In our past articles, we have talked about marketing trends in 2020. In this article, let’s dive in specific strategies you can do RIGHT NOW to fast track the growth of your business:
1. Make sure your website is optimized to drive conversion
A conversion-driven website is different from the rest. It has all the bells and whistles done right. You’d want a clean, modern design with a good UX design. Don’t ever let your visitors wonder what to do next on your website. Make the Call-to-action clear and visible, but at the same time, don’t bombard them with too many texts, information or images on one single webpage.
Find a balance between being basic and being cluttered. Simplicity is key. If you want to know more about the strategies we use to drive conversion for our clients, make sure to check out our 5 tips to skyrocket your website conversion rate. And as always, make sure your site is fully mobile-optimized, it’s simply a MUST!
2. Provide visual social proof
Most consumers research a company before doing any business with them. Especially if you’re a local business, you have to pay attention to online reputation management (ORM).
Makes sure that your website includes testimonials from real customers, your Google Business page is curated and well managed and your social media depicts professionalism.
However, ORM is not only about having good Google, Facebook, Amazon and Yelp reviews but also social listening - “how you track, analyze and respond to conversations about your brand and industry online”, so that means you have to pay attention to how you respond to both positive and negative comments, reviews and opinions of consumers on your brand.
3. Nurture the right influencer for your brand
Influencer marketing is not about the biggest celebrity with millions or hundreds of thousands of followers anymore. The trend is moving towards micro and nano-influencer - who may have only a few thousands or just hundreds of followers - but highly engaged and see that influencer as an authority/ thought & trend leader.
These small influencers are proved to be more cost-effective and have a bigger impact on your bottom-line success than the mega influencers that your marketing budget may not be able to afford.
4. Have a concrete Content Marketing strategy
Content is (still) King. Content marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. Trying to sell to your customers simply by telling them how great you are doesn’t work well anymore. In this day and age, you have to provide value, build trust and rapport with the audience by offering them free and quality content.
You can implement this strategy by publishing regular blog posts on industry trends, tips and tricks as well as sending out frequent email newsletters with unique insights that can help your customers become more educated on the subject/ products they care about.
5. Take advantage of Email Marketing
As mentioned above, email can be a part of your content marketing strategy, or it can assist with sending out special offers to your existing customers who are already on your email subscription list.
This has proven to be highly effective. Hubspot reveals that 91 percent of shoppers want to hear from companies they do business with via email, and according to PR Daily:
- Email marketing has an average return on investment of 3,800 percent
- 81 percent of online shoppers who receive emails based on past shopping habits consider another purchase
- 72 percent of consumers prefer to receive promotional content through email than social media
If you integrate email newsletters into your marketing strategy carefully, it can be an incredibly cost-effective way to reach consumers while making the most of other content you’ve already created. These types of messages are a fantastic place to share your blog posts as well as any videos, graphics or other designs you craft for your brand.
6. Foster a sense of community on social media
Creating an engaging social media presence is challenging to a lot of business if they don’t know which platform is the best for them. Should you use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, Snapchat or (even) Tiktok? You don’t need to invest in every platform, in fact, we advise against it. Choose your platform wisely, pay attention to the platform that your target consumers are using the most and invest in creating an outstanding content strategy specifically suitable for the chosen platform(s).
Even though we advise not to use all or too many platforms, don’t just focus on one single social media site. You want to diversify your social presence to 2-3 platforms that have the highest engagement and drive the most traffic to your site. Building brand awareness starts with your online presence, so make sure that what you post online resonates with your target consumers and aligns with your brand values.
To increase engagement, ask questions, build connections, reply to comments and messages, leave comments and messages on other accounts, show your audience that you appreciate them by holding contests, giveaways, giving them shoutouts and acknowledge their support regularly.
7. Incentivize your community to create content
Creating a strong online community is only the first and, arguably, the most challenging step. Brands have to stay on top of the social media game by empowering their audiences to create content for them.
User-generated content (UGC) is another type of visual social proof and accounted for 90 percent of purchasing decisions. It's easier for consumers to relate to and trust a regular person than fancy, expensive advertisements or a celebrity endorsing the brand. So it comes as no surprise that the engagement rate for UGC is nearly 7 times higher than that of brand-created content. As a result, when putting your marketing strategy together, you should think about the incentives that you can give to your community to encourage them to create content and better yet, become your own brand ambassador.
Regardless of whether it is a product discount, a special reward, an exclusive invitation to an event or just a sense of connection and community, make the opportunity stand out and accessible for everyone! Don’t forget to then use the content, and share it effectively to further engage your online audience.
8. Invest in highly targeted online advertising campaigns
Do you know one of the best ways to attract new customers to your business?
The answer: Targeted advertising.
Social media algorithms are constantly changing, making it harder for organic content to reach new users. As a result, it’s crucial to include advertising in your marketing strategy. It’s one of the most effective ways to increase your brand’s visibility and following on top social media platforms.
Either you do it yourself or leave it to an agency, make sure that your ads are effectively targeted to your ideal customers you want to attract. Locations, age, genders, interests, behaviour patterns, etc. take all of those factors into considerations and make the right decision before wasting your advertising dollars on poorly designed campaigns.
9. Make analytics your best friend
When it comes to analytics, make sure that your marketing strategy includes a periodic review of available data. Taking the time to review Google Analytics, social media insights and open rates for both emails and click-throughs will provide much better direction than all the top industry research you can find.
Have a look specifically at how your readers and followers react to your content. While you want to give time to your marketing strategy before dropping a plan or reallocating your funds, evaluating these observations will help you fine-tune your approach to ensuring that you deliver the company's messages in the best possible way. The whole point, remember, is to connect with people. You can listen to what your audience is saying by looking at the metrics from their likes, comments, messages, tweets, shares, clicks, amount of time spent on a website, etc.
10. Pay attention, improve and maintain excellent SEO
No one can deny the importance of good search engine optimization. Ranking for the right keywords can be the difference between users seeing your content or missing it, so it’s important to do substantial research if you want your pages and posts to rank highly. Researching keyword demand for your industry will help you learn about your customers and find out which terms to target with SEO so that you reach the relevant audience for your brand.
In 2020, the trend is moving towards medium-tail keywords. Often referred to as “chunky keywords,” medium-tail keywords are moderately competitive keywords consisting of 2-3 words (for example: “marketing agency Oakville” or “SEO strategies 2020”)
Medium-tail keywords are better because they are more descriptive than short-tail keywords, which means they are less popular but still have more search volume than long-tail keywords.
In recent years, Google has revised the algorithm to understand that many similar long-tail keywords actually refer to the same thing. The outcome? Longer form content that talks lengthily and in-depth about a subject will be ranked higher than pithy posts that rely on extremely specific keyword phrases. Medium-tail keywords may be the ideal sweet spot between long-tail and short-tail keywords, but it still takes a lot of work to get pages targeting these medium-tail keywords to rank well. Your content needs to be of high quality, and you’ll need plenty of inbound links if you want search engines to really pay attention to what you have on your site.
Our Marketing team at Microswift wishes you and your business plenty of good luck and success in 2020! Try implementing these tips and let us know what you think!
