The Realities of Internet Marketing in 2016
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2024 2:23 pm
The years when black SEO ruled the market for attracting clients to a website are gone. Search engines are tightening their algorithms, and companies need customers. And now, in the wake of the crisis, even more than before. We talked about modern methods of attracting clients in the e-commerce sector with Vladimir Shumov, Director of Development of the TexTerra integrated internet marketing agency.
While 2016 is not yet promising, all industries ghana phone numbers are talking about a crisis, and internet agencies are no exception. Has the crisis affected you? Is the reduction in the advertising budget noticeable from a client such as an online store?
Of course, the crisis has an impact, but we are not losing clients, we are not laying off employees. On the contrary, we are expanding, and this is the specificity of our agency. The services we provide are in demand now, especially in the e-commerce sector. I think if it were not for the crisis, there would have been even more rapid growth.
At the beginning of 2015, English-language projects were launched (but not very successfully) in order to receive revenue in foreign currency. Another direction of development was connected with the entry of Russian business into Asian markets, since due to the difference in exchange rates, this became more interesting for the whole world. All activity on this front was curtailed after the first quarter: they saw that everything was more or less fine with us, there was no point in wasting time. And they rolled back to the domestic market. However, we still look to the West and to the East (that is where online stores are flourishing).
Speaking about Internet agencies in general, there are indeed problems. We published a wonderful article on this topic, “The Death of Digital”: about how the digital market is changing, the media is changing. Today, any blogger can form a dense flow of readers. Even a girl who regularly blogs can have an audience comparable to some regional publication.
This is reflected in the agency business as well. Given the crisis, companies are having a very, very difficult time. And for those who have just begun to rebuild their business models and somehow adapt, the train has most likely left.
Are customer expectations changing, perhaps? Now everyone wants to get an audience with the same or smaller budgets, they want to see more deeply, to understand what they spend money on. Is there a feeling that the market is changing in this direction as well?
Of course, clients are becoming more advanced, especially online stores. Our agency contributes to this as well. We are happy to educate the potential target audience. Those who then become our clients.
Naturally, everyone wants more. We see a clear desire to work with a link to a result that can be assessed ("we want to pay for leads" or "we want to pay for sales"). This is a clear trend of 2015-2016. But here the realities of the Russian market come into play, businesses are not ready to let an agency inside, there are barriers at the level of trust.
In fact, if a company, and especially an online store, wants to tie an agency to the result, it must be made a co-owner of the business. For example, a percentage of sales - but how can an agency monitor them? Not only verbal powers are needed, but also legal ones.
When it comes to this conversation, it turns out that most people are simply not ready. We have encountered this more than once: a business comes and says: “We want to pay for leads, but we need traffic from search, an advertising campaign on social networks, a video blog, and banner advertising.” Okay, if you tell us what to do, then why should we, on the one hand, be responsible for the result, and on the other, not get involved at all?
There are a large number of not only legal but also psychological barriers here. I do not believe that the situation in 2016, despite the crisis, will change dramatically. Of course, there will be movement in this direction, but now is not the time.
But here is the question that should have started: where did it all begin? How did the idea come about? Why TexTerra, why Orekhovo-Zuyevo?
Why content marketing? There are two reasons: firstly, the founder and CEO Denis Savelyev is a person who graduated from the Literary Institute, a strong author. Although back then everything was implemented more by intuition (before TexTerra, Denis ran two businesses), the experience turned out to be positive, it took off. He worked with texts, wrote a lot, over time he accumulated knowledge and competencies, and his own clients appeared.
Secondly, the trends that search engines began to set — the Google Panda content analysis and evaluation algorithm, first of all. A large number of sites fell under the filters. At that time, TexTerra specialized in writing texts. After the introduction of Panda, it became clear that Yandex would sooner or later come to the same thing. Then the decision was made to turn in this direction.
In general, TexTerra, as far as I remember, was formed in 2010. With Orekhovo-Zuyevo, everything is very simple: Denis's parents are here. He did not like the city before, but now, when it began to acquire people, connections, some things that became anchors and somehow supported further development, he changed his mind. Another reason for not being in Moscow is low rent, which allowed him to set a price tag for clients that was advantageous against the background of competitors.
The downside is, of course, limitations on labor resources, there is a shortage of personnel, but nevertheless we find people and train them. Denis came up with the name TexTerra. It had no meaning in itself ("text of the earth" literally).
