Investing in online marketing is essential for any business.
Online marketing is the art of selling products online and, in this highly connected world, it is something that shouldn’t be overlooked. According to We Are Social, there were 2.80 billion social media users in 2017, and online adults aged 18 to 34 were the most likely group to follow a brand via their social networking platforms. This means that if this segment of the population was satisfied with the way you marketed your brand online, you would have had a higher chance of being recommended to further potential customers.
In 2017, visual content was also likely to engage your customers to a higher degree and it was the quality of your brand’s online imagery that encouraged (or discouraged) users to share your company’s message on their social media platforms.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By Rawpixel.com
With the use of online platforms on the up, it is time for you to invest in the best tools for online marketing. Here, we tell you how.
Create an Instagram account
With 400 million plus users, Instagram is currently the second most popular social media platform after Facebook. The app has seen its engagement rates decline in the last few months but this is still a popular platform that businesses use in the promotion of their products. With a higher number of advertisers on board than Twitter, this image-based app has captivated the young generation by making it possible for them to share their favorite photos and indulge in some experiential life-sharing based on images and video rather than plain text. Its interface is also very simple and this makes it easy and fun for everyone to use, with the sophisticated filters you can apply to your pictures resulting in your photos having a more artistic appeal. Millions of brands are already promoting their products on the platform and it is now time for you to also get Instagram-ready!
Invest in online customer interaction
Boosting online customer interaction will result in your brand being more positively perceived by the customers you are trying to reach and it will also tell you a great deal about your clients. It is difficult to measure the efficiency of a service or product if you cannot get this information from your customers firsthand. While profitability is one of the key indicators of success, getting direct feedback is an important source of forecasting the growth of your business. From sending text messages to get your customers’ replies on their satisfaction levels after they have used your services or purchased your products, to sending online transaction verifications to your clients’ mobile phones after purchase, customer interaction is something you should definitely invest in. Learn more about inbound SMS messages by Plivo.
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Send regular e-newsletters
If you have a good database in place, you probably have access to the email addresses of the customers who have visited you and have used your services in the past. Data is the most valuable thing a company can have since having access to the emails of customers can enable you to keep promoting your products. Whilst you don’t want to bore your clients with irrelevant information that’s shared on a too-frequent basis, it is good to keep them in the loop with news and events that might be of their interest. Get in the habit of producing and sending monthly newsletters with the latest news and product information as well as any offers you might want to run in order to increase sales, especially seasonal. Mailchimp will help you produce beautifully-looking newsletters that you will also be able to send via the online platform.
Measure traffic to your website
ROI is the name we give to the results that our efforts produce, and in the marketing world, it is everywhere! Your business should also be producing results from the hard work you have been putting in and with the various online tools that are available, you should be able to measure this quantitatively as well as qualitatively. One way to measure ROI is by analysing the traffic that your website incurs daily, weekly, monthly, etc. This can be studied from the perspective of numbers of visitors, returning visitors, amount of time spent on your website as well as on each page, and demographic information. It is easy to do. All you need is to have access to Google Analytics and the tool will do the measuring for you. Knowing your audience is invaluable, so make sure you invest some time in getting to know this online application better.
