Cyprus Businesses & Changes in Digital Marketing for 2015

The “Cyprus Business World” has drastically reinvented itself by progressively becoming digitally oriented,  thus turning its focus – more than ever before – towards online-medium marketing strategies. This was clear for all to see during 2014, in the aftermath of the Cypriot economic bomb of the previous year.  A diversified marketing strategy was on the table for nearly all organisations, with some trying to set an online e-commerce portal, others trying to build a daily social presence and engagement, whilst others, were trying to refresh/update their websites or even add responsive technology to them, targeting mobile users. We have also seen businesses taking their first online steps by proceeding with the creation of their very first website.

2014 was the year that many people went for a start-up business, trying to develop something new or diversified! The general marketing strategy followed, included custom – designed and developed websites, social integration, with primary emphasis on professional email addresses by acquiring a top-level domain.

The year ended with many new inquiries both for website designs as well as for internet marketing implementations (SEO), as this was the time that organisations where planning their marketing budgets focusing drastically on digital orientations, especially for 2015! The new year will find more organisations trying to establish social engagement, by reaching out to their current customers, taking full advantage of their customer email address database and the social media available.

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The prestige of being number one on Google (used by most Cypriots) and getting “free” (organic) traffic has mostly been overlooked by the majority of the industries in Cyprus. Over the past decade, hotels, developers, estate agents, lawyers, accountants, and some specific tourism sectors invested in building a Search Engine Optimised website. Although there’s high competition in the above-mentioned industries, we will be seeing more companies trying to organically rank high in Google. Other industries will also be forced to become competitive, as users want to find results and advertisers want to appear within those results. If you are planning to initiate an SEO (including inbound and content marketing) strategy for your business, it is imperative to investigate and invest in a professional SEO company that specializes in the use of white-hat techniques that are long-lasting!

Going social?

Cypriots are still highly engaged with Facebook as more than 50% of the population has joined in. During 2015 more and more companies will try to reach-out to fans and potential customers by using Facebook ads. The competition will increase bidding prices of the Facebook ad program making it more expensive to target the Cypriot audience.

Facebook continues to block specific region targeting ads (i.e. ads targeting specific locations (postal codes / neighbourhoods / villages / towns)) for Cyprus. If this trend continues over the upcoming year, it will become highly costly for smaller, local businesses to compete.

As for the rest of the social media services, Cypriots are a bit reluctant in their use. If you are used to reading international blogs and forums, you must have most likely noticed that in the United States and in most parts of Europe, Twitter and Google+ are used to promote businesses. This is not the case in Cyprus; at-least not at the moment and most likely, this, is not going to change any time soon. On the other hand, LinkedIn is becoming popular for qualified individuals, as they can contact known affiliates without necessarily having a close relationship or even prior face-to-face experience. The fact that Cyprus is blocked from LinkedIn’s advertising platform, makes it even harder for organisations to use the traditional methods of promoting their products or services. Using content marketing techniques, social targeting and engagement can become an effective strategy for marketing your business on  Linkedin! Expect an increase in its use during 2015, especially by managerial personnel who have not yet gone digital.