How to grow your business online
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Posted: Tue 21st Jun 2022
On the internet, the audience is literally your universe! The challenge is in reaching the right audiences for your business.
You don't need a lot of money to grow your business in the digital age if you do it well. But there are no shortcuts. Not even online.
In this blog, we discuss how to promote your business online once you've considered which strategies can work for your business in this digital age.
For more information, connect with Cecilia on Enterprise Nation
Why businesses fail online
I've learned that one of the reasons why companies fail to expand online is that they strive to appeal to everyone. A mistake that many of us have made in the past.
This isn't a viable strategy, even online. The current rules and the algorithms are making it hard and require consistent work with your website, especially if it's new.
Throughout this blog, I discuss tips on creating viable strategies for growing your business online once you've created your website. They include:
target marketing
niche marketing
competitor analysis
market position
search engine marketing (SEM)
working with other brands
Target marketing
You must have a specific target audience in mind. Otherwise, you won't be able to develop an effective marketing strategy.
You'll attract the right people to your online business pages with targeted marketing, making your marketing strategy and efforts far more effective.
Because the internet has a global reach, you advertise globally, and not everyone who uses the internet and does business online is your target market. To presume this is incorrect.
Niche marketing
The more clearly defined your target market is, the faster your company will grow. Because you'll be providing simplified content, the number of quality visitors will grow, as will the conversion rate.
In terms of your products or services, your niche is your area of expertise. Businesses frequently mix up the terms target market and niche. Weddings may be your target market, but wedding dresses, not wedding events, may be your niche.
There is a distinction to be made between the two. Identifying your niche allows you to market more effectively and in larger quantities.
Competitor analysis
Knowing what your competitors are up to is essential for developing online and offline strategies for your own company.
The only way to defeat your opponents is to figure out what they're doing and strive to improve on it. Investigate their online presence, including their social media accounts, sponsored content, affiliate marketing, online ads and search engine presence.
Market position
Keep an eye on your competitors' market positions. Compare yourself to them to evaluate where you fit in.
You need to know where your competitors are performing better than you in order to compete with them and improve on their efforts. SEO tools are useful for this (see below).
Search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)
Content development isn't the only thing that SEO can help with. It's a broad term that encompasses a variety of ideas.
To drive your website to the first page of any search engine, you'll need SEO. However, it isn't an easy task. Over 100 characteristics are used to evaluate your website, and these parameters are always changing.
SEM, on the other hand, is when you use paid strategies to increase your online visibility. In trying to drive a website to the first page of any search engine, people pay for ads, such as Google Ads.
Many brands pay to appear on search engine results pages so people can find them. These are not organic searches because they're part of an SEM campaign.
When a user searches for a keyword, the paid brand appears at the top of the search results. The first ads you see are from SEM campaigns. For example, in Google, a small 'ad' appears in the top-left corner of the website link. This is a paid placement, not a natural or organic ranking.
SEM keywords
Keywords are 'search terms' that your customers type into search engines to find information on the internet.
You might use the keyword 'local interior designer' if you're an interior designer, for example. As a result, when someone searches for a 'local interior designer', your ad will surface.
When building an SEM campaign, you must choose your keywords carefully. Negative keywords can have a big impact on your website's ranking.
Include keywords for which you do not want to rank. Add 'internal designing' to your list of negative keywords, for example, if it's a phrase you don't want to rank for.
SEM targeting
When you use keyword targeting, you tell a search engine when to show your ad. SEM targeting is all about setting parameters to define where your ad will appear. There are four options.
Location targeting: This shows your ad only to people in a certain geographical area with a specific postcode. For example, if you have a deal for people in your locality, you can target that ad only for them.
Schedule targeting: This allows you to specify when your ad will be shown or how many times a day.
Demographic targeting: Choosing this shows your ad only to certain people who fit the gender or age limit defined.
Device targeting: Your ad will only be shown to people who work on specific devices like desktops, smartphones or tablets.
When you use SEM campaigns, you need targeting to tell a search engine who to show your ad to and where.
Content marketing
What makes potential customers want to buy your goods or use your service in the first place? It's how you interact with your audience.
When you're not in direct contact with a customer, the manner in which you explain your product or service will help you sell it.
Whether you're writing a product description or a blog piece, quality is crucial. You must provide the audience with just what they need, in the shortest and most concise manner possible.
How will your audience know what you're offering?
You accomplish this by creating content. Writing for the sake of writing is not the best way to proceed. Your content should be in line with the services or products that you provide.
Content marketing is when you create content (visual, graphical and textual) that piques the user's interest rather than directly promotes your business.
What are the advantages of content marketing?
When you do good-quality content marketing, you:
attract the audience
gain better traction on social media
build trust
increase your conversion rates
rank more highly on search engines
make your website more authoritative (which also helps search results)
build loyalty among your followers
When you provide the best products or services and content, you'll generate loyal customers. Satisfied people will turn up again and again, and you can eventually convert them into buying customers or have them recommend you to possible buyers.
Working with other brands
Partnerships and co-promotions are the newest buzzwords in town. There are a variety of ways for you to collaborate with other businesses to advertise your products or services and profit from their audience.
It makes sense if there's something in common between the two companies merging. There must be some sort of logical relationship. A washing powder and a textile softener can work together because their niches are similar but not identical.
Co-promotion
This is when at least two businesses collaborate to promote a product using a single marketing strategy.
The sales team is merged, but the brand name remains unchanged. Both companies share the resources, risks, and profits generated by co-promotion.
Influencer marketing
This term has become quite popular in recent years. It's a combination of new and classic marketing techniques, and based on the same premise as celebrity endorsements.
Influencers and brands work together most of the time. An influencer is someone who has a large online following but doesn't necessarily consider themselves to be influential in real life.
Sponsorships
Sponsoring different events (whether big or small) makes you come within the audience's view. There are many promotional opportunities available here.
Creative ad campaigns
Running Facebook and other social media ads is a cheaper alternative to running ads on TV and radio. Your ads should be creative and inspiring to attract the audience's attention.
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