online marketing strategies

As a business owner, you know to get your target audience to notice you is tough. It takes time, patience, and a solid digital marketing plan to get that long-term success. Even the most experienced sports business owners can feel overwhelmed by the prospect. 

The evolution of communication technology has created a business environment in which it has become imperative that all businesses develop an online presence that has the capacity to successfully engage their customer base. Where building an online brand was a novelty idea, it has become an absolute necessity — making it important to develop an online marketing plan.

What is Online Marketing?

Online marketing/internet marketing is the use of the Internet, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to reach consumers. Compared to traditional marketing methods, such as print, billboards and TV, digital marketing is primarily data-driven. Technology now allows us to track and measure everything we do and it’s important to collect, analyse and use this valuable data on reading how each touchpoint contributes to your sales and conversions

.Its much more than just posting over social media, its needs to be part of a much wider plan, measuring what works and just as importantly, what does not work, allowing you to do more of what does work and less of what doesn’t work! It’s important that entrepreneurs get to understand the basics in order to put in place an effective strategy. And the benefits of having a clear strategy will greatly improve the presence of your business online.

As long as you have a general idea of the different digital marketing strategies you’ll need to implement, you’ll be fine. Here are some of the best and easiest strategies to use in 2020.

The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Digital Marketing Strategies

1. Content Marketing & Blog

Content writing is the foundation of every effective internet marketing plan. It involves creating informative articles and writing copy for your webpages that encourage customers to take action. Simply putting words on a page isn’t enough, though. You need to get every word to speak to your target audience.

Content does more than just filling up your web pages, it builds confidence amongst your current & your soon to be clients too through the blog you’ll build. Your blog will help you create great brand awareness and drive traffic to your website where a link to your products or services can be found.

Content marketing is the best and the most effective way of building brand awareness to the new and targeted audiences at a very low cost. The process of building brand awareness via advertising or PR can prove to be very heavy on a business’s pocket. To be honest, the word-of-mouth type of publicity/marketing is no more valid in this era and Content Marketing is the change that businesses of all sizes need. If done in a correct manner the right content can do wonders by increasing relevant traffic to your website by letting people know about your brand who never knew you ever existed. Through content and your blog, one can easily lead people into reading their products and how unique is their business is and a lot more over time and again.

The best place to start is by answering the most common questions you get about your business. From there, you can move onto more informative content. Don’t panic if you feel like you’re not a strong writer. You can always partner with a content writing specialist to create blog content your customers will love.

2. Branding

Every successful sports business needs to have a clear brand personality across every platform. Good digital marketing strategies means consistent logos, company values, colors, and goals. Without a clear brand, you won’t have a successful digital marketing plan.

Branding is a vital part of every company’s marketing plan. Elements such as the business name and logo along with its reputation and customer service, come together to help customers identify a brand. It is the brand that encapsulates everything about the company and its culture, building trust and loyalty with its customers.

By developing its brand, an organization is creating a representation of who it is and how it wishes to be perceived. With a consistent brand identity, customers get to easily recognize a business, they know what to expect, and they can see how it stands out from its competitors.

The best place to start is by going through the discovery process and making note of everything your business stands for. Use this information to create a brand persona that you can then use to promote your effective digital marketing strategies.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Another effective online marketing strategy is designed to speak to the target consumer. But you’re not just marketing to people…you also have to market to search engines. That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in.

Create your blog and write content that uses keywords your target market is actively searching for. Link to authority sites on your blog posts, and make sure all meta-data (information about your posts) features keywords and is fully fleshed out. The more consistent you are, the easier it will be for search engines to rank your content and the faster your target audience will find you in the search results.

4. Social Media Marketing 

If you’re wondering how to create online marketing strategies for small business that works, turn your attention to social media. People spend hours on social media checking out businesses and companies they’re interested in. But it’s also a fantastic place to advertise and reach new customers. Utilize sponsored ads and posts and take the time to respond to engage with customers on your page.

We all know marketing is the process of communicating value to customers. Social media is a tool or channel for marketing and aids in helping brands build their visibility and social currency.

Social networks aren’t just about you connecting with your customers, but also it allows them to connect with you. In fact, 73.4% of users will follow a brand because of their interest in the product or service. By having a social site, you have essentially increased your channels to share and syndicate your content. This means you have the opportunity to not only share but to be shared too. You might even go viral. While virality is unpredictable, follow the tips in this viral marketing article to increase the odds that your content will go viral. And even if you don’t spark virality, you have still made it easier for people to talk about you

.It only takes one customer to share your content or your page to get leads. With that share, a whole new group of people has the chance of stumbling upon your name while scrolling through a feed.

Why It Matters

Social media makes you much more accessible. Even if you have a website and can be searched, your social networks make it that much easier for customers to find you.

Think of it like this, a social site is like an extension of you. For example, if someone searches for your business by name or product, you might pop up in a variety of searches whether it be your website or your Facebook page. Your social media pages help you take control of more top-ranking slots when people search for your brand name, making it easier for people to recognize you and thus building your brand awareness.