So before the pivot to content marketing, the main focus was SEO?
Getting search traffic. It was based on classic things - title, description, semantics, relevance map, site markup. Previously, this was enough to take positions. I came to the vacancy of a sales manager, there was an influx of new clients, budgets appeared, we earned the first million and, in general, off we went.
What should advertisers focus on now?
A provocative question, I think. Online and offline businesses should certainly reconsider their approach to advertising campaigns. Stop pushing advertising messages and create some kind of value, a unique essence, for which the client would come independently.
In offline marketing, companies are starting to use promotions, coupons, and additional gifts. There is great potential in the area of sequential attributions in general. It has been said for a long time that it is necessary to measure the effectiveness of the context, now many marketers and businessmen are convinced that advertising in social media should pay off. If it does not pay off, then it is not needed.
And practice often shows that the first communication, the first acquaintance of the audience with the brand often happens in social networks. This is the first touch. The second can happen in context, the third in search and, as a result, the client gets sales. According to large advertisers, for example, Saxo Bank - a large European forex trader with a Russian representative office, this works.
For example, there is a banner, a large amount is spent on it, and a ridiculous number of applications come in. But if you turn it off, then the number of leads drops on all other channels, sales fall by 15-20%. Accordingly, when making a decision, businesses need to deepen their knowledge in analytics and take a more comprehensive approach.
Don't waste your advertising budget
The call tracking and end-to-end analytics service will show the effectiveness of each source in terms of “from click to sale”.
Get a consultation
So it’s not just content marketing that needs to be developed?
For us, this is the main direction, TexTerra has been systematically moving towards it since 2011. Search traffic can be obtained in various ways. If earlier in a classic SEO agency one manager could buy links to 40-50 projects, our project group has 10-15 projects and it is sewn up.
We need copywriters, editors, proofreaders on staff, and ideally, those who can combine all of this. There are no such people on the market, someone has to teach them. So, back then, we started to form this, learn to measure, calculate, scale.
And how much does an average project cost? Usually, an average project in SEO companies costs from 70 to 100 thousand rubles. What you are talking about must be expensive.
Here's an example: in December 2015, Denis Savelyev published a post that we are ready to take a public project and report absolutely free of charge. A client came who sells helicopters from a hundred thousand dollars. How much do you think he spends on marketing?
About 100 thousand rubles?
15 maximum! And this is all over the place. Clinics where expensive surgeries are performed - breast augmentation, plastic surgery, dentistry - whatever. For some reason, businesses think that the Internet is some kind of magic gate. That is, you can pay a manager 60 thousand - this is normal, but 10 will be enough for an SEO agency. It's like a game of roulette: I'll pay ten, if it works out - great, if not - the money is small, no big deal.
So this consciousness, of course, changes. If we answer the question about prices. Our minimum rate is 27 thousand, when we simply say what to do. In fact, this is project supervision.
Some reasonable complex starts from 130 thousand per month. This is work with content, its distribution - social networks, e-mail marketing, trigger messages. Of course, work with the site: user convenience, implementation of analytics, supervision of technical aspects (hosting down, site unavailable, DDOS attack).
We often encounter situations when a business requires serious work. The most common problem is custom CMS. It is difficult to implement even minor changes in them, and resources are needed to transfer the site to a new platform.
It is also not uncommon for a client to say at the work stage that something should be added or redone on the website, and then try to retract their words. In this case, recording calls is very helpful.
What other services help in working with clients?
Firstly, it is the 8-800 number – it is provided to us by the UIS company – we strongly recommend all clients to install it on the site, it is a commercial ranking factor. If there is a working 8-800, in the vast majority of cases it means that the business is serious.
Secondly, it is the integration of IP telephony with the CRM system . We use, as I said earlier, also the UIS platform, or more precisely, call recording, and we have extended the storage period, because our deal is long. There is even a "Zombie" lead status. This is when a person does not answer either yes or no, while there are known cases when they were followed up for a year or more before the deal. Therefore, it is very important to know how the conversation went.
Tell me, are clients who have such a decision-making period managed by one manager?
In general, a lot can change for us during the year. And it is not necessary that the manager reminds us of himself, yes, he will go to the client for a meeting, and the client will form an image of a competent potential contractor. However, the client is in no hurry to start work. For example, he redesigns the site and contacts us himself when he finishes the update.
