Even though the business world is ruled by countless advertising platforms (such as email, Google AdWords, or Facebook advertising), text-based marketing is still considered a valuable asset to target customers on-the-move. Without it, you are potentially missing out on direct communication with your prospects and an opportunity for an increase in ROI.
You’ll be surprised to know that many big-name brands offer exclusive discounts & promos via text-based marketing. But why?
As long as people are using a smartphone, Text marketing or SMS marketing will always be a relevant tool to communicate with your customers successfully. Moreover, it is easy to understand and happens to be the most cost-effective & efficient way to reach a large audience in a day.
Text Message Marketing: 3 reasons to use it
- Build personal connection – The phone is the closest thing to your customers. With text message marketing, you can meet buyers’ personal expectations and introduce newly launched products instantaneously. However, the way you engage matters the most. The most persuasive copywriting usually includes an intimate one-to-one conversation.
- Very simple & straightforward to launch – Text Message Marketing is about as simple as sending a text. No special app, no additional navigation – you just have to limit your message to 160-180 characters. Thanks to its simple & straightforward process, SMS marketing remains valuable at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
- Outperforms Other Marketing Channels – Text message marketing is attention-grabbing, instantly seizes user’s attention, and has the highest open rates to delivery. To some extent, text-based marketing outperforms other marketing channels and gets the most bang for your buck. It has been well-researched that SMS open rates are as high as 98%, and it takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to promotions, offers, or discounts.
How To Make Your Message Convincing
People won’t read your message unless you catch their attention. For this reason, you have to scrutinize each word to get your message to be loud and clear. A compelling message intrigues inform, persuades, or calls to action. It has a sense of credibility, and fervently tells the reason to purchase. Strategies to make your message convincing are:
- Create a sense of urgency – Tell your audience about a limited-time offer, limited quantities, or offer coupons they can use right before the end of the deal.
- Play with emojis – 90% of users respond positively to emojis, and they are indeed a powerful tool to convey a more diverse message while using fewer words.
- Send offers in the morning – If you have something exciting to share (for ex- a 50% off discount coupon), try sending your message between 8:00 am – 12:00 pm. The timing works perfectly for people arriving at work, checking messages, and doing quick shopping online.
- Broadcast in advance – Surprise your audience with early reminders. You can use text message marketing to build hype about sales and promotions in advance and tease out some of the best upcoming discounts.
If you are looking for a quick and easy way to reach your target audience, text message marketing is the right choice for your business growth. It is being used by some of the largest and most reputable companies around the globe. Now it’s your turn.
With all of the changes of 2020 due to the pandemic, many marketers are wondering if email marketing is still an effective strategy? Additionally, social media and other channels have made email marketing seem archaic and unnecessary. But the truth is email marketing still is an effective strategy if you do it correctly.
If done correctly, email marketing can generate $38 for every $1 spent, getting you an amazing 3,800% ROI. But, if you’re not seeing results with your email marketing you may be falling into one of these common email marketing pitfalls.
Common Email Marketing Pitfalls
Here are a few of the common mistakes email marketers make.
Many email marketers fail to correctly segment their audiences to provide relevant information for them. This is determinantal because if you are not providing relevant, timely content then users will just hit delete, and eventually, unsubscribe.
Additionally, all too often organizations think they need to be in constant communication with their email recipients. 78 percent of email users will cancel email subscriptions because they receive too many messages from that company, according to HubSpot.
Finally, if you do not have a clearly defined email marketing strategy with objectives of what you want to accomplish, then your email marketing will be like shooting in the dark – most likely to miss the mark.
Success in Email Marketing
Success in email marketing is typically due to understanding your audience and providing relevant and timely communication that meets their needs. You should segment your audiences by location, loyalty, or according to their place in the marketing funnel. As you segment audiences, you can provide relevant and timely content to get them to engage with your brand.
Don’t send emails too often. Try sending emails twice a month, and if that is successful then you can try increasing to weekly emails. But, always monitor your performance to see what emails are engaging your audiences.
