As e-commerce evolves, your business needs to evolve as well. By focusing on a few key areas, you can improve your online marketing strategy and benefit from the results.
In today’s digital marketplace, online marketing has become an essential part of any business. Even individuals looking to sell a product or sell their personal brand should have a marketing strategy in place. Although the field is a complex one, online marketing is governed by many of the same fundamental ground rules that apply to all kinds of marketing. As e-commerce evolves, your business needs to evolve as well. By focusing on a few key areas, you can improve your online marketing strategy and benefit from the results.
1. Know Your Target Audience
This may seem like a no-brainer. It has always been important to know who you’re addressing with your advertising, who the target demographic is, and where the gaps are in your online engagement. But the advent of new data analytics and consumer tracking technology in the last decade has made knowing your audience an entirely new paradigm. Using a variety of tools at your disposal (often offered to businesses for free on various platforms), you can track trends, web traffic, and much more.
Not only can you know who’s engaging the most with your business, but you can learn which days of the week they do so most, which ads seem to be working best, and more. Want to know the demographics of consumers browsing similar or related products to yours? Done. Want to see which of your target demographics are becoming more or less financially active? Easy.
By using big data tools to examine consumer trends, you can strategize and plan your marketing strategy to maximize your impact. Focus on attracting new customers and increasing engagement, filling unmet demands in the market, and getting the most use out of your advertising dollars. The information is all out there; you just have to know how to use it effectively.
2. Invest in Good Design
The modern consumer combs through more options online than ever before prior to making a purchasing decision. Online marketplaces and increased specialization among companies has led to plenty of options competing with each other for consumer dollars, and consumer attention. Speaking of consumer attention spans, those are at an all-time low. So how do you differentiate yourself from competitors in this fast-paced and crowded field? By looking good from the get-go.
Humans are visual creatures, so if your initial thumbnail or website is visually unappealing, you’ve already lost your audience. To make a great split-second impression, invest in good visual and interface design to make the use of your website look and feel good.
Investing in your visual media involves getting high quality photos and logos, as well as an uncluttered design and memorable visual cues that you can utilize across platforms. Yes, hiring graphic designers and photographers is expensive, but it’s money that will get paid back in spades with more clicks, page views, and purchases down the line.
3. Utilize Social Media
With so much of online time spent on social media, platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook have become prime territory to pursue an online marketing strategy. Not only do these sites offer special features for business accounts like custom analytics and ad targeting, but they have potential even beyond their integrated marketing tools.
Dollars spent on targeted ads go a lot further than posting general ads that have a tiny chance of showing up for anyone. Built-in user analytics can show you who to target next and what kind of content is working the best in your marketing campaign. Split testing different marketing options – trying out slightly different iterations of an ad to see how the reaction compares ­– is also incredibly easy using most social media platforms.
Of course, make sure that you adapt your marketing strategy to each platform. The images you use for Instagram should not be identical to those you use on Pinterest. Get used to each medium and learn to work within its unique vibe. Along those lines, make sure that your brand’s social media pages are up to date and aren’t just pumping out ads. Accounts that comment on organic content and engage with real people on social media, or even with other brands, are more likely to seem appealing to users and gain traction.
4. Get Creative
Now that you’ve focused on some of the key areas of the modern online marketing landscape, feel free to think outside the box a bit more.
Combining creative thinking with the focus areas already covered above can make your marketing strategy incredibly effective. For example, if you’re looking to update your brand’s logo, why not hold a logo design competition with a prize for the best design? This will fill one of your brand’s needs while potentially saving you money and increasing brand exposure.
You can also approach the social media sphere with creative strategies. Develop a unique voice and stick to it, whether that’s being funny or sincere, as long as it matches your brand. Consider partnering with influencers or sponsoring brand ambassadors to spread your business name to thousands of people without the need for direct advertising.
In Conclusion
Online marketing shouldn’t be thought of simply as a job that needs doing; instead, it presents an opportunity to further your business that can be fun and rewarding. Make sure you make use of today’s impressive customer analytics tools to learn more about your audience and their habits. Use this to make your advertising more effective and to develop plans to attract new potential customers.
Don’t hesitate to invest some money into making sure your online presence looks and feels good. Good design can make the difference in whether you’re scrolled past on a page of twenty search results or if you make a new connection with an online user.
Use social media to your advantage, both with the built-in business features present on most major platforms and by thinking outside the box. Use creative thinking in all aspects of your online marketing strategy, and both you and your company will enjoy the benefits.
We hope you enjoyed these online marketing strategy tips! For more useful articles about commerce, the job market, and online marketing, check out the blog.
Tori Lutz is a Freelance Writer, Editor & Social Media Strategist.
