It’s the 21st century, the internet is the most valuable resource a business has. This means that most businesses will benefit in some way from effective online marketing tips. After all, this is how most businesses today find new customers.
And here you are, an aspiring business owner still stuck in the past, relying on flyers and limited word of mouth to get your revenue going.
But don’t be discouraged, with just a few of these simple online marketing tips, some time and a bit of dedication, you can have your voice heard and your brand in everyone’s peripheral vision.
Today we’ll cover the absolute basics of online marketing. Even as a complete novice, you’ll come away with the knowledge to implement effective campaigns online
Let’s start with the basics.
What are Online Marketing Tips?
People generally do what they do, regardless of what it is, to fill a specific need. They identify a problem and work towards making it cease to exist in one form or another. Similarly, your online marketing strategy should line up with your core business goals.
The vast majority of the time, this comes down to increasing profits. This might be by increasing your sales, or reducing the costs of customer acquisition. There are countless different ways to achieve these goals.
Say you want to increase your social media presence: start a business Facebook page and start reaching out. Do you want your venue recognized? Invest in Google Places, Bing or Yelp and get your business on the map for local SEO.
Maybe you want to set yourself apart from the rest. Put in the hours into making your web presence unique through blogging and setting up a website. These are all investments that require a bit of starting capital to lift off but a little bit at first can definitely go a long way.
So relax, take a deep breath and draw up your online marketing strategy one goal at a time, and you’ll be well on your way to success.
Here are the core online marketing tips which small businesses need to know about.
Every Business Needs a Blog
Many business owners think they have better things to do than blogging. This comes from two key misconceptions:
- Assuming that blogging has to be time consuming,
- Underestimating the power of blogging.
The reality is that maintaining a blog only takes a couple of hours each month. Of course, if you want to publish a new article every week, you can spend more time on this. The key though is to have a track record of consistently publishing quality content.
In fact, blogging offers some of the best ROI of any marketing channel.
Hopefully, you’re not wondering what a blog even is, but to put it simply: a blog is a website where an individual or a group can publish their content to a wide audience in a more lax manner, think less suit and tie and more shirt and jeans.
You don’t even have to write your own blog articles. In fact, most businesses don’t. Content marketing is a specialised marketing discipline. It’s often more cost effective to outsource your blogging to an experienced digital agency, or even a freelance writer.
Use regularly updated, high-quality content relevant to your industry, or utilize guest blogging and blogger outreach to garner some attention from peers and more influential figures within your niche.
It’s a great platform for a business owner to get in touch with their customers, socialize and build lasting bridges, share humorous or insightful content, and ultimately humanize your brand and presence.
It goes without saying that you’ll establish a sort of leadership by commanding the thoughts of your fan base.
Blogging is only the first and more rewarding entries when it comes to online marketing tips, they pay off long-term but a castle is only built on a strong foundation.
Using Social Media for Small Businesses
Think back on all the times you’ve scrolled endlessly up and down your Facebook or Instagram and stumbled upon a restaurant your friends went to or a video posted from a YouTube personality.
Think about all the times you’ve been taken to other spots on the Internet as a result of random, yet convenient ads or places you’ve actually decided to check out as a result of a few reviews from your friends and family.
Notice anything? A subtle pattern?
That’s the power that social media can have over you and many other consumers, a prime example of online marketing tips.
So many well established and flourishing businesses and individuals have used all sorts of social media to more than double their incoming traffic and lead generations, and it’s not that much different from blogging.
Here are the key things you need to know about each of the main social channels.
A more professional environment, free of cat videos and fidget spinners, LinkedIn aims to bring in anyone from aspiring fresh grad to big shot industry pioneer to connect, share insights, seek rewarding opportunities and spread their message.
The key thing on LinkedIn is to consistently start conversations. You should regularly post content which engages them, by asking their thoughts on key topics in your industry. This is also a great opportunity to show off company news.
So it only makes sense for a fresh and motivated entrepreneur such as yourself to establish a foothold there and start networking.
One of the best online marketing tips anyone can give you is that a strong and well-maintained presence on Facebook can be the deciding factor between barely breaking even and raking in the big bucks.
As much as it is a theme park of memes and amusing animal videos, it’s also the bedrock of any online marketing strategy, allowing you to reach out to unimaginable amounts of people with your content and valuable service.
Starting a professional page and using Facebook’s targeted advertisement options allows an industrious business owner to garner thousands of potential leads.
