Whatever your business is — an independent store, pop-up street food stall, online jewellery shop, or service company — you need to make sure that your digital presence is strong, current, and up to date. Sometimes it feels as though you have done all the hard work by getting to launch, sourcing your products, and getting your website set up. But that is just the start of your successful business journey.
Online and digital marketing has been growing in importance over the last twenty years but the Covid 19 pandemic was a turning point with consumers, particularly in emerging economies, shifting to online shopping in droves. While restrictions have lifted and economies continue to open up, consumers have become accustomed to the convenience of online browsing and shopping. Your website and social media presence are going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting for you.
Here are five essential tips to keep your business front of mind with your customers and keep them coming back to your website or store for more and to help you grow your business faster.
Content marketing strategy
Your website should have a blogging option that allows you to introduce fresh content and stories about your business. A blog not only helps keep customers on your site for longer and increases their level of loyalty and engagement, it also drives more traffic to your site through search engines. Consider what message you want to get across to your customers. You should try to establish yourself as a thought leader, so people are interested to know your reaction to product launches or news in your sector. Don’t only focus on one type of content. By having multiple blog options, you can break out of a particular niche and attract new customers.
Your blog doesn’t only need to be words. Think about creating videos and infographics. Your content should be shareable to gain traction.
Build your email lists
It can be too easy to think of email as part of older technology, but it is still incredibly important and will be how you send out sales confirmations, shipping information and allows you to keep in touch with your customers. Make sure you build a good email customer database. There are plenty of excellent email marketing platforms such as Mail Chimp and Sender that you can import your customer data into. It is important that you comply with GDPR when collecting data and allow your customers to opt-out in the future if they want fewer emails. You should set the database up to allow you to segment your customers and send relevant messages to the right people
Promotions and discounts
You can make your customers feel special and that you have an offer exclusively for them. You can use your email lists to target your promotions to the right. There’s a lot to learn from gambling companies, regardless of whether you approve of their products. They are always introducing new games and promoting the best new slots to encourage their customers back offering special discounts and promotion codes. Promotions don’t always have to offer a discount, so do also consider value-added offers or loyalty schemes. You know your customer and your business, so tailor your promotion to fit your brand image.
Social media is king
You need a presence across social media on at least Facebook and Instagram. Twitter is also an important platform. Depending on whom you are targeting as customers you may want a Tik-Tok account too. Good quality, interesting photos, and videos of your latest products or recent jobs will keep your feed up to date and alive. If you embed your social media feeds into your homepage you can use this to ensure your website has a constantly refreshed feed. You can share your blog posts to your social media accounts and create a circular marketing strategy.
Involve your customers
On social media and via other routes you can invite your followers to create guest posts and review products and services you have provided. You can use existing review tools like Trust Pilot to build up customer feedback which is published on their site and also shown on your site. This helps to build confidence in your brand and bring new customers in.