The days of simply having a website, investing in some unfocused pop-up ads, and having a successful business are long gone. The Internet is a hugely competitive marketplace, and everyone is trying to get attention for their own unique offerings.
If you want to get ahead, you need to have strong digital marketing strategies in place. Luckily, we’ve compiled our top 12 techniques right here.
#1 Define and Understand Your Customers
Understanding your customer’s online presence, preferences, interaction, and expectations is vital. Rather than treating them as a monolith, try to separate them into related segments.
Younger generations often prefer different marketing channels than older ones, while the popularity of certain social media platforms will vary based on location. Knowing where certain demographics interact with you will allow you to target your marketing more effectively.
One way to make use of these data is to develop several customer personas. Personas can help you to understand the different sections of your target audience. In fact, research shows that 71% of companies that exceed their revenue goals use customer personas.
Acquiring customer information can be done through many ways. Data analytics, call recording for business software, and customer feedback surveys are all potential methods. Once you have the data, you can uncover the channels they concentrate on and make smart investment choices. Creating a specific digital marketing strategy for your company enables you to increase ROI.
#2 Align Your Brand
Without a strong, recognizable brand, customers will fail to bond with your company. You need to develop a brand reputation. This can be done through elements such as:
- Language
- Logos
- Design
- Brand story and values
But most importantly, these elements have to align with and make sense for your brand. A successful organization thinks, does, and says the same thing consistently. This is achieved through excellent team collaboration and strong management.
A lot of companies sometimes force themselves into hot conversations that don’t align with their brand values. An example of this was Audi’s gender equality super bowl commercial. It received a lot of social media clap back because Audi themselves had no women on their management board. So, the advert appeared to promote values the brand itself didn’t hold—not a good look.
This leads us to the next point: honesty. You shouldn’t undersell your product or service, but being honest and straightforward is important for reducing customer churn.
Let’s say you’re two sisters that own a small SMS customer support consultancy business. You shouldn’t create content pretending to be a multinational organization, or act as though you’re something you’re not. This can damage your brand credibility.
#3 Keep in Touch with Email Campaigns
Statistics show that for every $1 you spend on email marketing you can expect an average of $42 back. This means that email campaigns are one of the most useful tools for increasing sales.
However, it’s not enough to send out emails. Tailoring them to your audience is incredibly important. This means segmenting your emails using the customer personas we mentioned earlier. Research shows that companies that use a one-fits-all email marketing approach end up with:
- 60% of their emails deleted;
- 27% unsubscribe rate;
- 23% of their emails marked as spam.
Email automation is also crucial for effective email marketing campaign management. It allows you to contact customers at exactly the right time. Not only that, it can help you track metrics, present offers, and send emails to customers who have abandoned their cart.
Keep in mind that emails are not only useful for attracting new visitors—they can help retain customers, too. A well-constructed follow-up email can keep them thinking about you long after their purchase. Since increasing customer retention by a mere 5% can increase your profits by 25-95%, it’s well worth the effort.
#4 Measure the Success of Content
As the title of this article suggests, digital marketing can increase your sales. But what if you’ve revamped your website, increased your marketing budget, invested in the best productivity software for small business—and found that something still isn’t right?
It may be that you’re not tracking and measuring the content you’re putting out.
Measuring and tracking content allows you to understand the way customers look at your most popular web pages and products. This will provide insights for making well-informed decisions in the future.
Accurate analytics can also let you know which search engines are leading to your site and which locations are popular for your product or service. This means you can invest in the correct channels and therefore attract more of the customers that you want.
#5 Optimize Your Channels
Optimization is vital in digital marketing. It can mean the optimization of your staff to create an efficient and connected workforce. It can also mean website and mobile app optimization—important as 80% of users use mobile devices to browse the Internet.
It can also mean SEO (search engine optimization), which determines the rank of your website. The higher your website ranks, the more traffic you will create. The more traffic you bring in, the more sales you will generate.
When people search on Google, 75% of them never even look at the second results page. If that’s not enough, here are some more reasons to improve your SEO:
- SEO boosts your brand recognition, which increases your authority and credibility and builds trust with customers
- Your user experience will also be improved as consumers will be able to find what they’re looking for easier
- You can focus on local SEO as, on average, 87% of consumers will only travel 15 minutes to make an everyday purchase
- SEO practices enable you to have a better understanding of the web market and competitor tactics
- SEO is a long-term solution that provides a good ROI
#6 Boost Engagement with Social Media
Communicating with customers is a hugely important part of running a business. Did you know that 79% of the US population uses social media? So, if social media marketing isn’t high up on your team’s online meeting agenda, then you might have an issue.
Not only is social media content great for advertising your product or service, it also allows you to meaningfully engage with your audience. Here are a few tips to drive sales using social media:
- Pick the correct social media channel for your demographic
- Don’t be afraid to use paid ads to increase your reach, engagement, and impressions
- Observe your competitors, find out what makes your company unique, and learn from your past campaigns
- 70% of teens trust YouTube creators and 40% of millennials relate to their favorite creator more than their friends. Take advantage of this and work with social media influencers that align with your brand
#7 Use Discounts to Your Advantage
Discounting is another method often used to increase sales. In fact, 57% of customers made a purchase from a new brand only after being offered a discount.
Think of a reason for your discount. This could be a customer’s birthday, Christmas, or any other event. Be as creative as you want. By adding a time limit on the discount, you can generate customer urgency and overall demand for your product.