Think of your social media account as a simple way to interact with customers and give them the individualized attention they deserve.

5. Email Marketing

The goal of using email marketing as part of your digital marketing strategies is to both retain current customers and attract new supporters. It helps keep your brand and message at the forefront of their minds and makes it easy to convey upcoming deals, events, and campaigns you have planned.

Every email you send should focus on providing useful and actionable information for your customers. Think of it as an extension of your content marketing plan, but instead of writing articles, you’re communicating directly with your customers. As an added bonus, customers will keep your brand in mind even if they don’t open your email. As soon as they see your subject line or your email address, they’ll start thinking about your company.

6. Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC advertising campaigns help instantly boost your website to the top of the page of search results. To implement this digital marketing strategy, you choose particular keywords (Google Adwords too) that you want to target. These should be terms and words that your customers actively search for.

When they search for those terms, your advertising gets displayed at the top of the page. You only buy the ad when the user clicks on the link, making this one of the most affordable and effective advertising methods. Keep in mind that it’s not a substitute for SEO marketing campaign. The results are temporary but the data you’ll be able to basically buy through PPC can help expand the reach of your blog.

7. Video Marketing

The sad truth is that people don’t take the time to read what you write in its entirety. Chances are, you’ve skimmed the headlines in this post before deciding to read all the way through. But people DO watch videos, making video marketing an absolute must.

Whether you’re a new startup or a large international company, video is such an important tool for marketing your business. Most companies have taken advantage of the broad network of social media channels, to increase sales and generate leads. This is to be expected since online platforms are increasingly becoming the primary brand interaction point for most consumers. Among the strategies involved in this is the use of video content for marketing.

It goes without saying that if an image is worth a thousand words, then a video is definitely worth so much more. Moreover, images are the first line of communication long before you ever hear or read the media source. When these sensory aspects are combined into a video, a complete visual communication takes place. So, why video? Simple answer, why not.

Videos can be anything you want, from product reviews to interviews with athletes. The point of the videos, like email marketing, is to keep your brand on your audience’s minds. Even better, those videos are easy to share on social media, further increasing your reach. Take for example the well-known video platform Youtube, besides allowing businesses to create their own channels and upload as much as they can, the platform also has features that allow creators to link videos from one another or link videos to different platforms like, say for example, your blog! 

8. Online Advertising

Not only did traditional advertising change as the world gave way to the internet, but digital advertising itself is constantly expanding and changing. New platforms, types of ads as well as targeting capabilities are being developed but commonly, there are two types of online advertising used.

Online Ads An Entrepreneur Like You Needs to Know About Social Media Advertising

Facebook has over 2.5 billion active users per month. On Instagram, there are about 1 billion users while Twitter has 330 million active users worldwide per month. And because of these numbers, advertising investments in social media platforms have gone through an all-time line, with spending projected to go beyond $8.5 billion this year.

But besides the high numbers of audiences using the platforms, there are several other advantages to ads on social media. For one, most platforms offer great targeting features to its ads. Businesses will have an easier time reaching very specific target markets as well as brand new audiences at the same time.

Second, most social media channels use a variety of different ad formats. Users don’t have to worry about whether a format that best aligns with their goals can be used on the platform or not. Ultimately, social media ads allow you to invest in advertising efforts that surely creates leads and sales for your business.

Paid Search Advertising

Earlier, we discussed SEO and how it puts your business in the organic SERPs of search engines. Now that you’ve understood some of the basics of search engines and how they are being used by today’s consumers, it’s only apt we discuss paid search ads.

There are three main reasons why business with existing SEO campaigns still invest in ads; one, Google Ads produce $8 for ever $1 spent. Two, ads allow you to compete with those who are advertising on your keywords. And lastly, search ads appear above the organic results in SERPs.

So, how does it work? Google Ads bids keywords to advertisers. And those who win the bidding for a specific keyword gets to appear above the organic results of the said term whenever a user looks for it on the search engine.

Why Having A Marketing Plan Matters

Marketing plans are as important as business plans to a venture. Why? While business plans are made to help you identify which direction your company is headed, your marketing plans tell you how to get there by telling you which strategies to you and how to use them.

Like we’ve discussed earlier, there are about dozens of digital marketing strategies you could use to reach your goal—but only a handful of them will be useful to you depending on your needs and wants. And while it seems like some of them look similar in terms of approach, each one will be tailored to alleviate a specific concern to your business.

Marketing plans are not just created to include strategies, it’s developed to provide businesses with a deeper understanding of its position in the marketplace and its audience. Without it, you and your team might not be able to have a more thorough and confident planning.

Tired of Wondering How to Create an Online Marketing Plan? Let us guide you!

Creating marketing strategies for online services can be tough. Save yourself the stress of doing it yourself. Partner with our team and let us do the heavy lifting.

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