Lead Generation and Internet Marketing in Columbia

Lead Generation Potential

Lead generation in Colombia has a good potential considering the year on year increases in internet users and companies willing to do business online and find new ways to reach their customers. According to comScore, the internet market in Colombia is the fastest-growing in Latin America with the average internet user in Colombia spending 20.4 hours online every month and the internet market size is $43 million. Colombia has an estimated population of around 45 million people with 21.5 million (47%) of them using the internet. With 4.18 million broadband users registered in 2010 this shows an increase of 20.8% between 2009 and 2010, Colombia has become a viable audience for a variety of internet marketing campaigns, especially considering the time spent online and the amount of money spent purchasing products through ecommerce websites. A total of 42.2 million Colombians own a mobile phone and 1.6 million mobile broadband subscribers had registered by December 2010.

Social networks in Colombia

According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, internet advertising in Colombia had grown by as much as 55.7% during 2010 and the investment in social networks had tripled. Facebook is by far the most popular social network in Colombia with 13.5 million members and 17 million unique visitors every month. An average of 18 billion page views are served in Colombia and an average of 33 minutes is spent by Colombian visitors, which is 8 minutes more than the worldwide average of 25 minutes. The average Facebook CPC is $0.26, which is relatively low for foreign internet marketers wishing to enter the Colombian internet industry. A report by comScore revealed that Colombia is the 15th biggest user of Twitter relative to the number of internet users and there are 1.8 million unique visitors to Twitter from Colombia every month. The third most visited website in Colombia is YouTube and considering the increasing number of home and mobile broadband connections, video marketing can be successfully used for lead generation aimed at reaching consumers in their home, place of work or on the move.

Online Marketing Education Opportunities

Internet marketing can cover many different segments of the economy and one such segment that is growing in demand in Colombia is training in the online marketing industry. The Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano has partnered with the IAB Colombia to run a Diploma in Online Advertising which covers all the necessary tools that entrepreneurs need to understand how to be successful in the internet marketing industry. As Colombia is a rapidly expanding internet economy there is an increasing demand for such courses and those experienced internet marketers could create similar courses that can be run online and/or chose to provide lead generation services for conventionally run courses.

Online Payment Systems

Colombia’s internet industry is rapidly growing and payment processing systems are growing and developing all of the time. Online retailers and entrepreneurs in Colombia require assistance choosing which online payment processing system is right for their businesses. Lead generation techniques that include providing high quality relevant content can serve to educate online retailers as well as promote various different online payment processing systems.