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5 Tips to a Successful Online Marketing Strategy [Infographic]
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3 Tips for a Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy
These days it’s pretty difficult to find a company that doesn’t use social media at all. But some companies are social media rockstars, while others fail. What’s the ingredient of social media success? One word: Strategy.
Most marketing managers simply publish a post or answer customer queries at random. Those who are savvier understand the importance of having a long-term engagement plan. A strategy
Here are 3 tips for a successful social media strategy
1. Know What Your Customers Like
Knowledge is power, and this could not be closer to the truth when it comes to marketing!
Do extensive research on your industry, competition, influencers, and relevant keywords. Where do they hang out? What topics interest them? Strive to locate your customers accordingly, and find out what they talk about.
Once you have done so, you will know how to reach your customers and their interests. Very Simple.
People will pay attention to things that focus on their interests.
2. More is Not Better.
Many businesses, having created accounts on multiple platforms, building up their presence on every single social media platform. From Facebook to Instagram. Many of these accounts will fail in a matter of months.
B2C marketers tend to use Facebook as their social media platform of choice, while B2B marketers are using LinkedIn (where they have seen a 61% success rate as compared to other platforms).
It’s very important every day, to track your efforts on each platform and adjust your focus accordingly.
3. The Metrics You Need for Your Social Media Marketing
The number of metrics out there is too many! Pageviews, click-throughs, likes, retweets, repins – the list goes on and on. It is therefore really important to decide which metrics define the success of your marketing campaign.
You can help push brand awareness by creating videos, infographics, or writing articles. Very common marketing tips but effective.
It is important to be able to monitor and optimize your strategy. The technology and the online world are changing pretty fast. So you have to know the new trends. So to be able to create a successful social media strategy, for your business.
A New Social Media Strategy: Vertical Videos [Infographic]
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Why Social Media is A Necessity for Your Business
Your business needs to be on social media. Because is a low-cost and very effective marketing tool. With almost 70 percent of Americans on social media, your social media campaigns can reach a lot of people and increase your sales.
Social media provides targeting capability, at a lower cost than almost all other marketing methods. Also, people are on social media all day, every day – businesses must go where the people are.
However, not every social media platform is a good fit for every business. You should invest your time and skills in the platforms where you’re most likely to reach and engage with your target audience.
To pick the best social media network for your business, learn about the top platforms and how to use them for business. Here are the basics you should know about the most popular social media platforms.
Even with the recent negative press, Facebook is still the most popular social media network, and every business should have a Facebook page. When used correctly, a Facebook page can be invaluable to small businesses.
You can use Facebook to share everything from photos to important company updates. With a business account, you have access to powerful advertising tools and in-depth analytics. Business pages also have a lot of customization options.
Instagram is very popular. From Instagram Live to Instagram Stories, there is no shortage of tools businesses can use to promote their services and products. Instagram is a visual platform that’s based entirely on photo and video posts.
It’s important to note that this platform is almost entirely mobile: You can’t take photos or create new posts on the desktop version. More artistic niches tend to excel on Instagram, and it may not be the best fit for your business, depending on your industry.
While Twitter is great for short updates and sharing links to blog posts, it isn’t for every business. On Twitter, you can share short tweets (240 characters or fewer), videos, images, links, polls and more. It’s also easy to interact with users on this platform by mentioning users in your posts along with liking and retweeting tweets.
If you have interesting content, Twitter is a great tool for quickly spreading the word. Hashtags help boost posts, and if a user with a lot of followers retweets you, your content could go viral. But with Twitter, it’s important to find balance. Don’t just share your own links or media; make sure you are also sharing a lot of interesting, relevant content from other Twitter users.
This visually oriented platform allows users to save and display content by “pinning” digital bulletin boards, which can be organized by category. For example, a personal user might have a food board dedicated to pinning recipes, another board dedicated to photography, and so on.
The platform also has a series of special types of pins called Rich Pins, which brands can use to add specific information to their pins, like product details and even location maps. Every pin includes an image or video.
Pinterest is great for niche businesses but may not be for every company. Popular categories on the site are DIY projects, fashion, exercise, beauty, photography, and food.
That’s not to say that businesses outside of these categories can’t succeed on the platform, but it does make Pinterest an especially good marketing tool for businesses in those areas.
Snapchat
Snapchat is another mobile-only visual social media network that’s known for its disappearing content. Its users can send videos and photos to each other, or post content to their public Stories, which disappears after 24 hours.
The app has expanded to include chat, messaging, image storage, events, and media content. Now, content can easily be saved and uploaded elsewhere.
Because posts are temporary, there is less pressure to create super-polished content. You can also see how many and which specific users viewed your story.
A small business will most likely utilize the platform’s Stories feature, but keep in mind that only users who have added you can view your Stories content. However, once you have an audience, Stories allows you to easily create story-driven and interactive content.
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing platform where people can view, upload, rate, share and comment on content. Now owned by Google, the site is a huge hub for news and entertainment.
Many businesses on YouTube have a creative, visual or educational component. The platform is heavily driven by creativity in nature, so it’s important to have a tailored video editor producing content.
However, your business doesn’t need a channel to market on the platform. There’s a subculture of YouTube influencers who publish frequent videos and often maintain large audiences. Often, businesses partner with YouTubers for product placement, because these users already have engaged audiences.
While LinkedIn might not be the most popular social media platform, it still has 260 million monthly users and is the best platform for professional networking. LinkedIn is a great platform for finding top talent, painting yourself as an industry leader and promoting your business.
