Himanshu PatelOnline marketing keeps booming and, consequently, boosting brand building strategies. Modern-day business owners are discovering how crucial it is to adapt their businesses to today’s digital trends. Even traditional, brick-and-mortar stores can make it big in the millennial market through the right online marketing techniques. With over 4.54 billion of the world’s population (59%) on the internet, it would be unwise not to leverage online marketing to build your brand and boost your business.
In fact, with the right combination of online marketing strategies, even startups can turn into thriving business ventures. Budget constraints, a limited number of employees, and time elements often make it difficult for startups to take off, but through online marketing, this can be remedied.
Online marketing levels the playing field for startups and more established companies. So, how can startups leverage online marketing to build brand awareness, boost conversions, and convert sales?
Here are some of the effective online marketing strategies to make use of:
1. Superb customer experience
Hard-selling strategies are no longer well-received by consumers. 2020 is the year of the customer. Customer Experience (CX) is just as important as other elements of your online marketing. You do not get high CX rates through one-time efforts but through consistent strategies of customer care.
The customer experience (CX) is also not just a trend. 73% of customers consider their experience as essential and let it influence their buying decisions.
Different factors affect CX, such as adeptness of websites with their niche, the efficiency of the site, convenience of navigation, user-friendliness, and security.
Referral
Referrals are the most valuable marketing strategy. The reason behind its success is because its very foundation is trust. Once you have proven yourself to the customers, once you have gained their valuable trust, increasing their loyalty is not far behind. Trust also leads to a deeper connection with your consumers.
Satisfied customers act like voluntary ambassadors and promoters for your brand. It is the fastest way to build brand awareness and credibility, granting that you have a quality product or service.
It works better than a business owner promoting their brand because your customers will share their experience with your brand first to their inner circle. Their inner circle usually involves their family, closest friends and co-workers, and the like. Referrals from family and friends will always be more productive. If they can talk about you to the most important people in their life, how much more to people in the outer circles of their influence?
Even in physical stores, referrals or word-of-mouth is tantamount to success. It is also a very cost-efficient marketing tool. People are four times more likely to buy a product when a friend recommended it. Even if you give rewards for referrals and new signups, the payout only happens every time there is new signup. And these incentives you provide will also give back to you in the form of more customers and sales.
Referrals also improve your brand’s social proof. When consumers see other consumer’s experiences around your product or service, that pre-sells your product or service to your target market. New customers will even buy products at full price. This dramatically reduces sales costs. However, the results of your business via referrals may come in slow at first. The build-up is not as quick, but effects are long-term, organic, and more stable.
SEO (Search Engine optimization)
Having a website takes more than putting up one. You need to build, design strategically, and maintain your website in a way that enables it to hit search engine algorithm factors used to determine SERP rankings. SERP is the Search Engine Results Page. Every search engine has search bots that crawl through sites, indexing factors that determine SERP rankings.
Google search engine alone has more than 200 factors to measure how valuable and relevant your website is concerning readers’ search intent.
Every website aims to make it to the first page of SERP on specific keywords, key phrases, or related search intent. It is what you call an organic or unpaid reach, unlike PPC (Pay-per-Click) ads or paid ads that pay an amount per click depending on keywords or phrases vied for. The process to rank organically is what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is for. You produce quality content in the right quantity that answers people’s
Since surveys show that readers generally go for organic results more than paid ads, SEO, then, should be a priority to your online marketing campaign and integrated into all the content you publish. SEO strategies can and will enhance other strategies like social media and email marketing campaigns. It still works better than paid search and gets three times more leads per $1 spent.
SEO naturally integrates with content marketing as well, which gives three times more leads than outbound marketing at 62% lower costs.
Organic SEO helps people discover your site through search engines. With a strong SEO strategy, your website will be repeatedly linked with the keywords, phrases, or intent used to find your products or the services you offer. So, use SEO strategies that work if you want to see your website gain profitable results.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Around 49% of the world’s population (3.8 billion people) are active on social media, with the average person spending 3 hours per day on multiple platforms. It is this fact that makes social media marketing an excellent way for businesses to strengthen brand awareness and reach out to their audience.
If your online marketing does not optimize social media marketing, then it is not complete. In social media marketing, you can reach your target audience on a much more personal level. You can also interact with them right away through social engagements like comments, likes, shares, and the like. Conversion can also happen much faster in social media because users can easily subscribe to your brand’s social media platform, and those that do are likely to click through your website as well.
You can also use social media marketing to echo valuable information from your website, test different content and online marketing campaigns, and even use it as an avenue for online advertising.
