Having a digital marketing strategy is important whether you do business online or not. Below we’ll outline how you can effectively use online tools to reach your potential customers.
Email Marketing
Email is one of the most effective marketing methods because almost everyone has an email address. For this strategy, you’ll want to build a list of customers and prospective customers. This is a list of names and emails of people who are interested in your business. You can build this list by asking people for email addresses when they make a purchase from you or when they visit your website. As your list grows, the more valuable it becomes.
Once you have their email address, you can send them emails letting them know about new promotions, specials and products. MailChimp is a great tool for managing your email list and scheduling the emails you’ll be sending out. Tips for writing emails include: keep emails short and add images, state a clear action you want people to take, and space out your text so it’s easy to read.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is a great way to engage with potential customers and share information with them. For example, local restaurants can use social media to let people know of new additions to their menu.
You don’t have to be on every social media channel. In fact, it’s best for smaller businesses to concentrate on a few channels. Any more and you might not have the time to manage it all. Try to use the channels your customers are using. For example, don’t choose Snapchat if your customers are over the age of 50.
Take advantage of the free analytical tools major social channels like Facebook and LinkedIn give you. These tools will allow you to easily understand how your posts are performing.
Consider reaching out to key influencers in your industry and engaging them. First, build a relationship with them by giving them a free sample or by sharing their content. Eventually, you should try to get an influencer with a large social media presence to share your content or promote your business.
You can save a lot of time by using a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite to automate your posting. Schedule your posts when your customers and potential customers will likely be online.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is when you create informative content to attract visitors to your site. This involves creating content such as blog posts, eBooks, videos, etc. Creating content increases your credibility so potential customers will want to do business with you. The content you create can help you increase your social media engagement by giving your fans something valuable to share and talk about. It can also help you rank higher in search results.
Some good tools to help you with your content marketing include:
- Hubspot – This is a great tool (and the one we use) to publish our blog posts and track the performance of these posts.
- Quora – This site where you can understand what the most popular questions around your industry are. Once you know what people want to learn, you can create content that answers their questions.
- Grammarly – Make sure your content is professional by using this online grammar checking and spell-checking software.
- Canva – This is a graphic design tool that makes it easy for non-designers and professionals to create posters, flyers, and many other marketing materials.
Location-Based Marketing & Reviews
Google announced that more searches are being made on mobile devices than on desktop computers. This means users are searching on “on the go” while looking for local businesses. As a result, Google favours websites optimized for local search.
What does this mean for your business? First, make sure to claim your businesses location on local search directories like Google My Business. You can list your business with its address, phone number and website. This will give a possible customer what they need to visit or learn more about your business.
Next, make sure to claim your business on review sites like Yelp. Studies show that potential customers that read reviews are 67% more likely to buy from you. After you’ve made a customer happy, encourage them to write a review of your business. Watch your reviews and quickly (and politely) respond to any that are negative. Try to maintain a rating of 4 stars or more.
Mobile Optimization
Google has decided to focus on sites optimized for smaller screens because 80% of internet users browse the web on a mobile device. This means that it’s essential that your website is mobile friendly. You can test here to see if your website is mobile friendly. Additionally, Upwork is a great place to find freelance coders and designers to help you improve your mobile sites’ performance.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is when you try to make your business place high in search results for words that relate to what you’re selling.
There are many parts to SEO including using the right keywords on your website, your social media presence, back-link references, etc. SEO can get complicated but luckily there are many tools to help you:
- Hike SEO – Hike is a tool created to make SEO easier for small businesses. This do-it-yourself platform will help you understand your audience and help grow the traffic to your site.
- Moz – Moz is one of the most popular SEO tools created. They’ve created a helpful guide to help beginners get started with SEO.
- Google Keyword Planner – Keyword Planner is a free Google Ads tool for new or experienced advertises to understand what words or phrases people are searching for. You can use Keyword Planner to see how a list of keywords might perform.
Moving Forward
These strategies are bound to help you increase traffic to your website and gain new customers. Although digital marketing is an effective way to grow revenue, there are many other ways to capture additional sales. Check out our piece on how you can grow your revenue to over $100,000 or $1 million!
Comments are closed here.