The ever-evolving techniques, ever-changing trends and diversifying tastes of users has made brand marketing and promotions on the ever-so-competitive and ever-so-chaotic digital landscape too daunting and to difficult a task for today’s marketers. No wonder, everyone seems to be in a hurry to hunt new and foolproof strategies and techniques to beat their competitions hands down.
Given the ever-increasing competition on the web, it’s no rocket science to understand that only smartest marketers of the lot will survive and thrive, in the times to come.
You may be wondering:
“Well, I have been publishing great content, I’m sure people will come to my site.”
If only it were that easy…
If you’re actually serious about taking your brand from Zero to Hero in 2017 and beyond, you will need to be very systematic with the way you market your brand on the digital landscape.
Otherwise you’re playing the “Dart Game Blindfolded”: throwing a bunch of darts against the board and expecting that at least one of them will hit the bull’s eye.
Well, today I’m going to show you an easy to follow 10-step guide that almost guarantees success for your brand marketing strategies in 2017 & beyond.
But like many other, you too are using Google as the only go-to source for your PPC campaigns. You’ll be surprised to know that you can easily lower down your PPC cost if your average cost per click on Yahoo and Bing as against Google.
According to a study, these search engines are 10% to 24% cheaper in terms of cost per click than to the cost on Google AdWords. You probably already know that your cost per acquisition will be lower if your cost per click is reduced dramatically.
But here’s a piece of advice:
Consider reducing your cost per click expense in 2017 & beyond, if you are in insurance, medical and legal professions.
Brands, both big and small, LOVE to connect with customers on social media.
And what better connect with your prospective customers than Instagram?
Here’s the deal:
Instagram has already earned the tag of one of the fastest-growing social media platforms.
In fact:
Instagram's engagement rate is nearly 60 times greater than Facebook and 120 times greater than Twitter.
We are sure its impact on digital marketing strategies will continue to dominate because of its ability to drive torrents of traffic, without having to spend a fortune and many sleepless nights, in 2017 and beyond.
The Bottom line?
If you want to take your brand from Zero to Hero in 2017 and beyond, you will NEED to focus on Instagram.
How?
By embracing email marketing with open arms!
Why?
Because email marketing offers a median ROI of 122% – 4 times higher than social media, and paid search.
Make no mistake; you’ll need to strategically launch email marketing campaigns, if you are looking to stay ahead in the curve in 2017 and beyond.
Here’s what you must do:
Send at least 2 email blasts each month. Ensure rich text emails with personalized, compelling content. Don’t forget to make sure that your emails are mobile-friendly. After all, two-thirds of all emails are read on either smartphones or tablets.
Remember:
Success of your digital marketing strategies in the rest of 2017 and beyond will depend on how efficiently you explore emails as an essential means of communication with your potential customers.
There are WAY too many marketers who think publishing great articles and blogs will give them a mileage over their competition on the web.
It gets worse:
More than 2 million blog posts are published on the web each day.
The BIG QUESTION:
With so much of competition in terms of content, how will you ensure that your content gets its share of eyeballs?
The answer:
You will need to move beyond just content and create interactive content that resonates well with your target audiences. You will need to think of interactive content marketing that can get your audiences entertained, engaged and involved, all in equal measures.
Some classic examples of interactive content that work wonders in terms of marketing your products and services are interactive blogs, quizzes, surveys, infographic, videos and images.
Want proof?
Interactive quizzes have helped Buzzfeed expand its subscriber base to more than 169 million people in virtually no time.
Here’s what you should do:
Carefully create interactive quizzes, microsites and infographics around your niche and target local set of consumers through it. Make sure that your content projects you as an expert of your business and industry.
I’m not sure you’re thinking: “why do I need to work on content distribution when I have already created and published great content?”
Here’s the deal:
You don’t want your content to sit idle. You want to leverage it for links, traffic and leads over and over again.
But how would you ensure that your content is distributed smoothly, without having to burn midnight oil?
That’s easy: carefully select your CDN Provider.
You’ll need to choose CDN (Content Delivery Network) that can provide content to end-users with relatively faster speed, high accuracy, and high functioning.
Want to know the best part?
45% of leading 2,000 e-commerce sites in the US use CDN.
Now:
Go on select an efficient and reliable CDN for your website, if you are looking to stay ahead of your competition in 2017 and beyond.
You tube is the world’s second largest search engine.
Here’s what it can get your brand:
Untapped traffic, sales-ready leads and an engaged community of brand followers!
But like any other marketing strategy, you’ll need to strategically use YouTube to get your brand a lead in 2017 and beyond.
