It’s not an easy task to expand your online presence as a small business, as the space is already very crowded. As a new player, you might be competing against many other businesses out there for the same customer. And this fight might also be unfair: those businesses could have a stronger brand recognition or simply bigger marketing budgets to outperform you and steal your piece of the market share. Another story is when you offer a product or services that are quite niche. The chance of people finding you through their research on Google is very limited, because nobody ever heard about what you have to offer. In both cases, you need to think about a marketing strategy that will help you connect with your future customers in the most effective way. The investment in the right marketing channels and initiatives can not only increase the traffic to your website, but also help you to invest in the traffic that converts.
If you want to accelerate the growth of your business, by getting more relevant traffic through your online advertising and maintaining good ROI, consider these 5 tips:
1.Acknowledge the power of social media advertising. Facebook Ads is not only a powerful tool that helps you to build your brand recognition. It can also help you to increase the number of online conversions. The task of a properly designed Paid Social campaign is to approach the right audience at the right time through many different targeting options: interest, behavioral or demographic-based. If you know what your desired customer profile looks like, your social ads can speak to that person and help you to achieve what Paid Search advertising can’t (especially when you are at the beginning of building your organic reach). Beyond paid ads, you need to make sure that your Facebook or Linkedin Page stays up to date. That means keeping the most relevant information there and continuing to engage your audience through interesting content about your business.
2.Rethink your SEM strategy. Search advertising helps you to get more relevant and qualified traffic to your website – there’s no question about it. However, if you are competing in an already crowded auction, you might find it difficult to generate enough traffic at a reasonable CPC. Going after high-demand traffic might be something that you ultimately desire but, at the beginning, you need to be smart about what keyword portfolio and targeting option you choose. For instance, a long-tail traffic or local search will not necessarily boost online sales overnight. However, it can help you to bring some sales at a reasonable ROI. Another case is if nobody is searching for your product – in that case you need to find in-direct ways of approaching your desired audience. You could consider investing some of your budget into so-called “broad traffic”. While it might not bring you direct sales, it will help you to educate people about your offer and, perhaps with time, you will be able to convert this traffic into potential customers.
3.Make SEO important. If you want to make an organic listing your most important customer acquisition channel, you need to equip yourself with a lot of patience, creativity and the right strategy. But this game is worth the wait! At the end of the day, you can get your website listed on top of the search engine result pages and get thousands of relevant traffic, completely for free. Make sure you invest time and resources in building your own blog and creating interesting content, as well as getting your link-building strategy in place.
4.Don’t think about Google as only Search. There are many different networks in Google Universe, which allow you to interact with your prospective customers on a completely different level. Consider YouTube or Display ads as a format that tells people more about your product and services in a more engaging or interactive way. Similarly to Facebook, these two networks offer a variety of interest-, behavioral or demographic targeting options, which will help you reach the right audience for your business.
5.Talk to your existing customers. It’s not only relevant from purely a retention point of view: if you offer a product that people might want to buy again in the future, it’s better if they chose you over the competition. Often, your post-sale marketing can be as impactful as your outreach strategy. Therefore, it’s very important to have a dialog with your existing customers, as the more positive customer experience you provide, the higher likelihood of people becoming supporters of your brand, which will help you with organic reach. Either you make it through a newsletter or by moderating your Facebook Page enquiries – make sure you stay connected to people who already chose your product.
Ready to try applying any of these tactics to see if you can boost your online sales?
