We do so much of our marketing online these days that small changes can make a big difference to a business’ overall success. That’s why we are providing you with eight online marketing tricks your business may not be using – or may not have even heard about.
1. Optimize your site for mobile. Everyone is shopping and doing online research from their phones these days. You know it, we know it, and Google knows it. If you need more proof, have your marketing team check your Google Analytics and tell you which devices users accessed your site from. We bet it will mainly be mobile devices.
Additionally, there’s a HUGE reason to optimize your site for mobile now: Google is giving mobile optimized sites preference over other sites. This doesn’t mean you should throw away your SEO strategies. It does mean you need to get with your web department and update your site to make it completely mobile-friendly while maintaining your SEO strategies to stay competitive.
2. Don’t just brand across sites and social media – use Facebook and Google Ads to get your brand on every platform. Facebook now offers “brand awareness” and “local awareness” ads, while Google Adwords can give you image ads that pull your theme and branding into the ad itself. You don’t have to use text-only ads in Google Adwords anymore.
Another factor to consider is that Facebook ads now run on Instagram and other media across the internet and across the many, many apps that get paid by running ads. This means the Facebook ad your team creates to go up on a traditional newsfeed can also be selected to show in your potential client’s Instagram feed, free game, free diet app, and more. It’s similar to the days when we would buy billboard ads, ads on bus benches, and ads in magazines and TV to show that we are everywhere. Now, you can be everywhere on the internet at a much lower price.
Google Ads work similarly in that they can run within other websites, and even be associated with specific words within the text of websites. You can get extremely granular with Google Ads and your keywords, making your brand feel like the natural place for your potential customer to head to.
3. Don’t only go for paid ads. If you are advertising a product or service, give that product or service to bloggers and ask them if they are willing to blog about it. We recently saw a huge campaign for Blue Apron that was absolutely brilliant. Not only did they buy ads, and send out promotional discount mailers, they asked a variety of bloggers if they could give them Blue Apron for free. In exchange, the blogger would review the service. This made their brand feel ubiquitous, and they are still the first place I think of when I think of meal delivery services.
We rarely see companies do this type of “free” advertising right. Many fall back on paid ads and social media because that’s something they know and understand. However, you’d be surprised at the reaction you’ll get from freelance bloggers when you give them free, high quality, products or services to review.
4. Get a granular breakdown using every site’s analytics tools. Whether your marketing team uses a scheduling tool like Hootsuite or an overall marketing platform like Hubspot, many individual sites and social networks provide better analytics than your platform of choice. While you likely will want to keep your metrics coming from a specific, predefined source – getting the full breakdown of all analytics from every site your business is on will help you or your marketing team understand the small tweaks that go into making an overall successful marketing plan.
For example, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook all have incredibly detailed analytics information. Your team can mine this information to understand which posts were successful, which were unsuccessful, and why. It could be that one post went up at 9 AM and was wildly successful, while a similar post that went up at 12 PM didn’t get any interaction. Perhaps your demographic loves to share daily inspiration instead of tips and tricks. Your marketing team can gather this information and more directly from social sites.
In the end, it takes longer to mine data direct from each social network, but the small changes that come from understanding how each individual piece of content affects your customer base can make a huge difference.
5. Use Facebook post “Likes” to additional advantage. One of the most frustrating things about boosting posts on Facebook is that you show your posts to your core demographic group – and they will never see another post from you unless they “Like” your page. This can lead businesses on an endless cycle of boosting posts to try to get their message in front of the same audiences, without ever getting a new organic “Like” on the page.
Here’s the trick: When a person “likes” your post, you can click on that “like” and actually invite them to “like” your whole page. You can do this on current and past posts, organic and boosted posts. By going back through your Facebook posts and inviting people who appreciated a post to “like” the whole page, you are garnering followers who will now see your updates in their newsfeed – even if you don’t boost those posts.
6. Use advertisers that aren’t strictly online. You have likely done print ads, mailers, and even TV or radio ads. But there’s a new sheriff in town when it comes to audio entertainment – and it needs sponsorship to survive. This is podcasts.
Podcasts are basically radio shows that live on a person’s phone. An individual listens to a show every week or month and is notified when new shows come on their cue. Podcasts have been around for a long time now, since around 2004. However, it’s only been recently that these audio shows have figured out how to make money and have thus caught the attention of larger players like NPR, WNYC, and many magazines that were formerly only offered in print. The podcasters generally say your ad copy on their show – just as they did in old time radio.
Take advantage of the resurgence in audio and get into everyone’s earbuds. There are a lot of podcasts out there – and not a lot of advertisers taking advantage of the space.
7. Get into the audio world yourself. Your product or service may lend itself to the world of podcasting. There are podcasts that address topics across the spectrum, from educational to entertainment. So, if you have been part of radio shows in the past or you have particularly expert staff with plenty to say on the topic of your product or service – podcasts may be the way to go for you.
8. Feature video. Video is blowing up across the internet these days, but many businesses are reluctant to use video unless it has Hollywood-quality production. Get your toes wet by having experts in your company do a quick, two-minute tip series on their phones, or dive right in by using Facebook Live. Your public doesn’t expect perfect production values on your social media pages, so try out video. You may be surprised at the reactions you get.
Be sure to share these little-known tips with your marketing team – and take advantage of our marketing consulting services. We are here to help your business grow!
