Is Facebook Messenger a Valuable Business Tool?

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It is the year 2016, and just as the past several years have shown, this year technology takes a more prominent position in advertising media. Advertising Age, the long-running authority in all things advertising, has released their digital predictions for the year 2016. In their recent article, appropriately titled Ad Age’s Digital Predictions 2016, they cover many of their thoughts on the rise to prominence or fall to irrelevance of many of today’s popular digital media. In the article, they cover thoughts on texting, virtual reality, and 360-Degree video. Most of it is only mildly interesting where our business is concerned, but they make a point worth noting.

Tim Peterson predicts a rise in the use of Facebook Messenger as a channel for businesses to acquire new business, and utilize the service as a way that businesses and their customers might communicate with each other more efficiently. Peterson estimates that Facebook will find a way to charge companies for the privilege of using this service to connect with the vast network of people that are growing increasingly more comfortable with Facebook Messenger as a communication tool.

It is an interesting thought. Is there really an advantage to choosing Facebook Messenger over the plethora of options that exist today for communicating between customer and seller? What about email, or website chat applications, or a telephone? Certainly there is an appeal to connect to the over 1.2 Billion members of Facebook, and everyday I hear from business owners that they feel it is important to be more visible on the social media giant. It seems that people know that there is some very big potential in harnessing the power of Facebook, but no one knows exactly how to do it very efficiently yet. No one, that is, except Facebook. They take in billions in revenues from advertisers each day who hope to reach new audiences, and therefore new potential customers. They tell a great story about why you should invest your advertising dollars with Facebook. I guess you could say I am just not convinced yet. Do I feel there is great potential in digital advertising with Facebook? Yes. Would I recommend to a client that Facebook is a better investment of advertising dollars over more traditional forms of media? Not right now. Do I think that Facebook Messenger will become an indispensable tool for communicating with customers? No.

Dennis Rego

E-Commerce for B2B Expected to Reach $1.1 Trillion By 2020

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In a recent report from Forrester Research titled “U.S. B2B E-Commerce Forecast: 2015 To 2020”, it is projected that B2B e-commerce will increase from $780 billion this year to an estimated $1.1 trillion by the year 2020. Currently, B2B e-commerce sales represents 9.3% of all B2B sales, but is expected to reach 12.1% within the next five years. The increase is driven primarily by buyers’ greater desire to purchase online paired with advancements in the technology of buying online. 

Forrester has found that 74% of B2B buyers are already researching at least half of their purchases online, and at least 30% of them are completing half of their work purchases online. Each year, that number increases substantially, and is forecasted to jump to 56% by 2017. 

Where e-commerce revenue is concerned, the top industries today are pharmaceutical and petroleum, but the electronics industry is the fastest growing. Engineers, who tend to be early adopters of technology, are the primary driver of this growth.

Business owners large and small are taking advantage of these technologies to enjoy the lower cost of supporting orders that come through e-commerce. If your business is not currently set up to capitalize on this growing channel of doing business, you may lose to your competitor who is.

Value for Marketing Investment

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The reason for choosing to work with a firm like ours is obvious.  You don’t have the time ,desire, talent  or  energy to develop a marketing strategy on your own.   You might not have identified where your market is and you might not have defined who or what you are and what you do?    The advantage to working with an agency is that we take all of those headaches off your plate and do so seemlessly but with your  input.    We truly partner with our clients and become a valued part of your day to day business.   We want you to grow your sales and revenues.    It’s all about relationships and trust.   I’m proud that we have earned the trust of our clients and that they know our agency creates better value for dollars invested than most other types of bricks and mortar ad agencies.    We’re often asked why we don’t have a big shiny office to show off?   The answer is always simple…an office or building does not make you the client any money.   It costs you money.   It’s overhead that you pay for.     If we were a big Toronto or New York firm with thousands of clients, a building would be warranted but the information highway is where most creative work is done. Files and artwork and all forms of creative are exchanged via upload and download.   Meetings happen electronically through software programs that bring people together via video and teleconferencing.    Westpro symbolizes and embraces the new way in which people communicate and share ideas…on the move and by doing so, we save you real dollars.   Face time is still important, so…we come to you.  Why drag you out to our building so that we can show you how nice the wood trim looks?   We’d rather show you the results of our work in the comfort of your own surroundings.    The only building Westpro focusses on is building your business and your profile.