It's just interesting how the connection is set up in this case. If the client calls again, where does he end up: will he be connected to the manager he has already contacted or not?
The phone number is linked to the lead only at the contact level. That is, when a manager fills out a card, the CRM system shows that such contact information exists. You can immediately see what kind of lead it is. This is due to our specifics, because telephony is used not only by sales managers, but also by accounts. Today it is a new client, and tomorrow - a regular one.
How did the work process change after telephony integration? Or did you connect CRM at the same time?
Before connecting the telephony, we were a completely different company. There were no more than 10 people on staff, the entire process was built differently. Two mobile phones worked with direct landline numbers. We simply saw how many applications there were during the week, and we didn’t even write down these numbers. Despite the length of the transaction, there were only a small number of them in operation.
After we started using IP telephony , the world became different. We saw our entire process clearly, and adjusted a lot. We connected CRM later, but there was no such significant leap.
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How do you measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns?
We don't have advertising campaigns. The specifics are different, we get traffic from organics. And, if we talk about the ratio of leads and calls from the site, a very large number of requests from the site - about 70%. But, in general, there are more requests with a call. People come to us mainly in the evening, read over a cup of tea, in their free time from work. A large number of requests come at night. During the day, there are much fewer.
Returning to the question about the services we use. In general, our process is based on recording conversations. The thing is that to create high-quality expert content, you need information. Where can you get it? There must be experts who understand the topic better than anyone else.
We cannot write about injection molding machines or veneered lining so that it would be complete and correct. Copywriters, as a rule, do not understand anything about this. Of course, they can refer to articles on other resources, but they were overwhelmingly prepared by the same copywriters who may not have even seen injection molding machines.
There is an expert on the client's side, but he won't write. And this is where a telephone interview comes to the rescue. You can listen to the recording over and over again to understand what to pay attention to, what it is used for, what is behind this name, because often the client uses jargon to name this or that product.
The result is a very high-quality technical task, in which everything is written down to the smallest detail, what needs to be said, how to present it. As a result, we send the client articles that are not only useful to read, but also interesting. All he has to do is fact-check.
Thank you very much for the meeting! Good luck to the agency!
While 2016 is not yet promising, all industries ghana phone numbers are talking about a crisis, and internet agencies are no exception. Has the crisis affected you? Is the reduction in the advertising budget noticeable from a client such as an online store?
Of course, the crisis has an impact, but we are not losing clients, we are not laying off employees. On the contrary, we are expanding, and this is the specificity of our agency. The services we provide are in demand now, especially in the e-commerce sector. I think if it were not for the crisis, there would have been even more rapid growth.
At the beginning of 2015, English-language projects were launched (but not very successfully) in order to receive revenue in foreign currency. Another direction of development was connected with the entry of Russian business into Asian markets, since due to the difference in exchange rates, this became more interesting for the whole world. All activity on this front was curtailed after the first quarter: they saw that everything was more or less fine with us, there was no point in wasting time. And they rolled back to the domestic market. However, we still look to the West and to the East (that is where online stores are flourishing).
Speaking about Internet agencies in general, there are indeed problems. We published a wonderful article on this topic, “The Death of Digital”: about how the digital market is changing, the media is changing. Today, any blogger can form a dense flow of readers. Even a girl who regularly blogs can have an audience comparable to some regional publication.
This is reflected in the agency business as well. Given the crisis, companies are having a very, very difficult time. And for those who have just begun to rebuild their business models and somehow adapt, the train has most likely left.
Are customer expectations changing, perhaps? Now everyone wants to get an audience with the same or smaller budgets, they want to see more deeply, to understand what they spend money on. Is there a feeling that the market is changing in this direction as well?
Of course, clients are becoming more advanced, especially online stores. Our agency contributes to this as well. We are happy to educate the potential target audience. Those who then become our clients.
Naturally, everyone wants more. We see a clear desire to work with a link to a result that can be assessed ("we want to pay for leads" or "we want to pay for sales"). This is a clear trend of 2015-2016. But here the realities of the Russian market come into play, businesses are not ready to let an agency inside, there are barriers at the level of trust.
