In improving a business, marketing is as important as any other growth aspect. You may have a quality product and excellent customer service, but these will be meaningless if people don’t know who you are. Without a proper marketing strategy, it’ll be hard even to stay relevant in a widely competitive market.
Here are 7 of the most effective marketing techniques that will help improve your brand reputation and business profitability:
1. Cause marketing
Cause marketing involves your cooperation with non-profit organizations to promote charitable advocacy. This is different from corporate social responsibility programs where you can benefit from tax deductions from your donations. This partnership involves a genuine desire to share sales profits to the advocacy you believe will make the lives of people better.
2. Co-branding
Two brands collaborating to promote a product or service isn’t something unheard of. Uber and Spotify, Levi’s and Pinterest, BMW and Louis Vuitton, and Taco Bell and Doritos are some of the popular co-branding examples you can see in the market today.
Through this marketing technique, you can benefit from your partner’s credibility, creating a halo effect that will improve your reputation. For start-ups and small businesses, bagging a contract with a large retailer boosts their chances of getting known and reaching more customers in the process.
3. Paid advertising
Driving traffic to your website is vital in strengthening brand presence and market relevance. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the most popular marketing techniques that can convert leads into actual customers. The Money Pig owner, Kane Georgiou states, “The best thing with PPC is that once you achieve a modest ROI from your ads, your business is instantly scalable”
In PPC, you basically partner with sites or search engines to advertise your company through a link they’ll provide on their pages. You’ll pay them for each visitor that clicks the link that redirects them to your website.
Pay-per-click advertising can also work the other way around by supporting another business and promoting them on your website. With the help of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques, you can increase the visibility of your website while advertising another product. This can increase traffic on your site and earn commissions through PPC marketing.
Studies show that 65% of customers tend to click on a paid ad when they’re about to buy an item.
4. Word of mouth advertising
Word of mouth is a very effective marketing technique because they come from the experience a customer genuinely felt in doing business with you. It’s also organic and unpaid, adding authenticity and credibility to the recommendation.
The advent of social media platforms has expanded the definition of what word of mouth is. It’s not limited to verbal communication only as it has extended to include online reviews and social media comments as well.
5. Social media promotions
Social media has become a very powerful tool in establishing brand reputation. You can post anything you think will help your audience know more about your business.
However, being bombarded with tons of information every day, people just want to absorb those that are helpful and valuable to them. People appreciate finding content, images, and videos relevant to their needs.
Posting videos containing information on what your business is all about is a sound plan. Tell your audience how your products or services can make their lives better and how your business contributes to the community. Letting them how you got into the business is also a good idea as it creates an emotional connection with your audience.
LinkedIn is a professional platform where you can reach a huge audience, especially when your posts become viral. Using the site, you can effectively tell people about your entrepreneurial journey. Your target audience will be professionals and entrepreneurs looking for reliable sources of business experience.
Facebook is also a powerful tool for reaching a specific audience based on your preferred demographic. Many businesses use Facebook Ads for targeted marketing campaigns to maximize their lead conversion.
6. Storytelling
Your brand should represent more than just the logo or the name of the company. It should have a story that engages customers on an emotional level. Facts and figures are better remembered when they’re backed with a narrative of how your company reached for success while contributing to society’s welfare.
7. Put up blogs
A business blog contains more than just opinionated thoughts on a certain subject. You should start writing authority blogs or look for writers who can do this for your company.
An authority blog is a resource people often look for reliable information about a certain topic. Having an authority blog calls more attention to your website because people trust that you fully know the things you’re discussing. This generates traffic which can then be used for promoting your products or services.
People value content that gives them the needed information. Some businesses doubt the effectiveness of blogs and are often afraid of letting out marketing secrets. However, today’s customers are more appreciative of organizations that demonstrate transparency.
As a business owner, you should empower customers by giving them as much information as possible about your brand.
Know more about SEO utilization or have an expert do it for you. Some entrepreneurs downplay its importance because it’s too complicated to understand. But if you want your business to be visible on the internet, you must know how to improve your search ranking.
When creating blogs, focus on the quality of each content. Users prefer to read an informative long-form post than short ones without any substance in it. Regularly create new titles that will invite users to come back to your site.
Summary
We’re living in a digital world, which is why most of the discussed techniques involve the strengthening of your online presence. By following these strategies, you’ll be able to get more customers and maximize the returns on your next marketing campaign.
