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4 Digital Marketing Hacks To Grow Your Business In 2016

by | Aug 3, 2016 | Digital Marketing

In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, it’s easy for small business owners and brands that are new to the platform to get left behind. Luckily, if this sounds like you, the following 4 tips are exactly what you need to get started online and keep up to date with the rapidly growing and evolving online environment.

Tip #1: Use social media platforms to their full potential

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Linkedin, Periscope, Vine, WhatsApp and the list goes on. All of these platforms have easy to use advertising platforms for you to use and take advantage of every single day. What’s even better, the number of different social media platforms out there is growing EVERY day. There are literally hundreds of different ways you can leverage social media platforms to increase awareness, leads and overall sales.

Getting started is easy, create an account on whichever platforms are relevant to your target market and the potential is unlimited. In 2015, companies increased their social media advertising spending by 33.5% to $24 billion – this figure is all the more incredible because in the early 2000’s, this number was $0.

 

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Benefits of using Social Media to grow your business:

  • Increased Brand Recognition – your social media networks are just another channel for your brand, you are more accessible, familiar and recognizable for new customers if you use social media.
  • Improved Brand Loyalty – social media has shown that it provides customers with a more authentic connection to a brand if they are active and engaging on social media.
  • More leads and conversion opportunities – people like doing business with people, and social media allows brands to have a voice, act like people do and as such, leads to an increase in conversion rates.
  • Increased inbound traffic – every social media account you have provides consumers with another path to to your site, the more quality content your produce on these platforms the more traffic you will generate.
  • Better SEO rankings – strong brands use social media and being “active” on social media acts as a signal to search engines that you are legitimate, credible and trustworthy which in turn will increase your SEO ranking.
  • Instant feedback – You want your brand to have a voice. One of the most overlooked benefits of social media for your business is the ability to provide instant, real-time feedback to customers strengthening customer loyalty and giving your brand a “HUMAN TOUCH.”

Some fun facts about social media that you should know

Tip #2: Content marketing is what people value

Content marketing is an approach which focuses primarily on creating valuable, relevant and consistent content to a clearly defined audience. The real driver of content marketing is to attract and engage the right audience. The fastest and easiest way to build an audience, which usually takes a lot of time, is through working with influencers. GoPro and RedBull are two of the most effective audience-building marketing brands – they know exactly who they are marketing to, who their audience is and what they want to see.

In this day and age, everyone’s unique online experience is about providing them value, not visibility and at the end of the day the brands that provide the best value will always end up on top. Optimizing the customer experience, providing solutions to your customers before they even are ones and this all comes from quality content.

Learn the basics of Content Marketing

Content marketing and SEO are like peanut butter and jelly, they go together, they just fit. The only way content marketing can work is to have SEO. SEO makes demands and content marketing fulfills those demands. SEO demands keywords, content marketing means using keywords. Content marketing is the process of creating focused and compelling content for the consumer. With a central focus on serving a specific target market its key goals are to build brand awareness, lead generation and conversions, prospect nurturing and ultimately revenue generation.

Components of Content Marketing

  • Define objectives
  • Identify the target market and buyer personas
  • Document the prospect’s buying cycle
  • Create a strategy and plan
  • Create compelling and useful content
  • Promote content
  • Define metrics and review available reporting

 

Goals of Content Marketing

  • Brand awareness for an individual or company
  • Lead generation and conversions
  • Prospect nurturing
  • Revenue generation

Fun Fact: 88% of B2B marketers use content marketing. (Content Marketing Institute)

Tip #3: Video advertising is KEY

The most important marketing development and strategy today is video. Whether it’s live Facebook videos, Snapchat stories, YouTube live or Periscope, you can be sure that the most important content you should be creating and marketing is VIDEO. You know how to create a BLOG, now let’s go one step further, the future is in VLOG’s; swap the B for a V and you’ve found yourself in 2017. The rise of YouTube, podcasts and online vlogs has taken content creation for consumers to another level, we can now see, hear and listen to the people behind the blogs.

Think about what makes your business unique and highlight those qualities in your videos, in order to tell your story. Humans are visual creatures, we process visuals 60,000x faster than text, we click on articles with videos 3x more than we do those without, and we are 10x more likely to engage with video content as opposed to text-only social media posts.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, video on social media is absolutely exploding. Here’s some fun facts you should keep in mind when thinking about starting video advertising.

Fun facts of video marketing for 2016

Key Tips for successful Video Advertising:

  • Focus on Facebook, not Youtube.
  • Facebook video is smart, shareable and personal
  • Twitter video is direct, social and real and focusses on engagement, it is a “pull” not a “push.”
  • Snapchat video is the cool kid on the block. It will get your undivided attention, as you physically have to press to watch someone’s story.
  • Use the word VIDEO in subject lines to increase your open rates by 19%.

 

Key Benefits of Video Advertising:

  • Tells your story
  • Boost Engagement
  • Increase Website traffic
  • Higher Credibility
  • Conversion Increase

 

Tip #4: Mobile trumps Desktop

What device is winning the eyeball race

How often do you search something on your phone before your desktop? How many hours per day do you spend on your mobile vs laptop? All of these questions have the same answer. MOBILE. Email marketing statistics show that we are significantly more likely to open and engage an email we receive on our mobile over our desktop. Mobile usage has experienced a significant rise and online businesses can simply no longer overlook the power and influence mobile has.

By 2018, global mobile data traffic is predicted to reach an annual run rate of 190 exabytes per year, up from 18 in 2013 (exabyte = 1 billion Gigabytes). This kind of volume outlines the growing presence of mobile, online businesses and marketers can’t afford to overlook mobile value anymore. The number of mobile-only internet users has trounced desktop only users, and this shift will only continue. Most of your marketing efforts, and all social media needs to be optimized around mobile users.

A Comscore report on total search volumes for the U.S. in 2014 offered a telling insight into the statistics behind search, and showed that smartphone and tablet search accounted for an estimated 29% of all searches made in 2014. If patterns and behaviours established in the U.S. previously are anything to go by, we can expect these numbers to rise and make an impact in the Australian marketplace also. Mobile accounted for approximately 1 in every 6 retail dollars spent online in 2015 with this number expected to significantly increase.

Benefits of a mobile optimized website:

  • There are now more mobile users worldwide than desktop
  • Over 30% of traffic comes from mobile
  • 93% of people who use their mobile to research something, will end up buying it.
  • Can target information to people on the move
  • Google ranks you higher if your website is optimized for mobile viewing!
  • Social media shares on mobile is enormous
  • Advertising on mobile is less intrusive

 

Key takeaways:

  • Use Social Media to grow your brand and online presence
  • Video advertising is extremely powerful and watch out for live streaming in the future..
  • Optimise your website for mobile use
  • Create valuable content for your consumers
  • The online experience for businesses and marketers is ever-changing, so get started today, and don’t get left behind tomorrow!

Expert tip: Watch out for the rise of Snapchat and Facebook live streaming and the benefits they can bring to your business!

 

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