors” or “website avatars” or “speaking character for websites”.
• As an alternative let an online marketing company such as iLead create the characters and upload to your site.
• Select the avatar or virtual actor that you want to use and customize the cyber character.
• You can add accessories or change the clothing and hairstyle of the virtual salesperson or spokesperson.
• Record the avatar script and ensure correct voice usage.
• Generate the HTML coding and ensure that it is inserted at the correct places in your site.

It is important to speak in an audible voice and ensure that the speed of the conversation will be correct. You don’t want the recording to sound like a computer or unprofessional. If you don’t have the correct voice for the job, get the help from a professional online marketing company to ensure that the whole process of creating a professional website avatar is done correctly.

Cyber Actors or Characters and SEO

One of the questions that website owners have is whether the use of cyber actors will not influence their search engine rankings and the optimization process. Virtual characters speak in audible voices. Their conversations are not yet searchable by search engines. As such virtual characters should be used in conjunction with text. Some persons may still want text on the page and search engines require text. You will thus still need articles, blogs, press releases, newsletters, and keyword optimization, but the website virtual characters will create interactivity, save time for the user and help to boost online sales. As such the virtual actors will not take the place of text, but rather become guides, sales people, and hosts. A professional online marketing company such as iLead Online can help you create the website virtual sales persons, place them at the correct pages, and optimize the pages to ensure that there will still be enough text for the search engines.

If you have a dynamic web page, which is one that uses the client server scripts to ensure that the content displayed reflects the personal preferences of the user, you may find it difficult to optimize the web pages for good search engine placement. Fortunately it is possible by adding for instance, a static sitemap to the complete website and ensuring that you have a blog where new searchable content is created on a regular basis. Links from affiliate websites also improve the ranking of the site ensuring that even when you have a shopping or Web 2.0 site that the site will still be able to rank well. One should understand that the website virtual characters are online marketing help tools and not optimization tools. The SEO team will continue to optimize the pages for best search engine placement. Get going with cyber speaking characters and actors. Get professional help from the online marketing team at iLead. Contact us to help you create your very own virtual website assistant for better sales conversions.

Online advertising when compared to offline advertising holds several benefits, some of which are briefly discussed below.

Before the Internet became the main vehicle of advertising, only the larger companies could reach target audiences nationally and internationally through television, radio, and magazine advertisements. Magazine advertisements were simply too expensive for the small business owners and as such only the larger companies could afford to place full page adverts. Fortunately the Internet changed the scene dramatically, making it possible for everyone to advertise and sell to a wider audience beyond national borders. Yet, many business owners fail to realize the full potential of online advertising.

Online Advertising is More Affordable

As mentioned earlier, Internet based advertising is more affordable than printed advertising. When one for instance, prints 10 000 flyers which are then distributed by means of mail or hand-outs, the costs, time and limited return on investment simply outweigh the coverage benefits. With only about 1-2% of the receivers responding to flyers, it becomes a burden rather than a marketing tool. When one places a full page ad in a newspaper, the costs can vary between R5000 and R30 000. The limited coverage together with the rather hefty price tag in addition to a short lifespan, make it less desirable than online advertising. With Internet based advertising you thus pay far less for a wider coverage, more targeted audience, and an ad with a longer lifespan.

Tracking of Success

With online advertising the success of each ad or promotion can be tracked. With highly sophisticated analytical programs available, visitor statistics can be used to adapt the marketing strategy. It isn’t necessary to wait for reports as hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly reports can be generated with the click of a button. Online stats make it possible to immediately identify ads or pages which don’t perform as should. Unfortunately with offline advertising, such reports may only become available after a few days, weeks or months.

Immediate Advertising

With Internet advertising you have the benefit of being able to create an ad and have it published almost immediately. Changes to the ad can be made and the ad updated on a regular basis without having to invest a lot of time or money to do so. With offline or printed advertising the publishing of the ad is often delayed and with a magazine ad you may have to book space two or three months ahead of time. The ad may not even be relevant anymore by the time it is displayed. Making changes to an ad can be rather expensive and may not be reflected immediately. If you want to attract attention to a special there is no better means than the Internet.

