Whether a business is online or a brick and mortar store, the availability of information at our fingertips in the age of technology demands that business owners have a strong digital marketing plan to shine light on their products and services at every opportunity on every platform. Finding creative ways to put your vision and mission in front of millions of people on the Internet every day will help you stand out from the crowd.
Here are some strategies and tools that bring attention to your business and keep it there.
Before you begin marketing on social media, it’s important to do some research to determine which platforms attract the demographic most likely to buy your product. Pick all relevant platforms and set up a rotating schedule for your social media posts. If you publish an engaging post on all your platforms, your target audience is more likely to see it once or twice. This helps to reinforce your brand name and offering again and again in the consumer’s mind and ensures top of mind awareness (TOMA).
But how do you attract your target audience’s attention amidst all the digital chatter? We are all bombarded with so many digital stimuli each day, your message must be concise and highly appealing to even be noticed. One way to achieve this is to create posts with attention-grabbing visuals. Young people, called digital natives, who have grown up with constant social media exposure require eye-catching graphics or videos to be drawn to a social media post.
This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of time or money on expensive graphic designers to create these kinds of engaging posts. Even if you don’t have a vast budget or any design expertise yourself, PosterMyWall can help you. You can easily find ready-made design templates for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more on this free graphic design software. Simply choose a template by category or size from a range of 115,000+ professionally designed templates, personalize it for your brand by customizing the text, fonts, color schemes and imagery, add your brand’s logo - and you’re ready for the world of social media marketing.
Moreover, posting the same visual on all your selected platforms does not mean having to recreate the same design in 5 different sizes every time. Simply use the free Resize feature in the PosterMyWall editor to resize the design to any of the 60+ design sizes available, or create a custom size. And once all your designs and design sizes are ready, you can publish your posts directly to your Facebook pages and Twitter accounts through PosterMyWall’s extensive sharing options. Their Premium plan even allows you to schedule the posts for later - just add your caption and schedule the post for a specific time and simply move on to your next task without worrying about the hassle of posting at different times. It’s so easy!
A blog or website is quite easy to create nowadays with sites like WordPress and HubSpot that walk you through the process of creating and managing the site. What is more tricky is getting the right content out in the right packaging. Like we said, the attention span of digital natives is relatively short so your content should be sharp and focused as you spread the vision for your business. The range of topics you cover should be diverse and comprehensive. This will improve your brand reputation and establish you as an expert in the industry, and your customer base will grow as people learn to turn to you for useful information. Some basic knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can also help lead to higher rankings as people search the Internet and find their way to you. (Don’t worry, we will discuss this in more detail in our fourth strategy.)
Keep in mind that paragraph after paragraph of text content can be off-putting for blog visitors sometimes even if information is what they came looking for. Customizing your blog by using eye-catching graphics and enticing blog headers can be a game-changer for bounce-rate and make the reader want to read on. Adding a nice-looking and useful visual after every 400 words can help to break up the text and make the content more easy to consume.
Such graphics are easy to create using PosterMyWall which offers hundreds of blog header templates to add a personalized and captivating preview to your blog post, quote templates to highlight certain sentences in the blog post or add credibility to the post by citing known authorities on the topic, and many other options, depending on the nature of the blog post.
The subject line of such an email is critical. An engaging subject increases the chances of the reader opening the email. You can personalize your email content and subject lines for different segments of your target audience or make a catchy one to get everyone curious about the content.
It is also important to track the success of the emails you are sending out to check if they are as effective as you would like them to be. Testing different subject lines for the same email, known as A/B testing, can help you determine what kind of subject is more likely to be opened by people in your target audience. Many email campaign softwares, like MailChimp and Active Campaign, have built-in A/B testing tools.
It is also important to make your emails visually appealing and engaging to make people pause and read the email before they decide to close it. Also a banner maker, PosterMyWall’s hundreds of stunning email header templates are sure to do wonders for your email bounce rates.
