Your social media posts only earn a handful of likes every day, maybe a comment or a share if you’re lucky. Then, one day, you hit a chord with your audience, and suddenly, your post is spreading like wildfire.
More people know about your business in a day than they did since you started your business. Orders are pouring in like rain, and your virtual cash register won’t stop dinging!
All digital marketers dream of the day their business goes “viral.” But while it may seem tempting to have one viral post do all the work for you, it is not a dependable strategy.
Content quality is very important, but virality also depends a lot on sheer luck. As a good marketer and strategist, you shouldn’t wait around for a marketing miracle to happen to you.
Instead, you should try to achieve the same viral effect on a smaller, everyday scale by making digital marketing a priority.
So try it this way: Be consistent, be engaging, and use every single new follower as an opportunity to reach further, to get your message to more people.
4 Digital Marketing Hacks for Business Growth
Business growth needs to be strategic, meaning you need to adopt tactics that will work for your business. Here are four tried and tested ways to actually grow your small business.
1. Build Instant Connections Through Social Media.
Social media is the perfect platform for today’s audience, keeping people engaged through bite-sized content. Make sure to post regularly, and make every piece of content count – words you’d enjoy reading, images you’d smile if you saw.
Good memories are the ones that stick with us, and those Facebook posts that make people laugh are the ones that they will remember tomorrow. Associate your brand with what’s fun and interesting while ensuring your content is relevant to your business.
What did SparkNotes, a test prep company, do right to get to 300k+ followers on Twitter? Exactly what we described above.
Every single post they make is one that their followers will want to share with their friends, family, maybe even their English lit teacher. For example, they create funny posts with pop culture and current events references that keep their fans coming back for more.
Don’t be afraid to add some measured humor to your posts as long as it is in line with your brand personality and does not go overboard.
This other trick to social media, if mastered, will be the reason your brand will stand out as one that really gets through and resonates with your target audience – imagery.
We’ve all heard the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” But in the digital world of short attention spans, this becomes even more true and critically important.
So step up your social media game by jazzing up your profile with eye-catching imagery that visualizes your brand message in interesting ways, giving you an edge over all the other brands who are still only using dry words to get their message across.
One of the best, most efficient ways to create awesome visuals is using high-quality social media templates. For example, PosterMyWall, an easy-to-use online graphic design program, provides a massive library where you can browse hundreds of themes to find something that inspires you. Then, simply customize it in a way that’s unique to your brand.
Pro tip: Block out enough time to create stunning images for your social media for the entire week, then schedule them all together with the PosterMyWall Premium subscription. This is a great way to save a ton of time and streamline your social media marketing efforts.
2. Share Innovative Ideas on Your Blog.
Social media helps you to catch the attention of a potential customer, but what will they do next when they want to learn about your product in more detail to make their purchase decision?
They will look for a blog that not only provides them with complete product information but also gives them new and unique ideas on how to use it. This is your chance to convince them with relevant and unique topics that spark their interest by making sure every post is informative and provides real value.
Take the HubSpot blog as an example. The index of posts reads like a marketer’s wish list. Every topic is something you’d love to learn more about. The posts themselves are packed full of interesting, helpful, and well-researched information, and there’s a reason they’re highly shared.
If you’re focused on digital marketing, you should make sure each of your posts is easily accessible to a layman. For SEO purposes, the ideal writing style for content creation is a 6th to 8th grade reading level. Short sentences make your writing easy to read, but make sure you vary sentence length to avoid monotonous monologues.
Another tip: Break up your text blocks with relevant, engaging images at intervals to keep your audience hooked. Don’t let more than 400 words get by without an illustration.
Ideally, you should add even more. In fact, a study by Buzzsumo found that articles with an image every 75 to 100 words get twice the shares of articles with other image ratios.
Images can speak volumes, so take your time and choose well. Relevant images may include quote imagery, annotated screenshots, and infographics. You can make stunning blog post visuals and embed them directly into your website or blog – no download or upload step required.
3. Establish Authority By Creating Ebooks and Guides.
A blog can establish you as a subject matter expert (SME) expert, but publishing an ebook will give you gold status. It also gives you a chance to provide your valued customers or new followers with a tangible value proposition in the form of highly valuable and exclusive knowledge.
A relevant, informative guide can be used as a lead magnet to build your email list. Ask readers to provide their email address to receive an ebook, guide, or other resources that they’re interested in for free, and before long, you’ll have a tidy list of people who are actually interested in your niche.
These may not be followers or customers yet, but it won’t take you long to convert them with targeted email campaigns. Here’s an example of a successful lead magnet:
You can see the visual representation of the lead magnet is enticing, and the copy provides a concise description of what the index includes. The green CTA button grabs your attention and makes it easy for you to find how to download the offer.
4. Step Into Inboxes Through Email Marketing.
Email marketing is highly effective and conversion friendly because it lets you step into the world of the customer at anytime, anywhere, directly through their inbox.
It’s one of the more economical advertising methods, and it can be easily automated. Not to mention it’s intensely personal—and this allows you to position yourself as relevant to every single user in your email marketing list.
Marketers that use segmented campaigns experience a 760 percent increase in revenue, and a DMA study suggests that targeted and segmented email campaigns generate 58 percent of all revenue.
People want to be listened to and when you send targeted emails, you’re letting them know their priorities and individuality matters.
Gone are the days of writing and sending individual emails to each customer. Make email marketing a breeze by automating it with email service providers (ESPs), like Mailchimp or GetResponse.
You also want to include visuals in your email content to keep your readers engaged, and some platforms make this process super simple. For example, you can turn any of your graphics on PosterMyWall into full-fledged email campaigns that you can send to customized mailing lists in one click.
Remember to create brand-consistent email headers that will grab your audience’s attention as soon as they open their email, and then watch the conversions come in.
Expand Your Digital Marketing Efforts
Build a cohesive and valuable marketing strategy by putting yourself in the shoes of your audience – create tweets that you’d love to read, blog posts you’d enjoy scrolling through, and ebooks that deliver the kind of value you and your consumer base both appreciate. Then, follow that up with a targeted email packed with actionable content that speaks to their felt needs.
Start putting these strategies into action today and you’ll find that, even if you’re not the next viral sensation, you’ll slowly but surely build up a strong following that appreciates your brand for the value it has to offer.
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Jeff Previte.
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