Marketing is always going to be one of the key factors to take into consideration when you are trying to build up a business online. The marketing that you use will shape the customer perception of your company and determine whether they buy or even care that your business exists. As such, you can’t afford to make any slip-ups in this area of your business. Everything needs to be on point.
It’s true to say that around 97 percent of new startups online fail within their first year. With that statistic floating over your head like a death sentence, the pressure is on. So, you need to think about the mistakes people make with online marketing and the key traits of a campaign that will ensure a business soars. We will look at the mistakes first and get back to the strengths.
Mistakes Of Marketing Online
Off Target
It’s absolutely crucial that you do have a target customer in mind when you’re shaping the marketing for your online business. It’s going to impact on everything for the type of content that you release to the time that you put it online. We can look at the example of a car repair company that is advertising online as an example. If you’re repairing cars, content should be focused specifically on four-wheel vehicles, not trucks, motorbikes or lorries. You also probably want to avoid any content that strays too far from the interest of your target audience. For instance, car enthusiasts probably are interested in modifications. But unless you offer a service related to this, they probably don’t care all that much about your views on the matter. Essentially any content that you offer should relate both to your business and your target customer.
To find your target customer, you need to sit down with any other people in your company. Try to form a clear picture in your mind of who they are and what they are looking for. By doing this, you can then either use it to form a marketing campaign or present it to a marketing agency. It’s entirely your choice which path you choose here, but it should shape your campaign in some way.
No SEO
You might be under the impression that SEO is outdated and useless, particularly direct SEO that changes the website. It’s true, SEO has become more difficult, but that is not quite the same as obsolete. In fact, SEO should still be a pivotal part of online marketing. Any business abandoning the idea completely is making a grave mistake. Changes to SEO and Google’s reaction to it just means that professional solutions have become more important. If you want your SEO to have an impact you need to be using a pro agency.
For instance, you might be working to build up traffic for your ecommerce site. To do this, SEO is absolutely necessary. But you need to know how to structure your online store for ecommerce SEO, and most people don’t. Luckily, there are specialists out there who do, and they can help you get your store the interest that it deserves.
Nothing New
There are well over one billion websites on the web today, and that milestone was hit in 2014. So, we can only imagine what the actual number is now. This means if your business is going to be successful it needs to stand out. So, while it is possible to get a free web platform online for your site, that doesn’t mean you should. By doing this, you are probably going to end up with web pages that look like hundreds of other sites that already exist online. You don’t want that. Instead, you need your website to be completely unique. Again, it pays to use a professional to ensure this is the case. But it also depends on what content you use as well. For instance, you do want to be trying different things with your content. Mix pictures, video and text to create web pages that are exciting and immersive.
Traits Of Online Success Stories
If you want your business to be a hit online, you need to look at the businesses that have found success before you. Basically, we think there are about 3 percent of companies online today that actually made it past their first year. What did they have that was different from the rest.
Money Management
Well first, let’s not forget that one of the key reasons that a business fails is overspending. There are plenty of companies that would have been fine if the owner had reined in levels of spending. There is the mistake here of thinking that running an online business is cheap. That’s not the case at all. In fact, even an online company can be expensive once all the bills are added up. Particularly, if not all of your business is being run online. A lot of online businesses also invest in offline marketing to promote their company. It is debatable whether or not this is a mistake. There will certainly be business competitors who are using offline techniques to boost traffic.
But at the same time, small business owners do need to watch costs of marketing. It may be beneficial to cost compare a number of different marketing agencies and find one that offers a great, value service.
Innovation
Look for new fresh ways to market your business online because this is exactly what your customers want to see. They don’t want to be constantly marketed to by companies that use the same tactics. Try something different, fresh, original and inspired. The movie industry is often the best place to look for examples of this. For instance, two years ago when Jurassic World was marketed, Universal opened a site for the theme park with opening times and other fake details. It’s an example of viral marketing. A promotional material with the specific intent of creating a buzz online. Another example would be the marketing for Man Of Steel. Warner Bros released videos online designed to suggest someone looking for an alien on either from another planet. You’ll usually find that these are also ladder marketing campaigns. One thing leads to another. For instance, the first viral video had codes that led to a website where a trailer for the film was released.
This type of marketing isn’t exclusive to Hollywood. It’s been used by plenty of different industries, and there’s no reason why you wouldn’t see benefits from it. For instance, phone companies often promote giveaways to their customers. This helps them gain positive word of mouth and good feeling from consumers about their business.
Be Visual
If you are using content marketing, you need to be more visual. Social networks like Instagram are becoming far more popular compared with Twitter and Facebook. One of the reasons for this is that these networks are based around releasing visual information which is far more likely to be shared. As such, when using social media, you do need to be releasing pictures and images on sites such as Pinterest. This will help you gain interest from new and old customers alike.
Show Who You Are
Some of the best-marketed companies online aren’t just faceless corporations. Customers know who run them, they know the type of employees and staff they hire, and they know their company standards. This means that they feel a deeper connection to the business than just buyer and supplier. They feel loyalty to that business and will continue to support them through the best and worst times. That’s exactly what you want from your customer base, and there are ways to achieve it. You need to think about showing some skin online. Tell people about the people behind your business and have an individual they can link to your company. Don’t forget that customers are sixty percent more likely to click on a link online if it’s connected to a picture of an individual.
Show What You Can Be
Of course, the best businesses think about more than just the present in their marketing. They are constantly looking towards the future. They will be interacting with customers online, asking them about the changes they want to see for the business. They will be marketing and testing potential, new products and constantly be looking for innovative ideas. If you follow suit, you can make sure that your business is constantly being talked about online and across social media. You might even get the attention of the online press, and at that point, you could get millions in free marketing.
As you can see then, there’s a lot that separates the best-marketed businesses online from the worst. But if you avoid the mistakes, you can join the ranks of the most successful companies. Take this advice and your marketing campaign will go from strength to strength online. You’ll never need to worry about not getting the demand you need to stay open and profitable over the next few years.
