Thanks to the development and widespread popularity of technology, people around the world are pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams online. Whether you are launching a new enterprise or looking to grow an existing one, strong marketing strategies are essential for attracting new customers, building your base, and growing your profits exponentially in any business situation. And while there is some cross over with traditional marketing, marketing for online businesses takes a specific approach. Here are our top tips for marketing your online business.
Pay Attention to SEO
When people need a product or service, many of them will make a search on Google, making it a very powerful way to publicize your online business. The challenge, then, is standing out among the other pages that are vying for space on the results pages.
A majority of people will not look past the first page of Google after they make a search, which makes it critical that your site ranks on the first page of Google or in the first few results. For this to happen, you need great SEO (search engine optimization), which you can improve by using keywords in the right way and paying attention to technical SEO factors.
Social Media Presence
Your website is one of the best ways to attract new clients, but a strong social media presence is essential for online businesses as well. Having a strong social media presence includes having accounts on at least two or three different platforms and running them effectively. Social media accounts that are never active, or are not used well, will be ignored by potential customers.
Running an effective social media page means regularly posting high-quality content that is engaging, informative, and sharable. Having sharable content is important because when users share your content, your company is exposed to whole new audiences. It is also important not to see social media as a one-way street, but rather an opportunity for conversation. By engaging with your audience in the comments, for example, you will build relationships and trust with your customers, which is vital for business success.
Show Your Expertise through Guest Posting
While your website and social media channels are useful platforms for promoting your business, you can also promote your business through external sites and platforms. One great way to do this is to author a guest post on another site or publication.
Guest posts and blog articles are great ways to reach new audiences who would otherwise not come across your site or social media. They are also an excellent way to showcase your expertise, which again builds trust and encourages people to buy your products or services. Other approaches with similar results include interviews or guest lecturing on webinars and online summits.
Use as Many Different Marketing Tactics as Possible
Like many things, when it comes to marketing an online business, there is strength in numbers. By diversifying your tactics as much as possible, you will reach more people and have greater impact, and therefore better results. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to start from scratch every time you need new marketing content; you can use one piece of content as the basis to create more. For example, if you make a video, you can easily turn it into a podcast, use it to create an infographic, or transcribe it into a blog article.
Just because you have an online business, doesn’t mean that your marketing needs to be fully online. In fact, a mix of online and offline marketing tactics is generally the best approach. For example, stickers, like the ones from Stickerit, provide a creative offline marketing tactic that you can use to build your brand and reach new customers.
Remember the Rule of Seven
The Rule of Seven says that in order to build brand recognition, customers need to see your brand at least seven times. This means that you cannot just put your logo and marketing materials in one or two places and expect to be recognized. Rather, you need to promote your brand repeatedly to grab consumers’ attention.
This means producing and distributing as much branded content as possible. Your videos, blogs, social media posts, and guest posts should all be strongly branded with your distinctive logo and brand colors so that people attribute the content to your company. Keeping these elements consistent will help people recognize your brand when they are looking for the products or services you provide.
By spending a little time and money on effective marketing, you will see an increase in the size of your customer base, your number of sales, and your profits.
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