In fact, if a company, and especially an online store, wants to tie an agency to the result, it must be made a co-owner of the business. For example, a percentage of sales - but how can an agency monitor them? Not only verbal powers are needed, but also legal ones.
When it comes to this conversation, it turns out that most people are simply not ready. We have encountered this more than once: a business comes and says: “We want to pay for leads, but we need traffic from search, an advertising campaign on social networks, a video blog, and banner advertising.” Okay, if you tell us what to do, then why should we, on the one hand, be responsible for the result, and on the other, not get involved at all?
There are a large number of not only legal but also psychological barriers here. I do not believe that the situation in 2016, despite the crisis, will change dramatically. Of course, there will be movement in this direction, but now is not the time.
But here is the question that should have started: where did it all begin? How did the idea come about? Why TexTerra, why Orekhovo-Zuyevo?
Why content marketing? There are two reasons: firstly, the founder and CEO Denis Savelyev is a person who graduated from the Literary Institute, a strong author. Although back then everything was implemented more by intuition (before TexTerra, Denis ran two businesses), the experience turned out to be positive, it took off. He worked with texts, wrote a lot, over time he accumulated knowledge and competencies, and his own clients appeared.
Secondly, the trends that search engines began to set — the Google Panda content analysis and evaluation algorithm, first of all. A large number of sites fell under the filters. At that time, TexTerra specialized in writing texts. After the introduction of Panda, it became clear that Yandex would sooner or later come to the same thing. Then the decision was made to turn in this direction.
In general, TexTerra, as far as I remember, was formed in 2010. With Orekhovo-Zuyevo, everything is very simple: Denis's parents are here. He did not like the city before, but now, when it began to acquire people, connections, some things that became anchors and somehow supported further development, he changed his mind. Another reason for not being in Moscow is low rent, which allowed him to set a price tag for clients that was advantageous against the background of competitors.
The downside is, of course, limitations on labor resources, there is a shortage of personnel, but nevertheless we find people and train them. Denis came up with the name TexTerra. It had no meaning in itself ("text of the earth" literally).
So before the pivot to content marketing, the main focus was SEO?
Getting search traffic. It was based on classic things - title, description, semantics, relevance map, site markup. Previously, this was enough to take positions. I came to the vacancy of a sales manager, there was an influx of new clients, budgets appeared, we earned the first million and, in general, off we went.
What should advertisers focus on now?
A provocative question, I think. Online and offline businesses should certainly reconsider their approach to advertising campaigns. Stop pushing advertising messages and create some kind of value, a unique essence, for which the client would come independently.
In offline marketing, companies are starting to use promotions, coupons, and additional gifts. There is great potential in the area of sequential attributions in general. It has been said for a long time that it is necessary to measure the effectiveness of the context, now many marketers and businessmen are convinced that advertising in social media should pay off. If it does not pay off, then it is not needed.
And practice often shows that the first communication, the first acquaintance of the audience with the brand often happens in social networks. This is the first touch. The second can happen in context, the third in search and, as a result, the client gets sales. According to large advertisers, for example, Saxo Bank - a large European forex trader with a Russian representative office, this works.
For example, there is a banner, a large amount is spent on it, and a ridiculous number of applications come in. But if you turn it off, then the number of leads drops on all other channels, sales fall by 15-20%. Accordingly, when making a decision, businesses need to deepen their knowledge in analytics and take a more comprehensive approach.
Don't waste your advertising budget
The call tracking and end-to-end analytics service will show the effectiveness of each source in terms of “from click to sale”.
Get a consultation
So it’s not just content marketing that needs to be developed?
For us, this is the main direction, TexTerra has been systematically moving towards it since 2011. Search traffic can be obtained in various ways. If earlier in a classic SEO agency one manager could buy links to 40-50 projects, our project group has 10-15 projects and it is sewn up.
We need copywriters, editors, proofreaders on staff, and ideally, those who can combine all of this. There are no such people on the market, someone has to teach them. So, back then, we started to form this, learn to measure, calculate, scale.
And how much does an average project cost? Usually, an average project in SEO companies costs from 70 to 100 thousand rubles. What you are talking about must be expensive.
Here's an example: in December 2015, Denis Savelyev published a post that we are ready to take a public project and report absolutely free of charge. A client came who sells helicopters from a hundred thousand dollars. How much do you think he spends on marketing?
About 100 thousand rubles?