LinkedIn is designed to be more professional than other social media platforms. Users create profiles that are similar to resumes, and companies can create pages that showcase their business.
Because LinkedIn is a professional platform, it’s the best place to post job openings and information about company culture. You can join industry-specific LinkedIn Groups to ask and answer questions. This helps your brand, paints you as an industry expert, and brings people to your company’s page and website.
The Reasons Why to Use A Call to Action for Better Results
There is a simple but extremely powerful way to pump up sales, get better quality leads, and practically eliminate advertising waste.
But what may surprise you is that very few business owners employ this simple but powerful “tool” in their advertising.
This tool is the call to action.
If you don’t ask, then you don’t get. Sounds reasonable, right? But very few business owners use this simple tactic to boost sales.
Why Use A Call To Action (CTA)?
First of all, it works. It’s a great way to move people down the sales funnel.
Second, it measures the effectiveness of your copywriting.
When you think about your “call to action” think about what objective you want the reader to do…
… sign up for a webinar, download some information, visit your store or call now.
Pretty simple, right?
If you’re stuck or just can’t find good ideas for your call to action, then start an advertising swipe file.
A swipe file is a collection of good ads that are producing good results. And how you’ll know that these are “good” ads is that you’ll see them running over and over again.
Savvy marketers do not like to spend money on advertising that is not producing. It’s all about a good ROI (return on investment). And only good direct response marketing gives you this opportunity.
Here are a few examples that produce results:
Register
Subscribe
Buy
Download
These are much better than the plain old ‘click here’ and be sure to tell your reader what benefits she/he getting, for example…
Download your free copy of our business survival guide
Subscribe to get your free reports
Register now to get in on this webinar
And so on.
Now let’s add some urgency to the mix.
We humans sometimes need a bit of pushing sometimes. Adding some sincere urgency to drive the funnel can be just what’s needed to get us moving.
Here are a few examples to get your creative juices flowing…
Offer expires
First 50 people only
Hurry, the price goes up at noon today
While supplies last
And very effective is ‘Immediate Download.’ It’s a great call to action because folks like downloads and they like immediacy. Bam. Here you got both.
Last, how to removing risk from your offer or call to action.
As you can imagine, risk removal or reversal is a powerful marketing tool.
How do we lower the risk?
Oftentimes doing business for the first time with a new company is a scary deal. After all, you know or trust this “new company.” And who hasn’t been burnt before? Heck, these days trust has flown out the window, right?
So why not start by truly focusing and empathizing with your prospect and clients. Put yourself in their shoes. Again, they do not know you and they don’t trust you. Make a point to earn their trust… and keep earning their trust.
Prove that you truly care by showing them you’ll shoulder the risk. Communicate this in all your marketing messages.
Here are a few examples…
“Start your no-obligation 30-day free trial”
“You have a no-hassle, no-questions-asked, 100% money back guarantee”
“Not Satisfied? No Problem! We’re double your money back immediately”
You get the idea.
Use these ideas to create a strong “call to action” in your next advertising pitch.
Local Business Advertising Tips
Small business advertising has changed dramatically in the past five years due to a number of factors. The first being the changes in technology allowing local businesses to target their market more effectively and the second being the downturn in the economy.
Technology has actually been a double edge sword in the marketing world. On one hand, DVR’s and TIVO’s give the consumer the power to filter out a for air commercials, on the other hand, if you are running commercials utilizing Google TV your spot can become more cost effective and have a lot larger audience.
Here are some tips on how you can save more money and be more effective with your local business advertising strategy.
Advertising Using Social Media
Many studies tell that the social networks are the most effective. Facebook continues to be the most popular with LinkedIn and Twitter not far behind.
Facebook Tips For Small Business
Facebook can be little confusing at first but like any learning curve, the more you press through the more you learn what to do. There are at least four areas that business owners can get very cheap local business marketing with Facebook.
Creating a profile, creating a like or fan page, creating a places page and utilizing the Facebook marketplace. Once a place or fan page has been created business owners can utilize Facebook’s vast database to target specific users based on demographic data that is entered at the time an ad is set up.
The more effective ways to utilize Facebook to market your product or service is to keep people on Facebook with your fan page and promote your product or service from within the site.
A good way to start your small business marketing with Facebook is to offer something of value like a video or free report in turn for others clicking the like button your page. This is a cheap way to build your list similar to building an email list.
Once you have the following sending out updates on discounted services or new products you are carrying becomes very effective. Facebook places can be used for local businesses similar to Google places being that it is a geographically targeted listing on Facebook.
Local listing sites.
The top local listing sites Google places, Yahoo local and Bing local are great cheap ways for small business exposure. Taking ownership and optimizing your local listing does a couple different things to increase your exposure and enhance your small business marketing strategy.
For local brick and mortar businesses that don’t have a web presence or a website, the places pages can be an inexpensive way to not only get exposure but also get listed on the search engine maps.
For businesses that do have websites and are working at SEO to get them listed on the top of a search result, having your local listing optimized will help with your SEO strategy as well.
Taking ownership and optimizing your business local listing will also allow your business to be found on mobile devices. Getting your business listed on mobile devices is the next critical task for your small business advertising.
Taking advantage of these cheap and effective resources can decrease your marketing budget sometimes by 50 percent or more while being more effective in helping you attract more customers as well as staying in contact with your current customers.
The next thing you should do is take action with these resources and implement your local marketing strategy.
Don’t forget. No Action, No Business. Also, if you want to succeed, Never Quit! Very Simple.