What was considered a pass time quickly became an invaluable skill set with the increase in technological innovation and people spending most of their time online. Brands worldwide did their best to crack the formula to huge following and engagement that would ultimately lead to skyrocketing sales. Although digital marketing might seem easy at first glance, it actually requires an understanding of certain important aspects. Your digital marketing strategy could be the difference between being just another company among the millions vying for the attention of customers or a brand actively sought out by your target market. Here are a few digital marketing tips to help your brand stand out in the online jungle.
Optimize your website for mobile.
With more people using their mobile phones for everything from video calls, texting, watching movies, reading, and more, the importance of optimizing your website cannot be over-emphasized. A website optimized for mobile allows mobile users to get the same experience a person using a desktop/ laptop would get when scrolling through your website. According to research conducted by Google, 49% of people claimed they wouldn’t revisit a brand with a poor mobile experience.
In order to capture and keep the attention of your mobile audience, you’ll need to make sure your website is mobile-friendly. A mobile-responsive website reformats its content to display it neatly on mobile devices- meaning your website visitors don’t have to suffer squinting or zooming just to view your content.
Research your competitors
Like most things in business, you have to keep a keen eye on what your competitors are doing. You must keep tabs on the type of content posted by your competitors not only on their social media pages but also on their main website.
The cardinal rule to content creation is that it mustn’t be similar to what your competitors are posting, or you’ll stand the risk of getting lost in all the noise. The reason for keeping tabs on your competitor’s content isn’t to copy what they are doing but to use them as a yardstick and check to see if what your posting measures up to the quality of content they are producing. The other key factor to remember is that because the world is more like a global village than separate, completely autonomous countries as far as trade and business are concerned, you must keep abreast of who your competitors are outside your area as well.
Lengthen your blogs
Blogs have quickly become a creative way to establish your brand as an authority in your product or service category and are an important way to attract and sell to target customers. Just like other digital marketing tips, there’s slightly more nuance to what is needed than just performing the basic action. The blog posts published on your website should average roughly 750 words. The average word count of top-ranked blogs by Google is between 1,140- 1,285 words. To err on the safe side, the average blog post on your website should hit at least 1,200 words.
This might seem like a daunting task, but the great thing is that your blog can be about just about anything related to your business or industry.
Develop Email Campaigns
According to research, email marketing on average returns $44 for every $1 spent- a 4,400% return on investment (ROI)- making it a good use of your time and effort. With email campaigns, you get the double advantage of expanding your audience while at the same time racking in good returns.
In order to encourage more visitors to return to your website, you should set up automated responses thanking customers every time they make a purchase or subscribe. Consumers love feeling appreciated, with studies indicating that ‘welcome’ emails boast the open rate to as high as 82%.
But that’s not where it ends; even sending abandoned cart recovery emails (when a customer leaves your site without finalizing a purchase) brings more profits. Research indicates that three abandoned cart recovery emails to each customer result in roughly a 69% order uptake compared to sending a single email.
Keep it personal
Customers love brands that get up close and personal with them. Consumers expect brands to speak to them like their friends and family, with the same consideration, care, and language. Therefore getting personal with your customer is key to success in most areas of digital marketing, especially when it comes to email marketing.
You could use several strategies to get personal with your customers, including using their name, spending local deals that closely match their location, birthday discounts, and so much more. Research shows that personalized emails generate roughly six times higher transaction rates than generic emails.
However, being personal with your customers goes beyond simple gestures; it also includes using conversational tones whenever possible. Research has shown that consumers respond more positively to human-like messages than corporate-sounding ones. You might also consider using a live chat feature or an interactive quiz on your website to further personalize the user’s experience.
Personalization further differentiates your business from your competitors while ensuring an enjoyable experience for your customer. This might seem insignificant, but studies have shown that 40% of customers switch brands due to poor online personalization.
Apply Re-marketing
If you’ve ever browsed online and seen the same product once you logged into your Facebook account, that was remarketing at work. Using tags known as “cookies,” you can track your past website visitors wherever they go across the internet.
Retargeting is so effective that studies have shown that 43% of internet users who are retargeted are more likely to make a purchase. To get started, you only need to select between two options.
You can set up your Google Ads account (previously known as Adwords) to display or retarget your products on numerous other websites to entice the user.
The other option would be to use Facebook’s ‘Custom Audience’ feature to have your products retargeted on your website visitor’s Facebook. If your business has a Facebook business account, this is possibly one of the best ways to make money through social media.
Tailor your content to the buyer’s journey
Prospective buyers typically experience three stages before making a purchase: awareness, consideration, and, finally, decision. Different types of content resonate with the buyer at different stages in the buying process. For instance, if an internet user is searching for an eCommerce website builder, these types of content should be crafted to speak to the customer at the different buying stages.
Awareness: The eCommerce store home page briefly overviews your business.
Consideration: Product category page, which serves to demonstrate your industry capability.
Decision: Product page to direct them to a final decision.
It’s of absolute importance to guide users throughout your website. You must direct them to the right content that will speak to your user’s needs at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
Remain Flexible
A winning digital marketing strategy is one that remains flexible enough to incorporate or discard certain actions depending on the market trends. Because technology and consumer preferences are constantly changing, your business must keep its proverbial finger on the pulse at all times and prepare for any shift in your audience’s taste. It’s equally important to connect with your audience from where they are; depending on their age group, they might be on Linkedin or frequent TikTok. Research your target audience to discover what social media platforms they frequent and how they like to be communicated to.
Create visual content
As the old adage goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words, ” which still holds true in the digital age. Consumers prefer watching videos and seeing captivating images to reading through lengthy word content. Research indicates that adding a video to your email can increase your email click-through rate by up to 300% while cutting your unsubscribe rate by 75%. Further research states that eight out of ten users have purchased a piece of software after watching the brand’s video.
Partner with micro-influencers
Influencer marketing is a great way to tap into an existing market of potential customers. Influencers with huge followers can leverage their relatability and authenticity to drive demand for your products or services. The advantage associated with partnering with micro-influencers is that they are less expensive. Micro-influencers with approximately 1000 to 20,000 followers are very effective when marketing niche products to a small but interested audience.
A recent study revealed that customers see influencers as “people like me,” meaning they could potentially add more credibility to your business than the much bigger influencers.
With these digital marketing tips, you can stand out in the noisy online jungle. It’s important to remember that with the ever-present threat of shifting tastes and technology, you might want to re-think your digital marketing strategy often, depending on various market trends.