With so many choices for both consumers and businesses these days, you really need to stand out from the crowd.
Your business isn’t going to be successful if you just stand around, hoping for customers. Here are five ways to boost your online marketing strategy:
Take a look at your competitor’s content
Before you can beat your competition, you have to know what you are dealing with.
Take a look at the content offered on their website. If they don’t have a blog, then you are already miles ahead.
If you don’t have a blog, you’re in trouble. Here are 5 blogging ideas to get you started.
If they do have a blog – what got left out? Many times people will write just enough to show you they are an authority but they fail to tell you the details.
For instance, they may share an idea but not talk about how to execute that idea.
I knew someone who shared great email templates to use, but didn’t share the subject line – which is a critical piece.
Think about how you can write content that helps your customer base more than the information that is out there already.
Check your mailbox
Are your competitors still using old-school marketing?
As you sift through your junk mail, make a list of the competition and visit their websites.
They might have a good offer, but if they are only marketing it through send-outs, then you can capitalize on their mistake.
Market your offer online, where your customer base is searching when they are in need of your service.
That way, you are marketing to a primed audience, while your competitor is hoping someone looks at their ad instead of tossing it in the recycling bin.
Additionally, pay attention to what is being said about you and your competitors online.
You’ll do a lot better if your reviews are stronger than theirs. For more information on how to grow your online reviews, check out our infographic.
Only invest in content marketing if you want more leads
According to Hubspot, Businesses with websites of 401-1000 pages get 6x more leads than those with 51-100 pages.*
Let’s look at this from another angle: Imagine that you went to a conference with a lot of breakout sessions from various competing vendors that wanted your business.
One vendor spoke for 5 minutes, telling you about their latest product, and another vendor spent an hour explaining the benefits of the product and how it would satisfy your needs, who would you want to do business with?
It’s the same online. If you just speak to someone once with a static website but don’t offer any other value to your potential customer, and your competition does…
You can see where I’m going with this right? Don’t just speak about how great your product or service is. Provide value to your audience.
Be everywhere
If you really want to position yourself above the competition, you need to be sure your content is seen everywhere.
It also absolutely has to appeal to your audience.
You want “consumable” content. Image and videos are consumed more than plain articles these days.Produce content that shows your audience you are taking notice of how they like to digest information.
Keep these tips in mind:
- Always be certain to add images on your blogs.
- Create compelling infographics.
- Take advantage of video and even audio, if your audience responds to that.
- Distribute your content to video and graphic sharing sites.
Think of the companies that do a lot of branding. You may see them on TV, hear them on the radio, see them in print publications and online.
I rarely pay attention to most of that advertising these days, but that’s me.
With Netflix, Pandora and online news sites, I am not exposed to traditional media as much anymore.
What I do see are video ads, graphics on social media and blogs that I follow, invitations to webinars, and more.
Basically, I am surrounded by online content and I know who the thought leaders are for products and services I am interested in.
Consider your target market. Where are they looking?
Don’t leave this to chance. Be everywhere you can.
Make the right connections
You may or may not have ever belonged to some sort of networking group.
I like to think the Internet is one big networking group. It just takes more work to find the right connections that can be mutually beneficial.
Invest some time in finding the right connections online. Start making a list of what industries share your demographic.
What products and services compliment yours? You know the old hot dog and ketchup/mustard idea.
Now start searching for businesses online and really check them out.
See who has good reviews, who has a decent social media following, and who is sticking out to you as an expert.
Then, approach them with the idea of complimenting each other. You can:
- Recommend that your social media followers follow the other company.
- Comment on each other’s content.
- Put together a guest blog or co-host a webinar.
- Use each other as sounding boards before trying out new ideas. Find out what worked for them and what didn’t.
- And more
Don’t stop with just one partnership. Try to get a group of five or ten together.
It will take some time but you may find that this new tribe of power partners will really benefit one another.
If you are new and don’t have a following, you’ll need to balance this out. Either grow your own following first, or offer your new connections something of value.
With these 5 tips put into action, you can start building a marketing campaign that will really impress your customer base.
If you don’t have the time to do any or all of this, or if you want to make sure that it’s solid work, call us today or visit our contact page.
*HubSpot Lead Generation Lessons from 4,000 Businesses, 2011
