The launch and use of computers caused several changes that significantly affected both businesses and consumers. With the continuous development of technology that soon gave rise to the internet, buying habits and preferences took a different trajectory while competition among businesses became more cutthroat.
If you feel as though your business will have a hard time keeping up with today’s competition in the market, fret not! It is not yet too late to discover how you can boost your brand and use the internet to your advantage.
All you need to do push continuous growth for your business is follow the following digital marketing tips:
1. Do Invest in Creative Content
Before you post an ad or a promotional content for your products, ask yourself and your team the following questions first and see if it fits the kind of outcome that you aim to achieve:
“Is it fun?”
“Is it engaging?”
“Does it focus on my consumers?”
“Does it represent my brand?”
Highly engaging and educational content takes a lot of effort to make, whether it is in a text, image or video format. People tend to favor variety and visual content more than they do monotonous and text-heavy promotional content. Currently, ads and promos in “Story” or “My Day” format are all the rage. Stories, My Day or Snaps are short, seconds-long videos with only a 24-hour shelf life.
This particular short-lived format of videos works well for business promotions because, despite the time restriction, it pushes business owners and advertisers to create content that is intriguing and eye-catching enough that people will remember it even after the Story has reached its 24-hour limit.
Another strategy that you can use is getting social media influencers and customers to vlog about your product. YouTube can now be considered as modern-day TV. Several individuals create their own channels on YouTube get massive following based on the content they post.
Polls likewise help gauge audience interest. You can be creative and add a touch of fun in your polls, yet still keep the questions relevant to the product or service you are promoting.
2. Don’t Resist Change
According to We Are Social, statistical data of internet users in January 2019 has shown that over 4.388 billion people now have access to the internet. With a large number of potential leads you can reach, you can expand your target audience and even possibly introduce your business to a large group of affiliates and business partners.
There are startups that get intimidated by social media or get discouraged once they set off and don’t get enough followers or likes. The key to that is patience along with the acceptance that building your online presence takes time.
Always take things positively—even with less than 100 followers, you can make do with what you have. What matters is how you value your existing followers. More importantly, organic followers are more instrumental in your business’ growth than paid ones.
3. Do Keep Up with Relevant and Popular Trends
Trends constantly change and are very hard to keep up. Keeping up with the latest trends and bandwagons that affect your target audience and your brand enables you to come up with content that is able to gather a good number of interested audience and focus the spotlight on your brand.
Just always make sure that the trend is relevant to the goods and services you are offering. Promotions and advertisements can be centered on such trends. The food industry is one of the easiest industries to adapt to such trends and is very marketable when done well.
4. Don’t Forget to Update Your Social Media
Startup businesses with little familiarity with social media and digital marketing tend to forget to update their social media on a regular basis, thinking that one post is enough.
Consistently posting updates is important for your consumers to be aware of what is new with your business, whether it is a promotion, a lineup of new goods and services, an upcoming event or a brand new location or branch for your physical store.
Even without an actual, physical store (a truth for most online sellers), every bit of progress matters. Including your audience in your brand’s journey shows that you value them enough to show them your progress and that their input is an indispensable tool for your continued development.
It’s important to be consistent in updating your social media pages. Ideally, you should post within a 2 or 3-day interval to allow time for your followers to absorb the information that you share.
Another helpful tip when posting on your social media pages is to take note of the times in a day when your followers exhibit the highest online activity and are more actively engaged in your posts.
5. Do Get Help From Professionals
Don’t know how to set up a website? Need help keeping your social media up to date? or Having trouble delivering dependable customer service?
When a business is lacking in delivering a particular component involved in keeping their operations running, that is where professionals come in and provide the necessary support. A lot of businesses outsource their digital marketing from companies that offer customer service solutions or digital advertising
In some situations, even outsourcing marketing mechanism can prove to be the best possible option. Outsourcing companies offer their services to fit your business needs, thereby enabling you to maximize your manpower while you focus on boosting your online presence and increasing sales.
6. Don’t Forget to Have a Solid Plan and Have Alternative Solutions for Predictable Changes
Having a business plan before establishing the business itself can help decrease your chances of mishaps and losses because a business plan has backup and counteractions included. If you don’t have a plan, it is not too late to establish one for your business’ security.