Here’s the deal:
Spend considerable time optimizing your YouTube videos. Search for relevant video keywords, ensure proper title tag, ensure proper video file name, pay heed to your video description and finally, link your video to your content marketing strategy.
Don’t forget to mention about your brand on Quora, Yahoo Answers and other popular question and answer forums. Add a link to your You Tube videos in your email signatures to grab maximum eyeballs for your videos. Also, be smart to embed your You Tube videos in your blog posts.
Remember:
Your business YouTube videos will continue to be one the main marketing tactics to engage and drive torrents of traffic to your site in 2017 and beyond.
This gets worse:
Eric Enge analyzed 516,246 Google+ profiles and found that 90.1% valid Google + profiles have never posted publicly.
Here’s what you don’t know:
Google Plus had 300 million active users and average time spent by an user on Google + daily is 12 minutes.
Now:
That is a lot of time to drive torrents of traffic to your site and get your brand some solid leads.
This gets better:
Google+ can be a useful tool to help you yield your search engine optimization results at local level.
In 2017 and beyond, if you are laying emphasis on local searches for your business or brand, consider using Google+ as a legit way to get more reviews and followers for your brand.
With over 1.94 billion monthly active users, Facebook is still the king when it comes to social media marketing platforms for businesses.
But here’s a shocker:
The organic reach on Facebook is dead already!
In fact:
Only around 16% of your fans see your updates and posts.
This fact could be pose a potential threat to your dreams of becoming smartest digital marketer in 2017 and beyond by leveraging Facebook to your advantage.
I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself:
“How can I leverage Facebook to my advantage if the organic reach is already dead?”
By a solid Facebook re-marketing strategy!
Plan a re-marketing strategy to ensure a significant surge in the conversion of Facebook fans into actual paying, buyers for your business. Leverage Facebook Lookalike Audience feature to reach out to new people who run a similar businesses.
Set your account on Facebook under its Custom Audience feature; create a lookalike audience as an option to get your Custom Audience list. Upload your email-marketing database on Facebook’s advertising platform to target your demographic audience who carry similar customer profile as that of your existing customers.
Don’t forget to leverage paid promotions of your business on Facebook. With a small amount of money added to your promotion activity on Facebook, you can spike your communication with potential customers.
Remember:
If you are actually looking to drive torrents of traffic and leads your way from Facebook in 2017 and beyond, you will need to carefully consider remarketing and paid promotions as an opportunity for brand exposure.
Why?
For starters, you can use it to garner a great following for your brand. You can also turn your followers into customers of your products or services.
Want proof?
About 58% of world’s top brands have over 100,000 Twitter followers. And around 42% international brands post 10 tweets daily.
Bit how will you leverage Twitter to your advantage?
You can do this in many ways including searching and using hashtags that are relevant to your industry. All you need to do is to target your audience by sending tweets to them in a strategic manner.
Remember:
Smart marketers use a mix of images, information and intent in their tweets to persuade people to follow their brand on Twitter.
This is new! But the good part is that it immensely easy.
Your Public Relation building efforts counts a lot in advancing the interests of your business.
In 2017 and beyond, you will need to focus on your word of mouth methods so that you can approach various media so that they spread a word about your business.
Don’t forget to send a compelling pitch to influencers in your industry with a request to write something good about what you do and sell. You may rope in social media influencers to tweet or post about your business and brand. This will ensure better exposure for your company and its business in 2017 and beyond.
Remember:
Word of mouth can spell the difference between success or failure of your business in 2017 and beyond. But be very careful for a slightest mistake can cost you dearly. Customer comes first and your word of mouth strategy must be focused on building positive sentiments about your brand by showing how customer friendly or customer oriented your brand is.
These steps will surely help in smartly promoting your business on the web. But to yield the desired results of engagement and driving traffic, you must put more time and efforts before you start beating your competition.
All the best!
Given the ever-increasing competition on the web, it’s no rocket science to understand that only smartest marketers of the lot will survive and thrive, in the times to come.
You may be wondering:
“Well, I have been publishing great content, I’m sure people will come to my site.”
If only it were that easy…
If you’re actually serious about taking your brand from Zero to Hero in 2017 and beyond, you will need to be very systematic with the way you market your brand on the digital landscape.
Otherwise you’re playing the “Dart Game Blindfolded”: throwing a bunch of darts against the board and expecting that at least one of them will hit the bull’s eye.
Well, today I’m going to show you an easy to follow 10-step guide that almost guarantees success for your brand marketing strategies in 2017 & beyond.
