As the new year approaches, many business owners are wondering how they can leverage digital marketing for 2016. Most business owners understand the need for digital marketing, but lack the understanding of which route to take. To help, we are counting down to 2016 with 10 online marketing strategies, tips, and industry recommendations to make your business successful in the new year!
10. Differentiation Online: Just Do It
The concept of differentiation is just as important to your online marketing as it is for your business. The web can be a fiercely competitive arena and you need to stand out from your competition – how is your business doing that online?
9. Web Design 101: Purpose
Every website should have a purpose, and the design should help the website accomplish it. Whether that purpose is business validation or lead generation, so many company websites fail to accomplish their goals because of poor planning or execution. Not all sites are created equal – there is a difference between a professionally built website and something built with WIX in an hour!
8. Content Marketing for Success
Common sense seems to take a hike when business owners talk about content marketing. Business owners often misuse this strategy resulting in big hits to the marketing budget. Find out how much effort your business should be putting into content marketing.
7. Stop Asking if SEO is DEAD
Search Engine Optimization will be alive and well as long as people use search engines to find products and services. However there are so many ways to find a business online today and most business owners are fixated on Google. Don’t get us wrong, Google is a great start but there are so many other avenues that may give a better return to certain businesses. The people who think that SEO is dead missed the point, or gave up when Google made it harder to cheat!
6. Business Automation: There’s an App for That!
If you have been considering hiring a new employee lately ask yourself – could I automate? A good business automation tool will increase productivity, efficiency, and profitability for your company. Profitable companies tend to have more employees than companies in the red!
5. Desktop Gone Mobile
It is 2015… if you haven’t embraced the fact that the world is going mobile by now we need you to crawl out from under that rock and read this post! Most business owners hear mobile and they think cell phones, but with the advent of touchscreen laptops and keyboard enhanced tablets we must assume that very soon a majority of users will want to touch your website! We will discuss much more than just responsive web design – that’s just step one!
4. Video, Infographics, & Millennials
In today’s YouTube obsessed world, most people under the age of 30 would rather share pictures on Instagram than talk about their day on Facebook. Most are too lazy to even fill up a full 140 character Twitter post… so why do we expect them to read entire pages filled with boring industry jargon? Engaging video, infographics, and visual marketing are vastly underutilized, could infographics better reach your websites audience?
3. Social Media = More than Facebook
Social Media has been much more than Facebook for a long time now, however business owners are having trouble grasping the concept of social platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Different types of businesses should allocate a different proportion of resources to this marketing media, and we will discuss which platforms work best for different industries.
2. Landing Pages vs. Microsites
There is a common misconception that landing pages and microsites are the exact same thing. However, in reality, they are completely different and almost contradictory to one another. There are benefits to using both of these tools and we will discuss the best scenarios in which to use each.
1. Trust Your Agency!
Whether your agency is an actual agency, a marketing manager, or a trusted friend – trust their expertise when it comes to digital marketing, things can be much more involved that first perceived.