Creating a business plan takes a lot of research and would require professional help. Think of it as a college feasibility study: It is backed by industry professionals such as architects, accountants, and researchers, making the plan and the study filled with information relevant to the business’ progress and its core goals.
It is important to note that changes and other unforeseen events might deter you from accomplishing your main goals. Changes such as moving store locations, inflation of prices and even monetary exchange can at times be unpredictable but you can still calculate and have a feel of how it may turn out in the near future. Updating your plan to fit the current scenario helps re-establish your direction without having to redo most of the already collected data.
7. Do Research About Your Customers
Knowing who your customers are and what products and events affect them the most is an advantage in modern-day marketing. Familiarity with one’s target audience is one of the factors that contributes to the success of every company’s campaign.
It doesn’t take a ton of money to research your demographic. Coming up with a questionnaire that addresses both your business’ and customers’ needs is a good start to implementing your audience research.
Questions such as “How do I make my customers return frequently?” and “What are the best sellers and the items I need to sell more?” help prompt the most suitable instrumentation plan and approach to gather the necessary data from your customers.
8. Don’t Overlook Comments, Emails, Messages and Mentions
Overseeing your social media presence is a task in itself and part of it is to go through every pending email, message, comment, and social media mention notification on all your social media pages. When going through notifications from your audience, segregate relevant from irrelevant posts and messages.
You can also hire virtual assistants and social media moderators to help you filter and manage your notifications so you can focus more on important posts and messages.
Remember, not all comments need to be answered or addressed. At the same time, it is vital to appreciate subscribers that give both positive feedback and constructive criticism about your products and services. You can do this by retweeting, commenting or messaging back.
9. Do Identify Your Competitors and Take Notes From Them (Stealthily!)
Your competitors may be far longer in the business than you are, but don’t be intimidated by their accomplishments. Instead, take notes from their successes. There are certain defining elements that have pushed today’s established and big-time businesses into becoming a household name whether locally or internationally.
That being said, it doesn’t hurt to take note of the areas where they succeeded and failed. Their failures can be an edge to your business and help you stand out among your competitors. What your competition lacks, you may be able to compensate and use to achieve greater heights for your business.
Identify our weaknesses as well and improve on it or make a countermeasure. Knowing your competitors will mean doing some research that can come in handy if planning an ad campaign. One tip to avoid competition is to join in a business organization.
These organizations help by promoting each other and creating standardized market prices. This method eliminates any form of competition and business organizations are very willing to mentor for business improvement.
10. Don’t Invest in One Marketing Strategy/Platform Alone
There are plenty of social media platforms to choose from. The question is, how do you choose the best one for your business?
First, identify your business’ niche. Does the nature of your business make you rely more on visual elements or publication? Or do you also bank on word of mouth and customer recommendations? Is affiliate marketing a must-have to spread the word about your services?
Facebook generally works for any type of business. It has developed into a melting pot for marketing a wide variety of services and goods. As such, it is great for expanding audience reach and boosting sales.
Instagram works for enhancing audience engagement and enticing more people to follow your brand. It is also an excellent platform for digital advertising. Twitter offers the same advantages: It allows businesses to communicate directly with their customers, effectively maintaining interest and engagement of both supporters and naysayers of the brand.
Not all businesses can win in every type of social media. It is necessary to try and test how your brand fares in each of these social media platforms. You cannot use the same strategy for two different platforms as they work on different algorithms.
For instance, the ideal time difference for adding new posts might require hourly or daily intervals, depending on the platform. Alternating the type of post shared on your social media pages shows creativity and a genuine effort to share information about your brand.
It also helps you address different customer preferences. As much as possible, avoid manipulating engagement on your social media pages. People are more keen on determining whether a business’ social media presence is inorganic and rehearsed or not.
Technology may be changing constantly and the digital marketing scene may likewise demand a new set of strategies different from the ones mentioned in this blog. Before any of this happens, make it a habit to be on the lookout for current trends and changes in social media so that you can always be ahead of the game.
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