INTRODUCTION
Marketing which is the study and management of exchange relationship has been the backbone of any financial activity both locally and internationally. The American Marketing Association has defined marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large”.
Marketing plays an important role in any business as it is brings the interest of customers from all work works of life since it includes virtually all customer-related activities from developing products customers will enjoy to attracting customers, maintaining a customer base, serving the customer and ensuring they are satisfied and the ultimate aim of marketing is to garner customers’ interest and convert the interests into sale.
However, with the emergence of advanced system of technology, more focus has been shifted to digital marketing which is more effective in getting more customer interests to a business both domestically and internationally. Digital marketing is the marketing of products and services through digital technologies. Digital advertising has attracted the attention of more consumers since the 90’s as more consumers spend more time and money online. Digital advertising has been helpful for promoting businesses not only because it attracts the interest of customers but also allows for a 24/7 customer support which improves the lines of communication between the firm and the consumers and allows the firm to conveniently evaluate feedback from their customers which helps the firm to make improvements on the areas that are necessary or required by their customers since digital marketing provides customers to express their opinions about a business both positively and negatively.
Businesses encourage feedback from customers through online sources, websites and blogs which gives consumers a voice and let them feel important. This eventually prompt large firms to hire social media managers, personal relationship managers, customer service agents and other positions to promote and maintain a positive image about the firm.
With the current trend and effectiveness of Digital Advertising, ignoring digital advertising is no longer an option for businesses that wants to keep up with the competitive market and thrive which has made digital advertising indispensable with the potential reach of social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube which cannot be overemphasized continue to expand as global adoption continues and the open line of communication provides unique opportunities that are not made available with traditional marketing .
However, affiliate marketing which is a facet of digital marketing is a performance-based aspect of the digital marketing that rewards affiliates for bringing visitors to the websites of businesses or for bringing in paying customers. Although affiliate marketing can be overlooked sometimes in favor of more traditional marketing techniques, the power and impact of celebrities and major influencers endorsements pose a powerful impact in promoting a business as it allows consumers to be aware of products and services by someone who they already know.
Affiliate marketing is all about relationship between three parties namely:
1. The Advertiser : Which is the company that are selling the goods and services and are willing to pay or offer endorsements to people that are willing to advertise and promote for them .
2. The Publisher: Which is the Affiliate marketer that promotes businesses for firms and bring in visitors and paying customers to the firm’s website
3. The Customer: This is the end consumer that pays for the goods and services offered by the company.
The advertiser provides the publisher with some contents that represent the image and interest of the company such as banners, links, ads, phone numbers, promotional codes, graphics, etc which they post on their social media outlets or channels to generate traffic to the company’s website . The Consumers on the other hands see the advertisement and are expected to either visit the websites of the company, register on the website or purchase the goods and services offered by the company.
Apart from the advantages of using social media platforms to promote a product or service in terms of increased reach and instant exchange of information, social media marketing also provides companies with unique access to market-related data. In Digital marketing, marketers use social media platforms to obtain real-time information about consumer behavior and viewpoints and receive instant feedback which makes real-time information of consumer fast and cheap to obtain as against the traditional marketing research methods such as focus groups, survey and data mining which are expensive and time consuming.
With Digital marketing, Information can be exchanged speedily all around the globe from peer-to-peer and business-to-consumer, encouraging the target audience to voice their opinion.
However, the current digital marketing industry is still faced with some problems which are debilitating to users' experience which are discussed below.
THE PROBLEMS
There are some problems faced by stakeholders in the digital marketing industry. For instance, putting a team together who work in complete synergy can be stressful as synchronization among several platforms, tasks, and contributors can greatly obscure the process.
Also, looking for affiliates relevant to their demographic to support their product and services can be difficult and time consuming for businesses and this is as a result of length of time it takes for the endorser and the company to reach a mutually beneficial agreement since different companies must navigate to reach these affiliates.
Additionally, getting endorsers for businesses if often tedious and takes a long time as companies have to relay their message through a third party management firm chosen by the influencer and the firm need to contact the celebrity of influencer to ask for their availability in advertising a particular product or service and eventually if the celebrity of affiliate is not interested in advertising the product leads to a wasted time and effort on all parts.
Businesses also need to go through the stressful process of identifying which endorsers are available to contact for promotional activities and these endorsers can take a long time to respond to the message of the company while the business has no idea if the endorser will be interested in their products and services, how much they charge, how they work and when they can endorse which makes the process inefficient .
