Ultimate Guide to Online Marketing
Previously, industries and businesses strived to meet customer expectations through online marketing techniques and trusted product reputation that used word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing was the most rampant and successful form of advertising, but with the advent of branding, industry images are under fire. Not only are there inbound, outbound, and word-of-mouth marketing worlds taking a hit, branding itself is at the forefront of a hefty expectation battle between consumers and products or services.
Get Focused on Your Customers
Your customers, prospects, and partners are the lifeblood of your business. You need to build your marketing strategy around them. Step 1 of marketing is understanding what your customers want, which can be challenging when you’re dealing with such a diverse audience. This guide will walk you through the process of building personal connections at scale and crafting customer value propositions that funnel back to ROI for your company.
Build Your Marketing Framework
We advise you to think in terms of growth frameworks. Reserach and learn how to position your marketing strategy into a sustainable, ROI-positive revenue engine for your brand. Gone are the days of shallow branding. Leverage metrics to build a solid revenue stream.
Develop Your Brand’s Story
When people spend money, they’re thinking with both their rational and emotional brains. The most effective marketing frameworks appeal to both. Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools that your company can wield to build customer connections.
Foundations of Traffic Acquisition
You can have the most amazing web storefront, blog, or product in the world, but if you’re not getting traffic, your business’s growth strategy will fall flat. We can walk you through some of the most common free and paid traffic acquisition frameworks for bringing visitors to your website.
Foundations of Conversion Optimization
Traffic acquisition is only half the marketing equation. You need to invest the time in building a strategy for driving sales. Conversion optimization is the practice of (1) converting first-time visitors into customers and (2) converting first-time customers into repeat buyers.
Build Audience Connections
Content marketing is more than just blogging. When executed correctly, content including articles, guides (like this one), webinars, and videos can be powerful growth drivers for your business. Focus on building trust and producing amazing quality. And most of all, make sure that you’re capturing the right metrics. Create content to generate ROI. Measure the right results.
Get Found with SEO
Search engines are a powerful channel for connecting with new audiences. Companies like Google and Bing look to connect their customers with the best user experience possible. Step one of a strong SEO strategy is to make sure that your website content and products are the best that they can be. Step 2 is to communicate that user experience information to search engines so that you rank in the right place.
Launch Your Social Media Strategy
Your social media strategy is more than just a Facebook profile or Twitter feed. When executed correctly, social media is a powerful customer engagement engine and web traffic driver. It’s easy to get sucked into the hype and create profiles on every single social site. This is the wrong approach. What you should do instead is to focus on a few key channels where your brand is most likely to reach key customers and prospects.
Embrace Reputation Management
There is no way to erase a bad review or a sour reputation, but you can work hard to maintain a focused and dedicated objective to fix the errors that caused either. If poor customer service landed you on the ‘not-so-hot’ list, invest in stronger customer service training, testing, and even in-store reviews from customers. Embrace a reputation changer such as focused care in neglected areas.
There are a number of ways to fix issues that arise that in a creative way since the advent of social media and online marketing is so lucrative. Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook can be used to announce feedback and rewards for consumers to find out areas that your business is lacking in and tackling it head on. Showing that your company enjoys feedback can only help your reputation grow more reputable, helping your brand loyalty grow.
Don’t Be Biased
Customers come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and income levels. Adhering to one niche is understandable for certain markets, but not allowing certain groups to enjoy a surplus of goods is a great way to tarnish your reputation fast.
For example, if your business does not have wheelchair-accessible doors or bathrooms, one post on Facebook can go viral, having many unintended consequences, so make sure your online marketing strategy is equipped to handle the backlash.
Although some issues are preventable, some issues are simply not thought of, so if such issues come up, make sure to address the issue quickly. Assist the person who is unable to access your product and try your best to fix the problem in a respectful and tactful matter.
Customers Come First:
Customers are the backbone of any business and dismissing them as ‘constantly loyal’ or thinking that they will always be around is foolish and could lead to such customers leaving. Treating your most static customers with extremely high respect is where you should always start since they are dedicated to your brand and could recommend more customers.
Less-frequent buyers should be given reasons as to why they should keep coming in, and when they have a reason, this will not only boost your profits, it will help to boost your brand.
Overall Advice
Always remember, technology is making brands harder to maintain, so trying to keep consumers that love your work happy is paramount. If there are those that don’t like your work, find out why and quickly resolve it. You can’t make every consumer like you, but you can certainly try!
For more information on how to brand yourself effectively, regardless of your industry, service, or product, call Appfy for personable, honest, and dedicated support. Your business should stand out in the most positive light with a strong online marketing strategy and social media plan- Appfy can help!