1. Shift Your Focus from Google to Yahoo and Bing Networks
In your search engine marketing efforts, your profitable pay per click [PPC] campaign plays a prominent role in the marketing of your brand on the web.But like many other, you too are using Google as the only go-to source for your PPC campaigns. You’ll be surprised to know that you can easily lower down your PPC cost if your average cost per click on Yahoo and Bing as against Google.
According to a study, these search engines are 10% to 24% cheaper in terms of cost per click than to the cost on Google AdWords. You probably already know that your cost per acquisition will be lower if your cost per click is reduced dramatically.
But here’s a piece of advice:
Consider reducing your cost per click expense in 2017 & beyond, if you are in insurance, medical and legal professions.
2. Instagram is The New-Age Oprah Make it Sing For Your Brand
You’ll probably agree:Brands, both big and small, LOVE to connect with customers on social media.
And what better connect with your prospective customers than Instagram?
Here’s the deal:
Instagram has already earned the tag of one of the fastest-growing social media platforms.
In fact:
Instagram's engagement rate is nearly 60 times greater than Facebook and 120 times greater than Twitter.
We are sure its impact on digital marketing strategies will continue to dominate because of its ability to drive torrents of traffic, without having to spend a fortune and many sleepless nights, in 2017 and beyond.
The Bottom line?
If you want to take your brand from Zero to Hero in 2017 and beyond, you will NEED to focus on Instagram.
3. Embrace Email marketing For A Solid ROI
If you’re a bootstrapped startup or a small startup selling ANYTHING of value to your prospective customers, you can easily turn the table and drive torrents of leads to your website.How?
By embracing email marketing with open arms!
Why?
Because email marketing offers a median ROI of 122% – 4 times higher than social media, and paid search.
Make no mistake; you’ll need to strategically launch email marketing campaigns, if you are looking to stay ahead in the curve in 2017 and beyond.
Here’s what you must do:
Send at least 2 email blasts each month. Ensure rich text emails with personalized, compelling content. Don’t forget to make sure that your emails are mobile-friendly. After all, two-thirds of all emails are read on either smartphones or tablets.
Remember:
Success of your digital marketing strategies in the rest of 2017 and beyond will depend on how efficiently you explore emails as an essential means of communication with your potential customers.
4. Explore the Immense Potential of Interactive Content
Here’s the brutal truth about content marketing:There are WAY too many marketers who think publishing great articles and blogs will give them a mileage over their competition on the web.
It gets worse:
More than 2 million blog posts are published on the web each day.
The BIG QUESTION:
With so much of competition in terms of content, how will you ensure that your content gets its share of eyeballs?
The answer:
You will need to move beyond just content and create interactive content that resonates well with your target audiences. You will need to think of interactive content marketing that can get your audiences entertained, engaged and involved, all in equal measures.
Some classic examples of interactive content that work wonders in terms of marketing your products and services are interactive blogs, quizzes, surveys, infographic, videos and images.
Want proof?
Interactive quizzes have helped Buzzfeed expand its subscriber base to more than 169 million people in virtually no time.
Here’s what you should do:
Carefully create interactive quizzes, microsites and infographics around your niche and target local set of consumers through it. Make sure that your content projects you as an expert of your business and industry.
5. Your CDN will Spell the Difference Between Your Success & Failure
Smart distribution is perhaps the foundation of any successful content marketing campaign.I’m not sure you’re thinking: “why do I need to work on content distribution when I have already created and published great content?”
Here’s the deal:
You don’t want your content to sit idle. You want to leverage it for links, traffic and leads over and over again.
But how would you ensure that your content is distributed smoothly, without having to burn midnight oil?
That’s easy: carefully select your CDN Provider.
You’ll need to choose CDN (Content Delivery Network) that can provide content to end-users with relatively faster speed, high accuracy, and high functioning.
Want to know the best part?
45% of leading 2,000 e-commerce sites in the US use CDN.
Now:
Go on select an efficient and reliable CDN for your website, if you are looking to stay ahead of your competition in 2017 and beyond.
6. Get Ready to Ride the Wave of YouTube Videos
You probably already know:You tube is the world’s second largest search engine.
Here’s what it can get your brand:
Untapped traffic, sales-ready leads and an engaged community of brand followers!
But like any other marketing strategy, you’ll need to strategically use YouTube to get your brand a lead in 2017 and beyond.
Here’s the deal:
Spend considerable time optimizing your YouTube videos. Search for relevant video keywords, ensure proper title tag, ensure proper video file name, pay heed to your video description and finally, link your video to your content marketing strategy.
