Whether you like it or not, today’s world and the present business environment is experiencing what I call the “digital era”. This is a special moment in time because the opportunities to connect, educate, market, and sell are limitless.
Quick Links
If we think about how the world used to look a hundred years ago, we won’t be able to imagine the feeling of doing business. It was different. The internet was made publicly available in August 1991. That is thirty-one years ago.
Nowadays, a business without a social media network is a nameless business that’s about to get swallowed by sharks who know how to leverage the available resources for maximum profit.
Since you cannot avoid digitalization, you should ensure that you’re playing “the game” as smart as you possibly can.
In today’s post, we’re going to tackle several digital marketing strategies and tricks that should help you leverage online marketing channels in the most effective manner. The purpose? Better business performance, more satisfied clients who were lucky to find your brand and ultimately higher ROIs.
Most Popular Ways to Market Your Brand Online
When it comes to promoting a brand, a service, or a product online, you can approach a lot of digital mediums and communication channels.
The #1 key is to fully understand which channel works best for your business and why. Here are the most popular traffic channels that you can use to promote your business online:
SEO
Search engine optimization. If you haven’t heard of it, make sure you Google it quick and learn the basics.
SEO is a perfect traffic channel for businesses of which products are being searched through keywords. For example, if you sell funeral services, people are likely to search for you online. In this case, running an SEO marketing campaign will generate a lot of effects in the long run.
PPC
PPC or pay per click is a quick yet risky way to invest your marketing budget in order to generate short to medium-term results.
Most professional businesses leverage PPC channels (Google Adwords, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) to capture the attention of their prospects. The traffic ends up in a funnel that turns them into e-mail leads. From that point, the sale can begin.
Organic Social Media Marketing
As I’ve said, a brand that is not present in the social media environment is a no-name brand. Most customers who are seriously considering to buy your products are already checking your social media presence to see what type of brand you are.
A social media profile can reflect your brand’s personality, principles, vision, and so on. If you’re consistent and your content is valuable, you’re going to gain a lot of trust.
The key is to post only high-quality information that your target audience clearly enjoys, and you should do that consistently. Also, make sure that you automate this process as soon as possible.
Paid Social Media Marketing
Of course, social media networks give you enough paid advertising features that can put you in front of the right audience, at the right time.
Generally, businesses that sell products that aren’t necessarily “needed” but mostly “wanted” by prospects can generate amazing results through paid social media ads.
E-mail Marketing
E-mail marketing is a must-must when it comes to any type of business. Regardless of your business, you should always collect your prospects’ contact information so you can build a relationship and sell your products at the end of the process.
Every big business collects data and leverages it to analyze and understand their customers’ behaviour. You should do exactly the same while taking advantage of today’s most effective analytics tools.
Affiliate Marketing
If you’re comfortable with the idea of sharing your profits, you should definitely consider affiliate marketing. Once again, if you’re not familiar with the term, make sure you find out more about the concepts before you continue here.
If you’re selling digital products, affiliate marketing can be the most profitable marketing strategy because your product is already produced and it can be distributed a thousand times without additional costs. That means that you’ll have to offer a fair share (usually it’s 50 to 90%) of the sale.
If you manage to create a solid network of affiliate marketers who are constantly marketing your products to their own audiences, you’re going to gain both passive traffic and sales!
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the trendiest digital marketing strategies in the last several years. Nowadays, every person with more than 5000 active social media fans can be considered an influencer.
You can promote your cosmetic products through various micro-influencers on Instagram. For example, approaching ten beautiful girls and offering them a fair price for a few shoutouts will often help you generate significant profits.
Tips & Tricks
I’ll put down a few tips and tricks that I’ve learned throughout my digital marketing journey of five consistent years.
- Focus on market research until you fully understand your target audience: the way they think, their problems, their fears, their desires, their weak points, their qualities, and so on.
- Either fully focus on one or two channels until you achieve your objectives or simply be everywhere (on every social platform, on every search engine, on every place you can be). Two very different strategies that you need to test.
- Every marketing strategy should have a specific objective. For example: if you’re looking to improve your brand’s awareness, think about the best channel that you can leverage to do that. Instagram and Pinterest allow you to go visual. YouTube helps you illustrate other things. Coupons will help you get leads. One-time offers will help you get sales. Figure out the objective, craft the strategy, and proceed with the execution. Test, measure, and optimize!
- Study your competition. You have no idea how many insights you can get by simply becoming one of your competition’s customers. Go through their sales funnel and note down any relevant mistake or any aspect that you feel that you should implement. Once again, you should leverage professional competitive analysis tools that you can find on all fences online.
- Be consistent. I cannot emphasize the importance of consistency when it comes to online channels. Working on an SEO campaign for two months and then giving up because there are no visible results is absolutely useless. Approach the long-term perspective and keep planting seeds in every marketing campaign that you create.
- Focus on providing as much value as possible. After all, business is all about an exchange of value between two peers. Before somebody chooses to do business with your brand, you have to earn their trust. You can do that by offering free valuable information and resources that help your prospects get closer to their objectives.
Takeaways
Digital marketing is truly complex because it has so many variables and a lot of learning curves. To become a true professional when it comes to online marketing and advertising, you need to learn, practice, learn, practice, and repeat over and over again.
Like with any art, you need to first master the basics and fail countless times until you reach your standards and achieve your desired results.
Keep learning, keep taking action, keep testing, and keep optimizing!
BIO: Tobias Foster is a highly passionate digital marketer, blogger, and writer that is constantly active in the digital medium. He’s also a key manager at one of the top essay writing services in the UK, a company that he works for since he has graduated college. In his free time, Tobias loves to paint, sing, and read philosophy.