The social and business world of today is quickly moving in the direction of increased focus on digital marketing, as opposed to traditional measures of offline marketing services. The main reason for this movement is the saving of costs and time, ease of access and increased exposure.
How Important is Digital Marketing for Businesses?
The number of people owning smartphones and using social media applications like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube and Pinterest is increasing exponentially. Even in less developed areas of the world like Lebanon, Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines there is a dominant movement towards owning one's own smartphone and using social media platforms. When surveyed more than 90% of adults around the world answered to being an internet user, even if they did not own their own smartphone.
This is why it's no question that reaching your ideal target market at the right place and the right time is more likely to happen through online marketing than through advertisements in newspapers, brochures or magazines. There are also so many ways to implement effective marketing campaigns through digital platforms at a low cost or even completely free!
Are you starting a new business or wanting to improve on your current marketing operations? Let's discuss how to do this through digital marketing, effectively and on a budget!
Creating a Presence on Social Media Platforms
The days where consumers would visit or support business before knowing anything about it are gone. Today consumers want to understand and have access to more business information. Consumers are eager to know what the business is about, what products or services they provide and how previous customers review their performance.
Choose your method
As a business owner establishing an online social media presence is very important, whether it's through Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. It's free and it doesn't have to be a complicated setup process. Creating effective content for multiple platforms can be time-consuming, it's best to focus on one or two avenues of reaching your target market initially. Facebook is a good combination of visual and text sharing, in comparison to some applications that focus on only pictures or written information.
Establish a following
Encouraging your friends and family to share/repost your content is a great way to shop support and reach a larger audience. The 'Follow-for-Follow' trend is an effective way to grow an online presence for individuals as well as organizations using social media. This is essentially supporting others to receive the same in return.
Building online connections between businesses and increasing exposure require you to get the ball rolling and support others first. Show support by sharing, liking, commenting, or even featuring other businesses content (related to your industry or not). If you do feature their content on your own page, make sure to mention them- you do not want other misunderstanding and thinking you may be stealing others content. These actions are likely to be returned by others and your reach of networking and building mutually beneficial business relationships is more likely.
Create a Blog
As well as with social media, creating a blog with articles about the industry you're operating in, writing about different topics and themes your target market would be interested in. This is an effective way to connect with consumers and maintain ongoing digital relationships. From the start you'll need to create good content to attract and retain viewers. It's a great idea to feature other more established bloggers' content on your page as well as co-hosting webinars or creating shared content.
After the initial blog start up, you can encourage subscribers and use email marketing to remind them about newly released articles, product/service promotions and host competitions with the attraction of prizes or experiences. Connect with your viewers and ask them for their advice or expectations for your digital platforms, finding out what they'd like to see. Linking your Facebook or Instagram follows to your blog or visa versa is great to increase your digital presence too.
VoIP Service for Marketing
VoIP is essentially a telecommunications system run over the internet, it is a lower-cost method for voice communication with your customers than traditional telephone systems. It is an effective measure for businesses to improve the ease and reach of customer communications. VoIP features allow you to track and measure your reach making it easier for organizations to evaluate the success of different voice marketing campaigns.
With no overseas limitations, VoIP technology allows organizations to develop higher reach at low costs, expanding their potential customer base. Good technological advancements like VoIP save time and money for organizations, resulting in effective communication channels. Customers who are provided with customer service directly and effectively are happier and ultimately more satisfied with business interactions.
There are many more ways organizations are able to gain exposure and online presence by investing in digital marketing. Doing research and evaluating different methods will allow marketers to realize the potential for creating effective marketing campaigns that not only save money but time as well.