Does that mean you need to create new imagery in different sizes for every platform you post to? Nope! You can simply resize your designs made in PosterMyWall, into over 60 different size options using their free Resize option in the editor!
So it is a given: you need to optimize your content for SEO to get an edge over competitors lower down on the results page. All content you create must be optimized, including your web pages, and your blog posts and articles and it must be done regularly.
It might sound a little complicated to people who are unfamiliar with SEO but there are tools that can help you identify important keywords that customers commonly search for and make the process easy, even for newcomers. For example, Moz.com has done all the research for you and can also help you keep a check on whether your SEO efforts are paying off. It allows you to strategically target keywords keeping in mind keyword volume, keyword difficulty and other metrics. It also lets you save keyword lists specific to your business that you can track and update as needed.
Venturing into digital marketing might seem overwhelming at first, but by using tools like PosterMyWall, Wordpress and Moz, and breaking it down into the easy-to-handle chunks, any business owner can make it work.
Read next: 19 Actionable Image Optimization Hacks For Ranking in Google Search Results [infographic]
Here are some strategies and tools that bring attention to your business and keep it there.
1. Social Media Marketing
A Facebook user might be chatting with a friend about her wedding and then suddenly decide to search for a wedding planner, all right there on that social media platform. As a matter of fact, recent stats show that 78% of Americans have found products to buy using Facebook as a search platform. That’s huge news for businesses who are constantly in search of effective avenues to market themselves and gain loyal customers.Before you begin marketing on social media, it’s important to do some research to determine which platforms attract the demographic most likely to buy your product. Pick all relevant platforms and set up a rotating schedule for your social media posts. If you publish an engaging post on all your platforms, your target audience is more likely to see it once or twice. This helps to reinforce your brand name and offering again and again in the consumer’s mind and ensures top of mind awareness (TOMA).
But how do you attract your target audience’s attention amidst all the digital chatter? We are all bombarded with so many digital stimuli each day, your message must be concise and highly appealing to even be noticed. One way to achieve this is to create posts with attention-grabbing visuals. Young people, called digital natives, who have grown up with constant social media exposure require eye-catching graphics or videos to be drawn to a social media post.
This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of time or money on expensive graphic designers to create these kinds of engaging posts. Even if you don’t have a vast budget or any design expertise yourself, PosterMyWall can help you. You can easily find ready-made design templates for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more on this free graphic design software. Simply choose a template by category or size from a range of 115,000+ professionally designed templates, personalize it for your brand by customizing the text, fonts, color schemes and imagery, add your brand’s logo - and you’re ready for the world of social media marketing.
Moreover, posting the same visual on all your selected platforms does not mean having to recreate the same design in 5 different sizes every time. Simply use the free Resize feature in the PosterMyWall editor to resize the design to any of the 60+ design sizes available, or create a custom size. And once all your designs and design sizes are ready, you can publish your posts directly to your Facebook pages and Twitter accounts through PosterMyWall’s extensive sharing options. Their Premium plan even allows you to schedule the posts for later - just add your caption and schedule the post for a specific time and simply move on to your next task without worrying about the hassle of posting at different times. It’s so easy!
2. Content Writing
Writing content about the product or service you are passionate about is the next step. A business exists because someone like you has a passion and is an expert in that field. Content marketing puts a laser focus on all the great information and expertise the business has to offer and makes it available for buyers. That can be in the form of articles, blog posts, newsletters, case studies, videos, or webinars, and a combination of this media will reach the largest pool of customers. If you understand your target audience, you will have a better idea of what medium is most suitable for them.A blog or website is quite easy to create nowadays with sites like WordPress and HubSpot that walk you through the process of creating and managing the site. What is more tricky is getting the right content out in the right packaging. Like we said, the attention span of digital natives is relatively short so your content should be sharp and focused as you spread the vision for your business. The range of topics you cover should be diverse and comprehensive. This will improve your brand reputation and establish you as an expert in the industry, and your customer base will grow as people learn to turn to you for useful information. Some basic knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can also help lead to higher rankings as people search the Internet and find their way to you. (Don’t worry, we will discuss this in more detail in our fourth strategy.)