Your Facebook page is also a key place to distribute your blog, adding value to your content marketing efforts. This helps you to shape your audience’s perception of your brand.
YouTube
Putting yourself in your consumers’ shoes is a theme you’ll no doubt have probably noticed reading this article. and it’s safe to assume that most people prefer to get their information or entertainment these days in video form.
It’s much more easily digestible than reading an article and the audio-visual aspect stimulates the viewer in a way that traditional online marketing tips just can’t.
Setting up a presence on YouTube is somewhat of an investment, what with the equipment involved and the commitment to producing quality content in video form, but it’s a surefire way of getting far more exposure and awareness for your brand.
Additionally, making the effort to build a YouTube presence has a number of other benefits. Embedding relevant video content into your blogs pays massive dividends for SEO, by increasing the average time on page, a key UX metric.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and investing in Instagram is sure to net you thousands of potential leads.
Instagram allows people to capture their moments and post them for all to see, but it’s not exclusively about mountaintop selfies and gym gains. It almost does your work for you.
You see countless images of people with food and beverages, various products, random venues, each consecutive post boosting the traffic the establishments’ responsible receive. A clever marketer can take advantage of this.
Online Marketing Tips for Mobile Devices
Technology tends to get smaller the more it advances, and you’d be hard pressed to find people out there without tiny computers in their pockets.
Smartphones are most people’s go-to when it comes to entertainment and convenience on the fly, and they are a massive opportunity for the budding entrepreneur to optimize their Internet marketing strategy.
Investing a sizable amount of your time and capital into designing mobile friendly websites can give more people easier access to your content, and content pretty much sells itself if it makes the consumers’ lives easier.
These days, Google prioritises your mobile site over the desktop version when making ranking decisions. This is called mobile first indexing. The upshot is that a mobile friendly website is essentially non-optional.
Capture Leads with Mass Messaging
Two of the more underrated online marketing tips you should be studying to fortify your Internet marketing strategy are press releases and webinars.
They allow you to captivate people’s attention in a more engaging way than more traditional methods, and since you’re doing it online, it has the potential to reach and attract untold numbers of potential patrons. So let’s briefly dip into both.
Press Releases
Back before the Internet was a thing, press releases were the premiere option for industries and business to spread awareness when it comes to their brand, but that necessitated an arduous process of planning and green lights for both approval and publishing.
This also required you to know the right people, which can be difficult for small businesses.
Doing it all online allows you to forgo a lot of the red tape and save you a bunch of pretty pennies, in addition to allowing your news to reach far more people thanks to the innate ease of access and viral nature of the Internet.
That doesn’t mean that it works itself out though, you have to make sure that your news is worth people’s time. Try pitching your ideas to friends and family first to see the impact your ideas have on them and get a feel for how you’re going to approach this.
Be smart about your keyword placements and do your best to avoid stuffing. Nobody likes reading a clumped up mess of the same words, and you don’t want to get flagged for keyword stuffing.
Put in some effort when it comes to the media. People generally appreciate a picture of either you, your logo or anything relevant to your business. A video would be a massive plus since it delivers your message in a more entertaining fashion.
Webinars
One of the best ways to reel in potential followers and build a veritable boatload of trust with your audience is through utilizing webinars. These are some of the most effective lead magnets around.
Think of it as a presentation, one you’d usually give to colleagues at your workplace or university, except it’s online and allows you to reach out farther and boost your brand awareness.
Of course, your ultimate goal would be to boost revenue by building strong bridges with potential and current clientele. So to make sure that actually happens, you have to keep a few things in mind.
Dedicate a decent amount of time to figuring out your target audience, what you want out of them and how you can tap into them appropriately.
Don’t be too much of a “salesman” and more of a fun teacher; you’re there to motivate and capture attention, not be a drone. Stories work wonders in these situations, be they about your personal experiences or testimonials about your wares.
How to Utilise Online Marketing Tips
With enough dedication and understanding of the way the online marketing world works with just these few online marketing tips, you should be well on your way to becoming a virtual marketing mogul with a strong Internet marketing strategy.
But these are just a few of the online marketing tips you’re going to need to build your empire. Do your homework, put in the hours and cultivate a massive amount of patience and fortitude and you’ll surely be standing head and shoulders above your peers.
Of course, it’s always useful to speak to the experts. At ProfileTree, we have years of experience of helping small businesses to thrive online. Get in touch today to speak about how we can help with your marketing strategy.