Wider Choice

When making use of the Internet as marketing vehicle you are not limited by choice. You can select a banner ad, sponsored or pay per click advertising, article marketing, email newsletters, online press releases or a graphical display at a website. In addition you can make a video and have it run at YouTube or simply utilize the power of Social Media by creating a Facebook marketing campaign. As such you have multiple advertising vehicles which can run at the same time at a fraction of the cost associated with printed media advertising.

Quick Response Time

Add quick customer responses to the already long list of online marketing and promotion benefits. Instead of the customer having to wait until the magazine or newspaper ad is published, then having to mail or call for assistance, you can now have the customer complete a simple online form and have a consultant contact the customer within 24 hours. In many instances, you can even have online ordering forms, payment and feedback forms which allow for immediate responses ensuring optimal return on your online advertising spending.

More Accessible

With Internet advertising the customer has 24 hours access to the adverts or sales messages. This means that whether the customer responds at two o’clock in the morning or three in the afternoon that processing can take place by means of automated systems. This ensures longer operation hours, more exposure, and also more convenience for the customer.

Increases Creativity

With online marketing methods available, the scope of creativity is broadened. Whether you want to place a classified ad, static graphical ad or want to create marketing videos to run in conjunction with articles or animated presentations, you will not be limited because of the lack of tools. It is now possible to incorporate avatars for improved interactivity and a more personal touch. Interactive polls, forums, blogs, and tweeting can be used to spread the message to your target audience.

Longer Lifespan

When you place an ad in a newspaper it has a lifespan of 24 hours. With a magazine the lifespan can be a week to a year, but with online advertising, the lifespan can be from one day to several years depending on the type of vehicle used. An article placed at an article directory can run for several years and thus bring incoming links for an extended period. The same holds true for an article posted at your website. The traffic is not generated once off. The return on investment is thus better than with offline or printed media advertising.

Easily Adapt To Changing Habits

A few years ago, people hardly read online. Nowadays, people purchase e-books and spend hours reading online. As such more time is spent retrieving information, socialising, and reading online than before. The present trends suggest that more and more people will in future make use of the Internet as their main source of information and shopping vehicle. Not addressing the growing market through online advertising will thus mean limiting your scope and the growth potential of your business.

Now is the time to act. There will always be a place for printed advertising, but the main vehicle for marketing and promotion will be the Internet. Contact us to help you make the most of online advertising.

Social media marketing is the new buzz phrase in online marketing and for good reason. Web 2.0 although still relatively new, is here to stay and has increased interactivity in online world. Social media marketing thus also entails online promotion by means of conversations. Markets have turned into conversation boards. If you don’t engage with clients, competitors and users, you fail to realise the full potential of social media marketing as an online marketing tool.

The age-old “by word of mouth” is the most trusted tool in social media marketing. People read reviews and trust them, even more so when given by a friend or colleague. More often than not users will not buy a product online or even offline without first discussing such with a friend or colleague. If a close friend recommends a product, one is more likely to try it, especially when you trust the opinion of the friend. Here is another keyword in social media marketing regarding online marketing: opinion given in conversation.

Companies must tap into the conversation power. The idea is to create a buzz about a product or brand. Once there is a buzz, the next phase in social media marketing can take place. Online marketing allows one to get an overview as well as an in-depth understanding of what the consumer wants, desires, dislikes, prefers and is willing to pay without having to spend millions in the process.

It is estimated that almost 80% of businesses with an online presence use social media marketing in some form of online promotion. If you haven’t done so yet, the time is now. Issuing information in the hope that it will reach consumers by means of magazines, newspapers or the television is a hit and run method. Maybe you get a few hits, but if you are serious about online marketing today, you need to create conversations and then tap into the conversations to help you develop even more presence in the online world.

Social media marketing is about conversations. The conversations if used correctly can help create new positive perceptions about a product or brand. The opposite is also true and you thus need to keep close tabs on any conversations to ensure that any negative comments can be turned into something positive. Do it right and you have a powerful online marketing tool. Alternatively, you can call upon the experts to use their extensive knowledge and experience to your advantage within the online sphere.