Additionally, try A/B testing, or sending different emails to two halves of your list to test what kind of messaging, layouts, and length works for you. Just try testing one thing at a time so you can correlate the results. For instance, try testing the length of your emails for one month, and the next month try testing different layouts to see which gets higher engagement.
Email marketing still is an effective strategy for your brand to communicate with customers and keep them engaged. However, many marketers make the mistake of sending too many emails, or not planning content targeted at their audiences. Try segmenting your subscribers and testing content for them to get the most success with your email marketing.
2020 has been the year of online shopping. While people have been quarantined at home, more and more of them spend time online, on social media, and shopping. US online sales are estimated to increase by 18% to $710 billion this year. And that trend is likely to continue after the pandemic. If you’re not marketing your business online, then you are missing out on critical business traffic.
Here are the top five digital marketing strategies to try in 2021.
Google Ads Automated Bidding
Automating Google Ads can save you time, money, and help your digital ads be more effective. Google Ads marketers will constantly work to find the best creative assets, for the best bid, on the best sites to maximize your ROI. You set your marketing goals and Google Ads will automatically adjust bidding to best meet your needs.
Voice Search
Since consumers are spending more time at home now, they also are relying more on their voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, and Google Home. Over 3.25 billion people use voice search worldwide.
So, when you’re creating content you also need to think forward about how it will sound on a voice assistant. Currently, Google’s algorithm doesn’t consider voice search queries; however, it’s likely they could in the future. And even if you are ranking on Google results, you may not be ranking on voice search unless you purposely plan content for voice searches.
Visual Search
Besides voice searches, visual searches are also becoming more popular. You should include photos and videos on your site that relate to specific searches online. To help your visuals rank, always include alt text, include keywords in the image file name, and use top-quality images and videos.
Interactive Content
Interactive content can better engage visitors to your site and provide value. For instance, if you are an accountant you could add a tax calculator to your site. This will get visitors engaged and more likely to spend time on your site.
You may want to try any of the following interactive content on your site:
- Assessments
- Games
- Polls
- Surveys
- Contests
- Calculators
Local SEO
For small businesses, local SEO can be even more powerful than general SEO because it connects your business with people in your geographic location who are more likely to interact with your site. You should use Google My Business and claim your business online. You can then update your hours (which is especially important due to COVID-19 restrictions in flux), add photos, and include business contact information.
Pro-tip – you want to make sure your business shows up when people search for your business type and “near me”. For instance, if you’re an accounting firm, when people search “accountants near me” you’ll show up. Do this by including your city as a top keyword on your site.
Conclusion
In 2020, many companies have adapted to new ways of doing business. Consumers are online now more than ever and in 2021 you need to make sure that your business is prepared with these digital marketing strategies.
Everything in our modern age is connected to the digital world. Communication happens promptly and rapidly, especially when it comes to using our phones. Smartphone usage has completely changed the way that businesses operate —or at least, they should have. Mobile apps are no longer just about games, they’re about convenience. Customers use mobile apps to order food, hail cabs, interact with family and friends, and purchase nearly anything and everything. There’s no denying the importance of mobile apps for businesses —but read on to discover just how useful mobile apps can truly be!
Useful Marketing Tool: Customers are connected to their smartphones nearly every second of the day, whether for business, communication, or everyday life. A mobile app is a great opportunity to increase brand awareness for your company. Push notifications sent directly to a user’s phone can be a useful tool to reinstate interest in your product. Sometimes just a small reminder of your company’s existence and the benefits that you can provide users is enough in order to prompt purchasing action.
Expand Your Brand: Having a broad, wide-reaching brand image is essential in order to increase your potential customer base. Consider a mobile app as just another form of social media that you can use to find new clients. If your mobile app is well developed and uses your brand logo to positively reinforce your company’s image, then customers will view your brand as more reliable. Over time, this reliability generally translates to increased sales.
Better Customer Service: Creating a mobile app for your business can significantly improve your customer service, which helps retain customers using your company’s services. An app ensures instant availability and can easily provide a method of communication to users. Make sure that your customers are satisfied with your customer service at all times by using a mobile app for businesses.