Instagram, for instance, has already passed one billion users and is one of the most fast-growing social media platforms. It caters to a younger demographic under their 30s (Gen X and younger millennials). If you can optimize this platform to gain as much brand exposure as you can, you will also eventually increase clickthrough to your website and increase website traffic. A website traffic increase will lead to more conversions as well.
Other social media platforms you can gain brand awareness and clickthrough rates are YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and of course, still the undisputed top social platform, Facebook. Together with Instagram, optimizing Facebook ads and Instagram ads can help you elevate the efficiency of your online marketing campaigns and set up stronger brand awareness with your target niche.
EMAIL MARKETING
An email marketing strategy is essential in any online marketing strategy, although not all online marketers use it. Email is, in fact, still the most dependable way to boost online marketing strategies.
A significant percentage of conversions happen through email marketing. It is cost-efficient and delivers reliable results in sales, that is why email marketing is still dubbed as the king of marketing. Email marketing can give revenues at around 28.5%, making it the most significant source of income for online marketers.
95% of companies actively use email marketing automation. 82% of B2B and B2C companies heavily use email marketing. Proof of this is the recent survey that around 290 billion emails are sent daily. By 2023, there can be about 347 billion emails sent daily. So, online marketers should harness this marketing giant to their advantage even more.
VIDEO MARKETING
Video content is in high demand because it is a very engaging medium that you can integrate with different types of content or campaign. There is an upsurge in audience engagement every time a good-quality video is in content. You see, video spinning traditional content into more engaging material, like posts, emails, and even something as traditional as a resume. When ever you add video, you breathe new life into an otherwise ordinary content.
Online content creators optimize video to boost website traffic and conversion rates, and ultimately outrank their competition. More than half of consumers (at around 54%) will most likely click a video content posted by brands they like. Videos also generate more social signals and have a high potential of making a video become popular or go “viral.”
When videos trend, they can boost SEO keywords because video content also has titles and descriptions. In addition, it can also contain video transcriptions and captions. Even startup websites can produce video content like a pro with several video editing software that even amateurs can use. Harness the power of video content to boost your online marketing strategies.
Personalization
Consumers these days appreciate and often look for personalization from brands they follow. Progressive data gathering and advancements in AI (Artificial Intelligence) and ML (Machine Learning) technologies have improved through the years and have made personalization the new norm.
Instead of flooding consumers with generic messages, your online marketing campaigns will get more traction if you personalize communication with consumers. Traditional advertising is losing its connection with consumers because of advertisement fatigue. It is no wonder that 80% of consumers prefer doing business with a brand that has personalized CX (customer experience) as a priority.
MICRO-INFLUENCERS
Influencer marketing is remarkably effective as an online marketing strategy. But because consumers prioritize authenticity, influencers are in danger of losing their hold on the market that sees if they are merely capitalizing on profits in their reviews. Influencers may feature products and services based on sponsorships and affiliation. Social media influencers are raking in big profits for their endorsements or product placements they allow on their platforms.
The global competition among influencers is also becoming stiffer. As a result, local brands and SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises) are opting to localize campaigns on their geographic location, or a specific demographic they are targeting. It is where micro-influencers or local influencers come in.
A micro-influencer or local influence is a medium-sized influence that has a more focused niche, catering to a narrower demographic. Therefore, their services are more affordable and get a better engagement rate than global influences. For one, local consumers trust micro-influencers more since there is a level of exclusivity or rationalization. A regular consumer gets the feeling that the one talking is someone from their locality, who understands their language, speaks their mind, and so, will probably make a more authentic review than a global influencer.
Micro-influences are also able to connect better with their followers (only around 30,000 followers) and dedicate more time with them. For one, it is easier to bridge online marketing to face-to-face marketing using the same micro-influencer, since it is easier to get them for an event. If you get a global endorser, it would not be as easy and as affordable.
Micro-influences enjoy 60% more engagement, at 6.7 times less the cost compared to global influences with more followers. Watch this video below to know more about micro-influences:
Conclusion: online marketing can boost startups
Starting a business now is much easier compared to even a decade ago. The convenience of online marketing to get your brand across different platforms is one definite difference. When the playing field is level for both startup and big-named brands, consumers get the most benefit.
They gain access to options of products and services that cater to most to their needs and wants. They find a precise match to their search intent, and in the end, it creates a positive consumer experience for them. As in any online marketing strategy, it is best to prioritize people. It becomes a guide and a standard to keep for what online marketing strategies you will employ.
Aiming to give the best possible service for people, and the best possible revenues for your brand is a great way to leverage online marketing strategies for brand building.
