The world of marketing has grown immensely on the digital front in the last few years. Search engine optimization used to be something people only knew about if they worked in marketing but now it is becoming much more commonplace to have knowledge about. Marketing and advertising go hand in hand so it is important to get a certain message across without trying to sell too much.
Consumers want to think that they are making a purchase because of their own personal decision making rather than an advertisement they saw on TV or via a blog post. The following are some mediums you can use to market and how to use them in a moderate way as to not annoy any current or potential customers.
Newsletters Can Convert
There are far too many content writers and marketers that do not know how to write a newsletter in the appropriate fashion. The most important thing that a digital newsletter can do with a customer is make them feel more personally attached to the company. Many clients do not meet face to face with the people they work with so showing a bit of the personal side of the company can lead to more customer loyalty. Things like births of children or even the new company pet can be great ideas.
These newsletters can also be a great tool to help keep investors informed about the ongoing projects being taken on by the company. The right format could not be more important as pictures as well as easy to read text are staples of great newsletters. The newsletter can be used to brag a bit and can even contain some form of coupon in order to get more readers!
Don’t Blast People Daily
One of the most annoying things a business or website can do is to blast people on a daily basis via email. There are some websites that do this multiple times a day which causes many people to mark the email as spam. This can even alienate consistent website visitors or current customers as nobody wants their email inbox to be overflowing with things irrelevant to work.
The best thing that can be done is a weekly roundup of the best things that your site or company has to offer. This could be the most trafficked blog posts of the week that many readers could have passed up. If all editors of blogs are being honest, they know which content to choose and which content simply fills up an editorial calendar. This can be seen as a content round up and this is where important announcements can be made for the week. These can be automated to send out only the certain posts with a certain number of visitors depending on certain parameters.
Engage Via Social Media
Social media accounts that are simply used to spam out links to different products do not garner much of a following. A follower can actually see a company or website as a bot which can make a company illegitimate to the follower. The best thing that can be done is to engage with customer and followers via these accounts. Large companies like Wendy’s are known for funny tweets they send out to those bantering with the fast food juggernaut. This can also be a great place for those who work in customer service to take over.
Many people have taken to social media in order to place complaints about lack of service or a defective product. This can be seen by everyone so using the best tact possible is important. One simple tweet can retain a customer that would not have returned to a business or used the service of a company.
Don’t Use The Blog As Another Form of Advertising
The blog much like social media accounts should not be used only for advertising new sales or products going on the market. The blog should be informative for the customer as many customer questions can be answered by a blog post. Turning a company into a thought leader in an industry with consistently great content can generate quite a few sales.
Readers will become annoyed if you consistently write the same old dry content as they can get this on any industry site. Readers tend to like routine so a weekly ranting column or question and answer session can be a huge draw for days that traffic lacks. Not only can this turn a company into a thought leader but it can also help your staff with their career. This can help attract top talent in the industry as big names always attract the best and the brightest regardless of industry.
Try Out Different Forms of Content
The average consumer devours more content than ever before as the smartphone has made it easier than ever to view content in any way you would like. There are just some consumers that do not like to read blog posts and would rather listen to a podcast about the same topics. Podcasts are the perfect example of a piece of content that is organic and can create quite a bit of engagement.
This can be done by giving the podcast a custom hashtag and answering questions via Twitter. This will also give people the ability to ask questions that may not be addressed by other businesses. Video content also can be a great way to help make boring topics a bit more interesting.
Those in the more boring industries need to visualize a lot of their data to make it interesting to the consumer. Do not corner your business into only producing one type of content as there are so many.
Marketing to the masses digitally has become more complex than ever before as there are a myriad of platforms. The most important thing to remember is that good content regardless of what form it is in will prevail. Take the initiative to invest time or money into a great content strategy that is based on data rather than a gut feeling. Most marketing tactics can be measured so it is easier than ever to put together a winning strategy!
