Building your brand online is no simple task. There’s a lot that goes into it. In this tutorial we will outline some of the top tips for online and content marketing to help you take your brand to the next level!
Focus on Creating Powerful Content
No doubt you have heard the popular saying that content is king. And while having content is incredibly important, creating the right kind of content is much more important! If you are creating short, generalized content, you may not be helping build your brand at all. Focus on creating content that is long (Google loves 1,000 words) and useful to your customer base. In the marketing world this is referred to as epic content. The key to succeeding in epic content creation is to post less often, but to make those posts in the 1,500-2,000 word range with lots of deep useful advice, include some nice design elements, add in a little bit of data and maybe even a dash of drama.
Turn Your Website into a Salesperson
Your website is not just your first impression, it is a major factor when it comes to making sales. You need to make sure that your website is the best salesperson it can be! When turning your website into a salesperson you need to look at several factors:
- Website Design – A business must look professional and inspire trust. Making sure that you have a great layout, including easy-to-use navigation that makes finding information and resources easy. It goes without saying that having a site that looks great on mobile is an absolute must!
- Product Description – Any solid salesperson will know the products they sell inside and out. Still, many companies publish their websites without providing any concrete information about the products and services they expect people to buy. Make sure that product descriptions engage and entertain customers while providing all the information needed for people to make informed buying decisions.
- Support – Make support options available to your customer, these pages are great because unlike traditional customer service, they never close. Providing a FAQ page can go a long way in helping your customers find the answers they need at all hours. Just like with a traditional salesperson’s business card, provide multiple options to communicate with your support team on website.
- Purchasing Process – If your website has a customer facing store, pay attention to your purchasing process. Look to powerhouses such as Amazon and attempt to replicate their purchasing process. Research study has shown that a simple checkout process encourages people to buy more items at an increased frequency.
- Security – If you are capturing any customer information, you need to show that you can handle that data safely. More than ever before, people fear identity theft, fraud, and other online crimes, so make sure you are providing a safe online environment. Your website should have security features that include encryption of your customers data. Have an active SSL certificate installed from a reputable provider and consider signing up with a trusted, well-known payment processor that has a proven record of safeguarding customer credit card information. Consider using services such as PayPal that inspire confidence and encourage sales.
- Social Media & Reputation – Provide links to company social profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so people can quickly assess the quality of service your business provides. Also, create connections with Instagram and Pinterest, so prospects can see your products in action and learn from the experiences of your previous customers.
Marketing Automation
Having a large team of employees focused on one content channel is for fortune 500 companies. In today’s marketing world most of us are juggling hundreds of tasks at once. With work overload comes missed opportunities by forgetting to create or share your content. There are a wealth of automation programs available to help ease the pain, and allow you set up an entire weeks worth of content in a few hours.
Dynamic Remarketing
Whether or not your business is an actual retail outlet, dynamic remarketing can be an invaluable asset. We all would love it if customers converted on the first visit to our websites, but sadly that is not the reality. No matter what product or service you are offering, you can count on the fact that a visitor to your site will leave to do further research on competitor sites, that is where remarketing comes in. Creating a personalized, digital ad is a surefire way to yield better results in any channel!
Social Media Marketing
Another topic we have talked at great length about. Having a strong social media presence is an absolute must. When researching your company, customers will likely end up on one of your social channels. How you represent your brand can have a profound effect on whether or not that customer chooses to do business with you or your competitor. Having a direct line to your customers will also alert you to any issues immediately.
Email Marketing
Email is still a great way to market to and communicate with customers. Building a subscriber base can be hard, making sure that you are providing top quality relevant content will go a long way in helping you build your customer base. Once you have a customer base remember to market only offers relevant to your customer base. Utilizing a program that separates your customers into different identifier categories can help immensely with this. Remember that emailing useful content to the right customers at the right time will help keep your customers from hitting the dreaded “unsubscribe” button.
Compassionate Content
When creating content for your business, you have to consider many different factors. You want to relevant and valuable, but you can also use kindness to really make your content stand out. When creating compassionate content there are a few do’s and don’ts to take into account:
- Do get to know your users – The only real way to get to know your users, is to interview them. You need to understand that your users are people – individuals with real challenges and needs. When interviewing users, don’t just ask people about what they think about a product’s features or your new website. Learn about their lives, what their days look like, how they make decisions, and how they see the world.
- Don’t get stuck on your ego – When creating useful content it is easy to get into company speak without realizing it. Use words and terminology that your customer base is going to understand. Avoid being vague and unhelpful, but being self absorbed is even worse. Stop talking about yourself and your company and talk about the customer.
- Do treat users with respect – Avoid placing blame on the customer, don’t shame or guilt them into buying your product. Avoid any message that can come across as passive – agressive, condescending, and gimmicky. Opt out buttons with phrases like “I don’t want to be healthier” or “I don’t want to save money will destroy any customer loyalty that you may have already built.
- Don’t force false categories – Don’t attempt to pigeon hole your customers into a few predetermined categories. Doing this will ensure that someone that doesn’t fall into one of your predetermined categories will not do business with you.
- Do allow for complexity – This is huge, whenever you need users to express their identities, allow for nuance in their responses. For example, if you have a race/ethnicity menu, make sure it is “check all that apply” so that people who identify as more than one race can select them both. Simply having a “Prefer not to say” or “multiracial” will make some people feel unrepresented, as if their identity doesn’t count. That can be incredibly alienating.
- Don’t overstep your bounds – Just because we can personalize content doesn’t mean we should. Before you personalize a message, ask, “does this content feel natural within the context of our relationship with this user?” If you are not sure, the answer is probably “no” for at least some of your users – and you run the risk of seeming creepy.
Putting it all Together
We have outlined several tips on how you can create better content that your users will find helpful, compassionate, and powerful. Keeping these tips in mind when creating content in the future will not only make content generation easier, it will also help you be more connected with your customers. We have only scratched the surface of several of these techniques, if you would like more information on any of these tips, you can always contact us here. As with any marketing technique you need a solid marketing plan in place to apply these techniques to, if you don’t have a marketing plan, and need assistance we are always here to help!