Out of all the revolutions and benefits that the internet has brought to businesses, one stands above the rest as the best. We’re talking about marketing. Online marketing and giving your business an online presence can transform how you do business. What might have once only been a small local business can reach across the whole world and become a leading brand. But only if you do it right. Online business, and online marketing, is competitive. You’re going to have to learn how to get the word about your business out above the rest. The key to standing out is pure quality. Plan a consistent marketing strategy with the tips below. Then you’re one step closer to establishing your company as the hottest new brand.
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Mistakes to avoid
Before we get into the specifics of the tactics that will help you succeed, we need to go over what not to do, first. Keep an eye on your competitors so you know whether your current campaign is current or original. Keep your marketing and your branding consistent. Some businesses think that their marketing has to be all things to all people. However, diversifying your strategy too much can weaken its appeal. Find your niche and perfect it before moving on to new markets. Being impatient with your marketing can seriously damage your chances, too. If you’re throwing out content repeatedly at high volumes, expect people to stop paying attention to you. Focus on long-term goals instead and build your marketing giving your audience enough time to soak it all in.
Social media
Social media is, of course, how you’re likely to be doing most of your online marketing. It allows you to deliver quick, concise content informing potential thousands. But you need to take care in how you build your social media strategy. For one, how do you know that your chosen platform is going to reach the right audience? The choice in platforms can play a huge role in how well you do. Everyone uses Twitter, so you should definitely be on that. But otherwise? If you run a B2B service, LinkedIn is the service likely to take you to most of your clients. If you run a lifestyle or food business, the picture driven format of Instagram could be for you. Know which platforms your audience is likely to be on then focus on it.
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A lot of people are starting to overlook e-mail as a marketing tool thanks to how handy social media is. However, there are plenty of people who don’t pay as much attention on social media. Email marketing is a bit of a dirty word, primarily because of blanket emails that do nothing but get in people’s’ way. The key is to add value to the message you’re sending. Make your email stand out by employing great visual design and incorporating gifs, videos and timers. Deliver relevant, interesting content each week. Keep the option to unsubscribe in the open so people don’t feel like they’re receiving unwanted emails, too.
Get blogging
Content is not only relevant to running a great email campaign. Content is the key to any marketing strategy, period. Nothing gets people to pay attention faster than consistent, interesting information. One thing that will get them put off is having little information about your company available. Businesses and entrepreneurs of all sorts should be using blogs. WordPress is one of the formats that you can jump into with only a bit of design necessary to fit your WordPress website to your branding. Content is also important in search engine optimization. The more relevant and keyword inclusive, the better its chances of appearing in search engines. It also gives you great fodder to feed into your social media campaign.
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Get vlogging
Not all of your content has to reside in the written word, however. No, in particular industries, it’s becoming more and more apparent that writing it losing relevancy. We see that the trend of video content becoming more prominent will only continue. That’s why it’s a good idea to get into vlogging and producing videos as soon as you can. There’s already a strong host of competition out there and it’s only set to grow. But with the right avid, you can still carve out your own dominant space. Youtube is by far the most popular space to take your videos onto. Know your audience and your niche. Find a way to differentiate it from other Youtubers and be timely with your uploads. Youtube audiences can be fickle and might easily unsubscribe if you leave it alone for too long.
Collaboration
We’ve looked into a lot of the different platforms you could use to send off your marketable content. But what about the other people that you can get involved in it? Collaboration is great for everyone involved if it goes well. Audiences and resources are shared and the result can be greater than the sum of its parts. That’s why, in the blogging sphere, guest posts are a tremendously popular tactic of collaborating. Not only does it give you a new audience to market yourself or your business to. It also forges a partnership that you can expect to share and signpost your content in future.
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Defining your market
One of the important points we’ve been mentioning again and again is knowing your market. It’s important you have some idea of your audience from the moment you set off on your campaign. However, it’s also important that you use your marketing strategies to find out even more about them. Become a fan of your fans. Get details on your Twitter followers by checking their accounts. Talk to your audience and offer them participation on Youtube by including their suggestions in your videos. Use emails to get people filling in forms with details about themselves. Build up an understanding of the different demographics making your customer base. It can help you be even more specific with your marketing and services in future.