15 maximum! And this is all over the place. Clinics where expensive surgeries are performed - breast augmentation, plastic surgery, dentistry - whatever. For some reason, businesses think that the Internet is some kind of magic gate. That is, you can pay a manager 60 thousand - this is normal, but 10 will be enough for an SEO agency. It's like a game of roulette: I'll pay ten, if it works out - great, if not - the money is small, no big deal.
So this consciousness, of course, changes. If we answer the question about prices. Our minimum rate is 27 thousand, when we simply say what to do. In fact, this is project supervision.
Some reasonable complex starts from 130 thousand per month. This is work with content, its distribution - social networks, e-mail marketing, trigger messages. Of course, work with the site: user convenience, implementation of analytics, supervision of technical aspects (hosting down, site unavailable, DDOS attack).
We often encounter situations when a business requires serious work. The most common problem is custom CMS. It is difficult to implement even minor changes in them, and resources are needed to transfer the site to a new platform.
It is also not uncommon for a client to say at the work stage that something should be added or redone on the website, and then try to retract their words. In this case, recording calls is very helpful.
What other services help in working with clients?
Firstly, it is the 8-800 number – it is provided to us by the UIS company – we strongly recommend all clients to install it on the site, it is a commercial ranking factor. If there is a working 8-800, in the vast majority of cases it means that the business is serious.
Secondly, it is the integration of IP telephony with the CRM system . We use, as I said earlier, also the UIS platform, or more precisely, call recording, and we have extended the storage period, because our deal is long. There is even a "Zombie" lead status. This is when a person does not answer either yes or no, while there are known cases when they were followed up for a year or more before the deal. Therefore, it is very important to know how the conversation went.
Tell me, are clients who have such a decision-making period managed by one manager?
In general, a lot can change for us during the year. And it is not necessary that the manager reminds us of himself, yes, he will go to the client for a meeting, and the client will form an image of a competent potential contractor. However, the client is in no hurry to start work. For example, he redesigns the site and contacts us himself when he finishes the update.
It's just interesting how the connection is set up in this case. If the client calls again, where does he end up: will he be connected to the manager he has already contacted or not?
The phone number is linked to the lead only at the contact level. That is, when a manager fills out a card, the CRM system shows that such contact information exists. You can immediately see what kind of lead it is. This is due to our specifics, because telephony is used not only by sales managers, but also by accounts. Today it is a new client, and tomorrow - a regular one.
How did the work process change after telephony integration? Or did you connect CRM at the same time?
Before connecting the telephony, we were a completely different company. There were no more than 10 people on staff, the entire process was built differently. Two mobile phones worked with direct landline numbers. We simply saw how many applications there were during the week, and we didn’t even write down these numbers. Despite the length of the transaction, there were only a small number of them in operation.
After we started using IP telephony , the world became different. We saw our entire process clearly, and adjusted a lot. We connected CRM later, but there was no such significant leap.
Don't miss the news
Enter your e-mail and receive the most interesting articles, studies and cases.
Receive news
By clicking the button, you confirm that you agree to receive the newsletter.
How do you measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns?
We don't have advertising campaigns. The specifics are different, we get traffic from organics. And, if we talk about the ratio of leads and calls from the site, a very large number of requests from the site - about 70%. But, in general, there are more requests with a call. People come to us mainly in the evening, read over a cup of tea, in their free time from work. A large number of requests come at night. During the day, there are much fewer.
Returning to the question about the services we use. In general, our process is based on recording conversations. The thing is that to create high-quality expert content, you need information. Where can you get it? There must be experts who understand the topic better than anyone else.
We cannot write about injection molding machines or veneered lining so that it would be complete and correct. Copywriters, as a rule, do not understand anything about this. Of course, they can refer to articles on other resources, but they were overwhelmingly prepared by the same copywriters who may not have even seen injection molding machines.
There is an expert on the client's side, but he won't write. And this is where a telephone interview comes to the rescue. You can listen to the recording over and over again to understand what to pay attention to, what it is used for, what is behind this name, because often the client uses jargon to name this or that product.
The result is a very high-quality technical task, in which everything is written down to the smallest detail, what needs to be said, how to present it. As a result, we send the client articles that are not only useful to read, but also interesting. All he has to do is fact-check.
Thank you very much for the meeting! Good luck to the agency!