Don’t forget to mention about your brand on Quora, Yahoo Answers and other popular question and answer forums. Add a link to your You Tube videos in your email signatures to grab maximum eyeballs for your videos. Also, be smart to embed your You Tube videos in your blog posts.
Remember:
Your business YouTube videos will continue to be one the main marketing tactics to engage and drive torrents of traffic to your site in 2017 and beyond.
7. What’s Your Google+ Game Plan for 2017 & Beyond?
Let’s face it – Google+ is one of the most ignored social media channels by most marketers and brands.This gets worse:
Eric Enge analyzed 516,246 Google+ profiles and found that 90.1% valid Google + profiles have never posted publicly.
Here’s what you don’t know:
Google Plus had 300 million active users and average time spent by an user on Google + daily is 12 minutes.
Now:
That is a lot of time to drive torrents of traffic to your site and get your brand some solid leads.
This gets better:
Google+ can be a useful tool to help you yield your search engine optimization results at local level.
In 2017 and beyond, if you are laying emphasis on local searches for your business or brand, consider using Google+ as a legit way to get more reviews and followers for your brand.
8. Leverage Facebook Re-marketing & Paid Promotion For Maximum Advantage
I’m sure you’ll agree:With over 1.94 billion monthly active users, Facebook is still the king when it comes to social media marketing platforms for businesses.
But here’s a shocker:
The organic reach on Facebook is dead already!
In fact:
Only around 16% of your fans see your updates and posts.
This fact could be pose a potential threat to your dreams of becoming smartest digital marketer in 2017 and beyond by leveraging Facebook to your advantage.
I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself:
“How can I leverage Facebook to my advantage if the organic reach is already dead?”
By a solid Facebook re-marketing strategy!
Plan a re-marketing strategy to ensure a significant surge in the conversion of Facebook fans into actual paying, buyers for your business. Leverage Facebook Lookalike Audience feature to reach out to new people who run a similar businesses.
Set your account on Facebook under its Custom Audience feature; create a lookalike audience as an option to get your Custom Audience list. Upload your email-marketing database on Facebook’s advertising platform to target your demographic audience who carry similar customer profile as that of your existing customers.
Don’t forget to leverage paid promotions of your business on Facebook. With a small amount of money added to your promotion activity on Facebook, you can spike your communication with potential customers.
Remember:
If you are actually looking to drive torrents of traffic and leads your way from Facebook in 2017 and beyond, you will need to carefully consider remarketing and paid promotions as an opportunity for brand exposure.
9. Devise a Foolproof Twitter Outreach Strategy
With 313 million monthly active users, Twitter is yet another go-to source when the question is becoming the smartest digital marketer of 2017 and beyond.Why?
For starters, you can use it to garner a great following for your brand. You can also turn your followers into customers of your products or services.
Want proof?
About 58% of world’s top brands have over 100,000 Twitter followers. And around 42% international brands post 10 tweets daily.
Bit how will you leverage Twitter to your advantage?
You can do this in many ways including searching and using hashtags that are relevant to your industry. All you need to do is to target your audience by sending tweets to them in a strategic manner.
Remember:
Smart marketers use a mix of images, information and intent in their tweets to persuade people to follow their brand on Twitter.
10. Leverage Word of Mouth to Stay Ahead in the Years to Come
Okay:This is new! But the good part is that it immensely easy.
Your Public Relation building efforts counts a lot in advancing the interests of your business.
In 2017 and beyond, you will need to focus on your word of mouth methods so that you can approach various media so that they spread a word about your business.
Don’t forget to send a compelling pitch to influencers in your industry with a request to write something good about what you do and sell. You may rope in social media influencers to tweet or post about your business and brand. This will ensure better exposure for your company and its business in 2017 and beyond.
Remember:
Word of mouth can spell the difference between success or failure of your business in 2017 and beyond. But be very careful for a slightest mistake can cost you dearly. Customer comes first and your word of mouth strategy must be focused on building positive sentiments about your brand by showing how customer friendly or customer oriented your brand is.
Over to You!
So there you have it – 10 easy steps to become smartest digital marketer for 2017 and beyond.These steps will surely help in smartly promoting your business on the web. But to yield the desired results of engagement and driving traffic, you must put more time and efforts before you start beating your competition.
All the best!
Author bio:
Ankit Roy has been a columnist, digital marketing expert, blogger & Co-Founder of The Offbeat Story. He specializes in digital marketing strategies, technical and international creative SEO, web analytics, and business development strategy. He provides ghost writing, coaching and ghost editing services.
