‘return on investment’

Jungle Gym World was established in 2007 by André Ferreira and has since then grown from being a small player in the playground equipment industry to a formidable competitor receiving orders from Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana and even from Hong Kong and nationally. The company is now employer to more than 47 workers. Online marketing is credited for the growth of the company to have become one of the largest steel gym manufacturers and suppliers in the country the past five years.

Jungle Gym World has grown into a formidable competitor in jungle gym equipment over the years using three marketing channels:

• Online marketing which includes a complete marketing mix of Search Engine Optimization (noted by the owner André, as one of the most important reasons for their online success), Pay Per Click advertising, banner ads, article writing and content generation, as well as traffic monitoring.
• Online affiliate marketing where leads are gained from iLead affiliate pages.
• Passive advertising in the printed Yellow Pages.

From the above it becomes clear that Jungle Gym World has increased its exposure and brand awareness by means of the Internet rather than using offline media which is more expensive and can only reach a limited number of people. One of the most important reasons noted for the company’s tremendous success is their ongoing Internet based advertising.

Their website receives on average between 6000 and 7000 visits a month, and all are highly relevant. Getting so many people, who are interested specifically in playground equipment to your website, means that your online marketing methods must work. iLead Online has proven that SEO is essential in increasing search engine visibility and should be the first step in online marketing.

According to André, around 99% of their clients come from the Internet. With thousands of suppliers on the Internet in specifically outdoor play equipment, the company had to ensure that its site would be noticed and more important would result in online sales. Because of this marketing strategy, the company could be more focussed on production of top quality products because iLead has taken the responsibility to ensure a regular stream of visitors, leads, and content for increasing sales conversions.

Important Factors For Online Success

Jungle Gym World has not focussed one only one aspect of online marketing, but several. With only the minimum effort required from Jungle Gym World, iLead Online has ensured ongoing success by using:

• Search engine optimization.
• Article writing by experienced copywriters to ensure credible content that is useful to readers and search engine friendly.
• Incoming link building.
• Blog creation for marketing in the social media environment and reaching more Internet users.
• Pay Per Click advertising management for direct sales leads.
• Creation of landing pages.
• Constant website visitor traffic monitoring.
• Banner ad creation and placing thereof at iLead Online affiliate pages.

Five new pages are added to the article base monthly ensuring that content increases and more visibility are gained regarding organic search engines. Proof is in the stats.

Link Popularity

Link popularity shows the number of websites and search engines linking to a website. The more relevant incoming links from a major search engine and directories, the more doors to a website, and also better ranking.

The Jungle Gym World website has 346 incoming links from Yahoo! which is a major search engine for their co.za domain and 872 for their .com domain. Other search engines sending links to Jungle Gym World are that of Google, Ananzi and Bing. The focus on major search engines has proven to be effective. Google has sent 3617 visits in February 2011 as part of organic searches and 150 referral visits. The website shows only 36% bounce rate, which is excellent. This means that 74% of the visitors explore other web pages on the site before exiting by placing an order.

Visitor Stats

Demographics of the users play an important role in the return on investment when it comes to marketing. Marketing to users which fall outside the scope of your business is indeed money lost. It is never possible to not also receive international visitors if your market is only one country, but you want the majority of visitors to come from within the preferred geographical boundaries. Jungle Gym World has an excellent return on investment because the majority of visits to their website originate from within South Africa and more specifically Gauteng with visits from Pretoria, Sandton and Johannesburg being the most. The site also receives visits from Cape Town and then neighbouring countries, accounting for the successful expansion of its market into neighbouring countries.

Origin Of Traffic

The site receives 64.67% from its traffic from search engines and 3.35% from referring sites while direct hits account for only 31.98%. The site ranks top for several of the main keywords, ensuring that whenever an Internet user searches for playground equipment related terms that Jungle Gym World comes up in the top five results and in many instances is at position 1 to 3. The ROI is all important, and according to André, without the online marketing efforts of iLead and thus the Internet based activity, Jungle Gym World would not exist.

So successful is the company that it is now one of the largest and best known play equipment manufacturers in Southern Africa with regular requests from the USA and important manufacturing countries in Asia. Becoming a major player in the educational and outdoor equipment industry by making use of the Internet as main marketing vehicle and thus also the most cost-effective, is possible if you follow the route that Jungle Gym World did. It is perhaps one of the most inspiring stories on the web and with a longstanding relationship with iLead Online; Jungle Gym World is growing day by day.

So successful is Jungle Gym World that André has been asked on occasion to address a Google and related conferences on the topic of their online success. According to owner, André, a website can be compared to a bottle of water in the desert. The resource is there, but it must be found and for that a map is needed. Online marketing including SEO, PPC, affiliate marketing, link building, and content generation creates the paths to the resource. If done right, Internet marketing, as done through iLead Online, guarantees an excellent return on your marketing investment. Contact us at iLead Online to help you gain the same success through online marketing.

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.

Facebook was established in February 2004 and has since then grown to have a total of more than 610 million users at the beginning of 2010. As such it offers the business a tremendous market which if left untapped, means valuable income lost. It is a fast growing social network site proven by the stats showing that in May 2010 alone, Facebook attracted more than 130 million new visitors. To get the same exposure through normal SEO, will take a lot.

