12 tips to promote your business
You need to get the word out about your products and services, but what’s the best way to promote your business? Fortunately, you have options. In addition to tried-and-true business promotion methods, the rise of social media has created an abundance of new marketing opportunities. It’s now easier and more affordable than ever to advertise. Learn more about how to promote your business with these digital marketing and social media tips.
Register your business with Google — it’s the new yellow pages. It allows potential customers to find your company’s location and hours of operation easily. Customers can also post reviews of your business. By setting up a Google My Business account, you can make your company more visible in online searches, extending your reach with a free form of advertising.
Optimize your website’s SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your website show up higher in Google search rankings. Using relevant keywords throughout your business’s web pages and blog posts increases the chance of users finding your site when they search online for businesses like yours. SEO involves much more than keyword usage, though, so it’s helpful to do some research online or find a book that outlines how to prime your site’s performance on search engines. You might also consider hiring an SEO agency to help optimize your website.
Any time your business does something notable or newsworthy, draft a press release to send to your local news outlets. These publications actively look for interesting stories and often use press releases to create articles. When they do, it gives your business free publicity and distribution, allowing you to reach a much broader audience.
Leverage Your Website
If you have an existing website that is fully functional and mobile-friendly, then your site can be one of the greatest assets to promoting your app. At one point or another, all of your customers or anyone interested in your company will find their way to your website. When they do, it is important they all know you have an app.
Including your app in your site could mean sectioning off a part of your site exclusively for the app. Such as the corner of the screen or towards the middle of the web page. You can even use web push notifications for app promotion.
In addition to including your app on your website, including it in your regularly scheduled blog post is one of the best mobile app promotion strategies you can leverage. You may do so by creating a complete blog post solely about your app or including a call to action at the end of every blog post to invite your viewers to download the app.
When writing the blog post solely about the app, write a complete story about your app and let your target audience know the purpose behind it. Tell them how this app can facilitate and make things easy for them. Include your app links, screenshots and videos to help them get a good understanding.
Email Marketing
Your new app needs to be engraved into every aspect of your marketing, which includes all of your emails. As a business, you will send out countless emails and not including your app in each of those is a missed opportunity.
Any email that is sent out, whether it be from your tech support, your newsletter or even the payment confirmation email should include a footer with one line advertising your app. Include details such as what can be accomplished through the app and a link redirecting towards the download page.
Emails still have their charm provided they’re used under the right circumstances. According to a study by Exact Target, “91% people check their email daily”. Capitalize by incorporating your app links into newsletters, customer service emails and also make it a habit to use it in email signatures.
How to Promote an Online Store FAQ
How do I decide which marketing strategies make the most sense for my online store?
There are many ways to use marketing to promote your business; however, which strategies you should employ will depend on your business and your goals. Here are some questions to ask: does your offline brand provide you a strong email list? If so, maybe start by getting the word out that way. Does the audience for your products flock to certain social media platforms? If so, those channels would be a good place to focus on. Is your main goal to reach new customers who are currently unaware of your brand? You may need to boost your organic traffic based on an SEO and content strategy.
How do I gain more organic traffic to my ecommerce website?
The key to driving organic traffic to your website is SEO. You need to make your site easy to find for people who aren’t familiar with your brand, but who are in need of your products. Make sure all the content on your website follows SEO best practices and consider producing additional content as part of a content marketing strategy to reach new customers.
What SEO best practices will help my ecommerce business?
Overall, your SEO strategy should encompass all of the following: keyword research, site architecture, on-page and technical SEO, content marketing, link building and some form of success measurement. While it can be tempting when starting out with SEO to try to stuff key words into everything, make sure you’re writing for humans as well. Think about what people who might want your products are searching for. Let that inform the key words you use in your content. Make sure the meta tags, descriptions and URLs provide an accurate description of what the user will actually find on the page.
How do I find influencers to talk about my brand?
The best influencer marketing strategy is genuine. Therefore, the best way to find people who can speak authentically about your brand is to search for those who are already talking about it or who are at least experts in your niche. Research content creators who have a following specifically related to your target industry and audience.
How can I measure the effectiveness of my marketing campaigns?
Before you launch any new marketing campaign you first need to figure out what your goal for the campaign is. What KPIs (key performance indicators) will let you know if you are successful? Is your goal to increase traffic? To improve your conversion rate? To increase revenue? Once you have a set goal, you can measure the success of your marketing campaign against that goal to determine its effectiveness. Make sure you have structured the campaign in such a way that you can determine attribution.
What social media platforms should I market my online store on?
This is a question that can be answered with another question: what social media platforms are my target audience on? Do market research and create personas if you aren’t sure about your target audience’s preferences.
How do I encourage more people to review my products?
User-generated content and product reviews are incredibly important. Because shoppers can’t see and feel the products in person, they rely on third parties to give their opinions before making a purchase online, particularly if they’ve never shopped with you before. You can encourage customers to review your products by creating and automating the process of asking for reviews and following up. Make it as easy as possible for customers to leave reviews such as by providing a template with questions to answer.
What are best practices for email marketing?
If you have a strong email list already and are interested in expanding your email marketing, here are a few tips. First of all, you only want to reach out to people who want to hear from you. Don’t buy lists, clean your list regularly and make it easy to opt out. To improve open rates, write concise, but engaging subject lines. Personalize the email as much as possible based on the information you have (name, previous shopping history, etc). Keep the main message short, on brand and with the call-to-action above the fold.
What are best practices for pay-per-click advertising?
PPC advertising can be an effective way to bring your ecommerce website in front of fresh eyes. Consider targeting longer tail keywords with high intent for conversion. Even if there is a lower search volume for a more specific phrase, you may also have less competition and are more likely to reach the exact audience you’re looking for. Make sure the ad copy is very compelling. Another tip for PPC campaigns is to make sure to follow the data to see what’s working and what’s not so you can tweak accordingly.
What are best practices for content marketing?
Content marketing is creating valuable content designed for your target audience. It can be a good way to build brand awareness, educate customers and potential customers and to drive organic traffic to your website. When developing a content strategy, make sure your content provides authentic value to readers and isn’t overtly trying to sell to them. Find creative mediums to deliver content. Also, be consistent (and realistic). Don’t make it part of your strategy to publish a blog every other day, for example, if you have a one-person marketing department.
Sources:
https://business.chase.com/resources/grow/12-tips-to-promote-your-business
https://buildfire.com/free-app-promotion/
https://www.bigcommerce.com/articles/offline-to-online/promote-online-store/