Keep in mind that paragraph after paragraph of text content can be off-putting for blog visitors sometimes even if information is what they came looking for. Customizing your blog by using eye-catching graphics and enticing blog headers can be a game-changer for bounce-rate and make the reader want to read on. Adding a nice-looking and useful visual after every 400 words can help to break up the text and make the content more easy to consume.
Such graphics are easy to create using PosterMyWall which offers hundreds of blog header templates to add a personalized and captivating preview to your blog post, quote templates to highlight certain sentences in the blog post or add credibility to the post by citing known authorities on the topic, and many other options, depending on the nature of the blog post.
3. Email Marketing
That website or blog you just created needs to be seen by people. You can get the word out with a well-crafted email that leads people to your content.The subject line of such an email is critical. An engaging subject increases the chances of the reader opening the email. You can personalize your email content and subject lines for different segments of your target audience or make a catchy one to get everyone curious about the content.
It is also important to track the success of the emails you are sending out to check if they are as effective as you would like them to be. Testing different subject lines for the same email, known as A/B testing, can help you determine what kind of subject is more likely to be opened by people in your target audience. Many email campaign softwares, like MailChimp and Active Campaign, have built-in A/B testing tools.
It is also important to make your emails visually appealing and engaging to make people pause and read the email before they decide to close it. Also a banner maker, PosterMyWall’s hundreds of stunning email header templates are sure to do wonders for your email bounce rates.
4. Repurposing
Repurposing well-performing content is the oldest trick in the book. Your best pieces can still be leveraged to get more attention by turning them into fresh content for other platforms. Recycling that engaging blog you wrote last month for another platform saves you time and effort moving forward - it can be turned into a YouTube video tutorial, for example. Some people find it easier to watch videos than read blog posts to get the information they require so you should have all your content spread across all channels. Some people also prefer to receive information in small bites instead of long-form blog posts. In that case, a blog post can also be taken apart and used as a series of informational posts on social media. Keep in mind that all channels are not suitable for all types of content so be careful when deciding how to repurpose your content.Does that mean you need to create new imagery in different sizes for every platform you post to? Nope! You can simply resize your designs made in PosterMyWall, into over 60 different size options using their free Resize option in the editor!
5. Optimizing for SEO
We have mentioned Search Engine Optimization (SEO) above but what is it really? When most people run a search on the Internet, they click on one of the top 5 search results on the page and that’s where you want your business to appear. SEO is done to improve the chances that your business will pop up in one of these top spots when someone searches for a term or keyword that is relevant to the product that you offer.So it is a given: you need to optimize your content for SEO to get an edge over competitors lower down on the results page. All content you create must be optimized, including your web pages, and your blog posts and articles and it must be done regularly.
It might sound a little complicated to people who are unfamiliar with SEO but there are tools that can help you identify important keywords that customers commonly search for and make the process easy, even for newcomers. For example, Moz.com has done all the research for you and can also help you keep a check on whether your SEO efforts are paying off. It allows you to strategically target keywords keeping in mind keyword volume, keyword difficulty and other metrics. It also lets you save keyword lists specific to your business that you can track and update as needed.
Conclusion
Your business must stay relevant and relatable for consumers. It is important to keep up with new digital marketing trends in the ever-changing environment. Make sure you have a clear marketing objective for the digital world: identify your target populations, determine which platforms those potential customers use most, and then use the strategies outlined here to get you started.Venturing into digital marketing might seem overwhelming at first, but by using tools like PosterMyWall, Wordpress and Moz, and breaking it down into the easy-to-handle chunks, any business owner can make it work.
Read next: 19 Actionable Image Optimization Hacks For Ranking in Google Search Results [infographic]