Leveraging the components of advertising campaigns effectively for a company actually involves a lot of activities and processes ranging from deploying a team of graphic designers, to content managers, ad managers, influencers and more while trying to coordinate across different platforms , time zones, banking systems and currencies . All these processes are time consuming and very costly.
Similarly, finding consistent work that fits your personal qualification and objectives can be close to impossible for content providers for marketing campaigns specifically freelance workers in the graphic design or ad design space unless you are well connected on social media or have an extensive track record of previous works which makes it obvious that all the stakeholders in the digital advertising currently push through an inefficient process.
However, currently business wishing to leverage the advantage of social media and affiliate marketing in promoting their businesses can run into different problems which are highlighted below:
The return on investments for expenditures are tremendously unclear when a company advertises with a large corporation such as Facebook where common enterprisers are just another number in Facebook’s ledger and eventually they would not receive any special attention or personalized service from Facebook unless the company is huge.
Also, paying exponential mark-ups of 10-30% for access to influencers through agencies or third party platforms is not a guarantee of a response from the influencers making companies run at a loss even if companies try to reach influencers through their agents, a third party platform or through their social media accounts.
Advertising Companies do not have the access to potential consumers who hide behind a paywall as many services are now being offered ad-free in the form of a “premium” product by companies such as Google and SoundCloud making it hard for advertising companies to reach their potential consumers.
Lastly, dealing with influencers from all around the world is very costly for companies since businesses must have access to several different currencies in the world depending on the influencer’s location eventually leading to high transaction fees in a bid to exchange their fiat currency into another
THE SOLUTIONS BY KRIOS
The Krios Platform (https://www.krios.io/) is a blockchain powered platform that is designed based on the Ethereum blockchain to revolutionize and improve the digital marketing and advertising industry. It’s main aim is to alleviate the problems mentioned above by providing companies with access to a network of talented professionals who provides value and professionalism in all aspects of a company’s marketing campaigns. Businesses and Companies registered on the Krios Platformn are provided with opportunities to create a full-scale marketing team specific to their project and the opportunity to manage and coordinate the campaign at a small fraction of the original cost with the all the transactions carried on the Krios blockchain powered platform with in a step and a minute fee of 3%.
Krios provides a simplified, efficient process by which a company or business registered on the Krios platform sends a request containing information about their products and services including their budgets, needs and timeline while Krios then matches the business with an approved and registered professionals within the network who will be chosen by the company to complete the task given making it easier and faster for business to initiate their marketing and advertising campaigns. Also Krios provides and effective channels of communication for the three parties involved in the advertising structure so as to improve the processes within the network. The Krios Affliliate Network also provides a direct line of communication between the company and the desired influencer chosen specifically by the company to carry out the tasks given.
Companies have full control over their marketing efforts on the Krios platform and have the opportunity to manage their activities without any interference through the “Build Your Campaign” feature on the platform. Krios connects users seeking to sell their endorsement services or other professionals with businesses looking for them directly within the Krios network and eventually saving all parties involved time and money and Business owners will only be matched with individuals or professionals who meet their specifications (demographic, budget and requirements ) to save parties involved time and undue stress.
THE KRIOS UTILITY TOKEN
The Krios platform utility token is called ‘KRI’ and it is with this token all transactions are made possible within the network which grants users access to the Krios ecosystem and allows for a secured and transparent method of confirming and conducting the transactions within the platform. KRI is an ERC20 compatible token on the Ethereum Blockchain can be utilized as a means of account and payment between advertisers, publishers, content creators and businesses within the Krios network. Krios also save businesses the extra cost incurred on exchange of one fiat currency to another in order to access an international influencer using the KRI token since KRI is the means of payment accepted on the platform by all parties involved. KRI also serve to reward participants in the network by distributing a percentage of the KriosCoins collected from fees in proportion to a user’s participation level during the period.
Also, the blockchain can record the details of a transaction whenever a transaction is made such as the time of transaction, the receiving and sending wallet address, amount sent and other important information that is needed to ensure trust and security. Not only is the Ethereum blockchain far less expensive and time consuming than typical online payment processing methods, Ethereum’s smart contract standards allow for a quick and efficient transfer of data and value which is an improvement on the current payment gateways which could require up to 16 steps and 15 different fess which are all eliminated using blockchain technology.
The Krios Platform is the future of digital marketing
For more information on Krios kindly visit the Krios website at: https://www.krios.io/
Author
BitcoinTalk Username : Eyez_berg