It can work for B2B companies, too. For instance, if you provide communications services, you may have some customers concerned about VoIP service cost or unsure about investing in a new CRM (customer relationship management) program. By implementing discounts for a limited time, you are more likely to draw these customers in so that they make a purchase.
It’s important to note that a bad discounting strategy can be damaging. It can affect the perception of your brand (you don’t want to look cheap, after all), affect operations, and reduce profit margins. So it’s important to:
- create a tailored strategy that aligns with your brand;
- make sure consumers don’t take the discounts for granted;
- provide a high-quality product or service.
#8 Use Exit-Intent Pop-Ups
Another digital marketing strategy is exit-intent pop-ups. Research shows that exit-intent pop-ups can recover up to 70% of your business’ abandoned carts.
The way they work is by examining customer mouse movements and detecting when a customer is about to exit the page. They then hook the visitor back in with a pop-up offering a discount.
Free shipping is a common pop-up incentive used in digital marketing. Data shows that up to 93% of customers are inclined to buy a product if free shipping is provided. A study also revealed that one of the top reasons why people use Amazon Prime is due to the high-speed, free shipping service.
#9 Keep Remarketing Consistent
Remarketing gives you a second chance at converting previous visitors to current customers. There are numerous benefits to remarketing, including:
- keeping your company at the forefront of customer’s minds;
- the ability to create highly-focused adverts based on how the visitor has previously interacted with you;
- the cost effectiveness of targeting individuals who have already expressed an interest.
Remarketing is one of the most efficient ways to increase sales. It allows you to connect with customers who have previously engaged with your service. If you position your ads in front of these visitors again, you can increase the chances of them making a purchase. Remarketing also provides customers with multiple channels to convert, which aligns with the ‘wherever and whenever’ shopping approach consumers currently prefer.
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have excellent remarketing capabilities. Installing each of the social platform’s pixels onto your website allows you to collect visitor’s cookie IDs and then match them to specific social media users.
As with discounting, constant remarketing can cause customers to regard your company as less exclusive. Therefore, a good remarketing strategy requires effective project management to ensure your marketing team understands consumer needs.
#10 Be Creative with Content
A successful digital marketing strategy that entices sales should include constant content creation. Whether you’re a sportswear brand, a company that provides a virtual phone system for small business, or a beauty blogger, your customers want interesting, relevant content.
Depending on your business, there are various content mediums you can use.
Take advantage of blogging
Blogging is useful for businesses as it can give a boost to SEO. It’s also an easy method of content distribution. Blogs provide an opportunity to insert relevant keywords—and the more consistent you are, the more content Google has to index. High-quality blogs also allow you to establish yourself and your company as an industry leader by building engaging and valuable content.
So, increasing your blog viewership will help grow your customer base, continue to strengthen the bond with existing consumers, and boost sales.
Quality product images are vital
Investment in high-quality imagery can help build your brand credibility as customers can clearly see the product. Images can sometimes be used to tell a story more clearly than copy. Products such as cars, fashion, and food all benefit from great photography.
Focus on stunning video production and marketing
There is an increasing demand for video content. In fact, 85% of US Internet users watch online videos. Business video production has been made even easier with the rise of YouTube, Instagram and Facebook stories, Instagram reels, and TikTok. Some video options include:
- explainer videos;
- behind the scenes;
- collaboration videos with influencers.
In addition to increasing consumer engagement, another thing that satisfies 80% of marketers is the ROI of video marketing.
#11 Utilize an Engaging Call to Action
Call to actions (CTAs) are important as 90% of users that read your headline also read your CTA. CTAs are effective as they increase conversation rates on the landing page by 80%.
A good CTA will:
- appeal to customer requirements;
- be clear and simple to locate;
- provide the consumer with a way to navigate to the required page.
If you’re struggling to choose an effective CTA, consider using A/B tests. These tests allow you to carry out your own research to find out which CTA is more suitable. Two different CTAs are run separately over a specific time period, and the one with the higher conversion rate is chosen.
#12 Improve Customer Experience
Positive customer experiences increase brand loyalty. 90% of American customers have said customer experience is a factor in deciding whether or not to interact with a business.
Automated customer service or live chat is useful in engaging with a customer and personalizing their experience. If a customer is asking themselves ‘What is CPaas?’, then you need to be able to provide them with an answer in order to convert them into a sale. Having live chat software that can answer this question means you can answer it 24/7, avoiding potential losses.
Positive customer feedback can also be used to drive sales. Statistics show that:
- 97% of people read reviews;
- 78% of people trust reviews as much as a recommendation;
- online reviews affect 67% of purchasing decisions.
If you’re a company that has a plethora of positive online reviews, include these testimonials on your landing and product pages, and even the home page.
Getting Started
Digital marketing is definitely one of the most reliable techniques you can use to increase your company’s sales and revenue. It allows you to communicate your brand to a huge number of customers in a fast and cost-effective way.
More importantly, whether you’re creating a new email campaign, remarketing strategy, content, or CTA, digital marketing allows you to track responses to your efforts. It’s important to use these insights, alter your strategies accordingly, and make smarter, more informed business decisions.
Using the digital marketing techniques mentioned above to promote your company will increase your chances of business success and help boost your revenue.
Author's bio:
He is passionate about connecting businesses and customers and has experience working with Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Experian, Target, Nordstrom, Kayak, Hilton, and Kia. Richard has written for sites such as Nextdoor and VoilaNorbert.