Gather Analytic Resources: Mobile apps for your business can be a great way to gather data and analytics about your customer base, which you can then use in order to develop more precise business strategies. Information on customer preferences and demographics can be highly relevant when making marketing campaigns, so additional information is always better to have. A more specific marketing strategy can result in higher revenue and increased sales for your company.
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The importance of a mobile app for a business should not be discounted, especially in today’s technological era. Every aspect of your business has the potential to be positively impacted by a mobile app for businesses. Don’t miss out on great opportunities to expand your business and improve your brand image —instead, develop a mobile app and watch as your business grows and grows!
Your return on investment (ROI) is a valuable analytic that measures how effective an investment is. While modern technology has favored tracking data across social media services and internet platforms, call tracking remains a significant source of useful data for companies to use to their advantage. Call tracking can show businesses valuable information that can help improve marketing campaigns and, in turn, completely improve the ROI!
Maximize Your Call Tracking: In order to receive the full benefits that call tracking can provide to a business, it’s best to configure your call channels to their top potential. Consistently listing your business’s contact information across a variety of platforms using SEO keywords can improve your customer base. Click-to-call features can also help increase the performance of your company by improving accessibility and communication for your customers.
Capture and Store Data: Call tracking can help record incoming calls from customers and take note of any valuable data or interaction that occurs. Modern phone software offers a variety of additional experiences for businesses to utilize, such as voice recognition software or customizable filtration systems. These unique features can assist in controlling the flow of your calls, improve customer experience, and gather relevant information.
Track Patterns and Analyze Data: Specific information is not the only useful data to be gleaned from using call tracking to improve your ROI. Tracking campaigns in a broader sense allows companies to learn relevant trends about their customer base and create more effective marketing. This will help in pinpointing your most effective campaigns.
Convert Calls to Leads: Call tracking is a great method to collect immediate customer information, which can then be used to increase the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. Both inbound and outbound calls can be studied in order to create more relevant decisions for your business. By using all of the possible information available to you and your business, better quality and customer experience occur, which generates more revenue and sales for your business.
Use Call Tracking Smartly: Call tracking is all about gathering information to make better decisions about how to market effectively and efficiently for your company using the available resources. The valuable data from call tracking can then significantly improve the rate of return on your marketing campaign investments. Use all of the call tracking resources in order to track data and increase customer satisfaction at the same time.
Nearly all modern businesses agree —digital marketing is essential to creating and maintaining a successful brand. However, it can be occasionally challenging to transition from traditional marketing into digital marketing. If you’re just starting to dip your toes into the world of digital marketing or need a quick refresher on some essential terms and material, we answer all of the most necessary (and commonly asked) questions here!
Q: Does my brand really need digital marketing?
A: Yes. That’s the short answer. The long answer is that digital marketing is becoming increasingly more essential for finding new customers and improving brand awareness. Companies without a professional online presence are simply not trusted by today’s modern customers.
Q: What exactly is SEO?
A: SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s the marketing technique of ensuring that your site’s content uses relevant keywords that boosts your online presence in a search engine. High-performing SEO content is one of the factors that can ensure that your site is viewed by customers who are searching online. It is highly important that a company ensure their content is being viewed on search engines and not pushed to the bottom of the pile.
Q: How do I use SEO?
A: Great! You’ve learned what SEO is —however, using it can be a bit more complex. First, know your customer base well. Then, find keywords that target those demographics. Try to establish back-links from other websites to improve your search engine ranking as well. Using SEO keywords in the title of your articles is highly important in creating a first impression.
Q: What social media should I use?
A: It all depends on your target market. Having an online presence on a variety of different social media platforms is certainly not a bad idea regardless; however, if you are looking to concentrate your attention on only one or two platforms, carefully consider your target audience’s demographics. Platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter are the most popular options currently being used by customers worldwide.
Q: Why is inbound marketing good?
A: Inbound marketing is generally more effective than outbound marketing because it generates genuine interest from customers. It draws people in, rather than pester potential viewers with annoying commercials. By producing good, valuable content that consumers are looking for, they will naturally be drawn to your online pages.
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Every modern business should be actively completing digital marketing if they want to be successful in today’s market. Be sure to thoroughly understand the techniques and platforms