Facebook in essence is an online social networking site connecting millions of users around the world on a personal base. Each user can create an online profile and add friends who can see photos and comments posted on the wall of the user’s space. The friends can comment and share Facebook enabled games and quizzes. It is thus an online facility for sharing personal information; that is until recently when businesses also realised the tremendous potential of Facebook for online expansion of business and interaction with clients. The only other online social networking facility with such wide usage is MySpace.

Instead of companies referencing their website addresses on the television or billboards, they now ask users to join them online at Facebook. It is already more personal than a website with real-time updates and communication possible.

How To Use Facebook For Business?

Simple, make sure you create a fan page and also an online official page for your business where you will introduce your company to the social networking crowd of Facebook. For your business fan page at Facebook, upload a picture of you to create that personal edge. Next write a short description of your business and your role. You need to tell the users how they can find you and also be sure to tell them about your website, and if you have videos on YouTube, tap into it by referring the Facebook users.

The big secret to getting a real return on investment with Facebook is to offer online deals which are only open to your Facebook users. Finally make the most of viral marketing by giving the users an incentive to return and to let others know about your Facebook page. Invite them to follow your business on Twitter where you will post daily online updates on the latest developments. Create a personal contact point with users on the Facebook social networking site and you will reap the benefits of this Internet eating social network.

A recession is generally seen as a bad time. Jobs are lost, banks loan less, and, as the consumer tightens his or her belt, businesses start to suffer. Generally businesses try to counteract the negative consequences of a recession in one of 3 ways:

• By retrenching and laying off workers
• By closing loss making and marginal divisions
• By cutting budgets across the board

Although these steps are often painful, they are necessary to ensure the survival of the company during tough economic times. But lately more and more companies are hesitant to cut their marketing budget to save on expenditure. In fact, Kellogg’s actually increased their marketing budget during the Great Depression and as such their sales increased. Today, more than 80 years later, Kellogg’s is the only breakfast brand of that era that is still in existence and their case study proves the short as well as long term benefit of advertising during an economic slump.

During the recent economic recession (some have even called it a depression) the majority of companies took a hit. In fact,  even those who were considered to be doing well also felt the pinch.

Interestingly enough advertising agencies in South Africa experienced the recession more severely than other industries and many had to retrench employees in order to stay afloat. This was because businesses cut on their offline advertising (radio, TV, newspapers, magazines and billboards) – choosing to spend their advertising budgets on online advertising instead.

Online advertising has allowed companies to spend less on advertising but still build on their equity and solidify their client base; not to mention gain new clients and taking on their competition. Indeed, many progressive companies are finding that when weighing op the two advertising methods, that internet driven advertising has multiple benefits.

Costs

From a purely financial consideration online advertising is far more cost effective than offline advertising. Purchasing airtime for a TV commercial is very costly, especially for the prime time spots when most of the targeted consumers are tuned in, and the risk is always there that the channel might be changed during ad breaks. Online advertising on the other hand works with a fixed cost per click (CPC) budget and website advert. Moreover, an online advertising campaign is far more cost effective (with savings of over 80% for the same results found in offline advertising) and controllable in the short- and long term.

Target Audience

People tend to think that you simply need to design and create a website in order for it to be seen, but business owners need to remember that there are literally thousands of websites in any specific vertical and market. Don’t let this scare you however, because while consumers may read the newspaper or watch television on a daily basis, they are not particularly looking for a product or service. With online searches on Google on the other hand, they are specifically looking for the product or service that you offer, and are therefore much more likely to take the time to read your advertisement.

In this case your advertisement would be your website. With online advertising you can be very particular who your target audience is. Moreover, if your website is set up correctly, you will be able to track your statistics. This will give you the particulars of your viewers, such as their age, location, how they came upon your website, what keywords were used to search for your website, and so forth, thus giving you an edge on your marketing strategy.

Reach

With offline advertisements you can never be sure that your particular target audience paid much attention. Yes you can definitely say that a certain amount of viewers were tuned in, but were they actually noticing your ad and were they the right demographic?  With print ads there is of course the chance that the reader will simply page over. The fact is that online readers look at this form of advertising differently. They typed in specific keywords into the search engine looking for the product or service that your website offers. This is why online marketing plays such a significant role.

When your website is properly optimized, you will be sure that your website will be one of the top search results that the reader finds, and by tracking the readers actions, you will be able to see exactly what pages they went on to on your website, how much time they spent on a page, and even if they left your website directly or clicked through to another page. In the online world this is referred to as the click-through rate (CTR) which is used to measure the success of an online campaign.

Speed of Campaign

Another reason why companies choose internet marketing (online advertising) over offline advertising is the speed at which campaigns run. While most offline ad campaigns can take quite some time before the reader/viewer even sees the ad, advertising online is much quicker. From the moment you publish a new page, story or pay per click (PPC) ad it will be live on the internet and have the potential to be viewed by your targeted audience instantaneously. This means that you have to be much more particular with your timing of running an ad campaign offline, and often you are limited by outside influences, while internet advertising allows you to take that new story or ad live whenever it suits you.

While offline advertising still has its place in the world, the fact of the matter is that online advertising is growing rapidly because of several reasons – speed, cost effective, target specific and reach. Does this mean that you should let go of your offline campaign and go fully online? Not necessarily. But you definitely should include online advertising as part of your marketing strategy. Not only is it much faster, cheaper and targeted, but online advertising is also more flexible and offer you as business owner options to get your message across. At the end of the day you can be certain that even during tough times, you will see a positive ROI.