Using Digital Marketing To Line Your Own Pockets

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Digital Marketing|Using Digital Marketing To Line Your Own PocketsThere is a lot that needs to be considered when it comes to digital marketing today! If you want to make sure that your business stands out from the crowd, there are a number of things you must do.

Gathering consumer feedback is a must

When it comes to making sure that your business is a success, one thing you need to do is get a good handle regarding the thoughts and feelings of your target consumer base. At the end of the day, these are the individuals that will line your pockets if you do your job effectively, which is why it is imperative to consider their thoughts, feelings, and pain points with a lot of care.

There are a number of different ways that you can go about this. One of the most effective methods is to carry out a survey. You can use a ranking survey to find out what your customers think. This is a great way of finding out what matters most to the people you are targeting with your products and services.

Getting people to fill out surveys can be one of the most difficult and challenging things for a lot of people. Because of this, you need to try and find a way to entice people to take your surveys. You could decide to give everyone entry into a competition whereby the winner will win a voucher or one of your products, for example.

Make sure your website is responsive

Responsive web design has been around for at least a couple of years now. And in the online world whereby changes occur by the minute, this is definitely considered a long time. Nevertheless, a lot of designers are still experiencing problems with creating and/or updating their clients’ responsive websites. This ranges from troubles related to the implementation of images to changing the coding of old fixed-width websites. If you have experienced trouble with responsive web design, read on to discover three of the most common problems encountered and discover some recommended tips on how to solve them as well…

Poor quality images

When it comes to using images in responsive web design there is a high sense of ambiguity. Designers have to partake in their own guesswork and interpretations of how to use images effectively. This is because there has been no backed specification as of yet. If this wasn’t troublesome enough, new devices with high pixel density displays are being released onto the market every day. This means that if images aren’t dealt with properly then they can easily end up appearing blurry and of a low quality. One recommended solution is to use adaptive images. These actually detect the size of your visitor’s screen and will those create re-scaled version of your embedded HTML images.

Trouble converting fixed-width websites

Many designers seem to experience this problem. Not only do people struggle with how to change an old fixed-width website’s code basis, but a lot of designers are debating whether they even should. Is it worth the hassle? After all, responsive design coding is a lot more stringent. With regards to whether to convert the coding at all, it is probably best that you do. At the end of the day, these old websites had no consideration for new digital platforms, such as mobile internet. Therefore, they are not structured in a way that would be appropriate for a smartphone display.

Navigation issues

We are usually guilty of overcomplicating things in business, yet when it comes to navigation there is a general underestimation of the monumental number of considerations that need to be put into place. A lot of responsive website designs have a problem with navigation because of the fact that there has been a move away from your standard box along the top of the page or alternatively down the left-hand side. Instead, navigation placement needs to give a lot more thought.

There is no right or wrong answer. Nonetheless, finding the right solution for you revolves around considering your content, design factors, the architecture of your information, and the effectiveness when used on different platforms.

If you experience any of the common problems that have been mentioned regarding responsive website design, then hopefully you will now have the adequate solutions to combat them. No matter what issue you are trying to put right, remember that constant testing on various digital platforms is a must.

How Can Influencers Help Modern Businesses?

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Influencers|How Can Influencers Help Modern Businesses?Running a business in the modern world will always come with some challenges. Competing with other companies, getting the word out to enough customers, and even just keeping up with the latest trends and developments can feel impossible when you’re running a business by yourself. Influencer marketing can help with at least two of these areas, offering loads of benefits to your business when you decide to take this route. But how exactly can influencers help businesses in the modern world? Let’s take a look at the benefits of a modern influencer to get you started.

Expands Awareness

Businesses will typically choose influencers with large followings when they are choosing people to work with. This will ensure that the posts made by your influencer will be seen by a lot of people, expanding awareness of your business and making you stand out from the crowd. This can be much easier than traditional marketing, giving you the chance to reach loads of potential customers without having to spend loads of time learning about them and their habits, like you would with other forms of marketing.

Builds Trust

Trust is an essential element in business, and you need to be able to build trust with your potential customers, especially if your products or services are expensive. Influencers can help you with this, using the trust they have already built with their fans to convince them that your products are worth their time and money. Building trust can be easier than you expect when you have an influencer working for your brand, but this also means that many influencers are careful with who they work with.

Generates Feedback

Generating feedback about your products can be very useful when you first get started in business, giving you ideas to help you to improve your offerings. It can be hard to find ways to get feedback when you haven’t made many sales, though, and this is where influencers can come in. Stars like Haylee can trigger conversations about your product within their communities, encouraging their users to talk about what they like and dislike about them, while also letting people throw their own ideas into the ring.

Saves Time & Energy

Working with influencers is far faster than working on your own advertising campaigns. You will pay them to produce some content and post it for you, and this can be complete within as little as a few hours. Of course, you will probably want to do more than one post in the future, but this will be a good place to start to see if influencer marketing could work for your business. This will make it easier for you to focus on the work that is really important.

Influencer marketing has been gaining huge amounts of popularity in recent years. People from across the world have started to use this type of marketing to make their businesses soar, and it’s easier to get started than most people expect; you just need to find the right influencers for your business.

Top Tips For Content Marketing

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Content Marketing|Top Tips For Content MarketingContent marketing is an essential part of any marketing strategy for any business, especially for those that operate online. Content marketing is the creation, publication, and distribution of online content, with the aim of reaching a hyper-focused audience and converting them into loyal customers. But how do you get content marketing right?

Set Clear Goals

One of the best marketing tips is to set clear goals. There are lots of options for making content, so choosing the right method can be overwhelming. With options from blog posts and Instagram posts to ebooks and podcasts, where should you start? How do you know which method is the best one?

Use analytics to make sure your content finds your audience. How does the content link back to your business? You need to direct those reading back to your business and your services. Make it clear who wrote the content and why you’re the expert in your field. You can also hire companies to do this for you. If your business needs specialist content, then hire a specialist, such as natural gas marketing, if that’s your field.

Understand The Buyer’s Journey

Your content marketing strategy must engage your reader at every stage of their buying journey. While content is mostly thought of as a way to attract new people to your company website, it can and should also convince a potential or existing customer to make a purchase. Good content keeps existing customers loyal as well as bringing in new ones.

Work out what could cause customers to not purchase and create content that addresses those concerns. For example, are customers seeing your product as too complicated to use? If this is the case, create some content from your sales team like a series of simple instructional videos or how-to blog posts to convince customers that your products are easy to use. If you have a large range of options in your products, this can help to simplify the decision of what to buy too.

Track Performance With Analytics

Your content needs to convert viewers into customers. Analytics is the best way to keep track of how this is going. Monitor the numbers closely to see what kind of content is working for you and what content isn’t. This can help you to see where you can improve your content to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

As well as traffic, look at your conversion rates. For example, if your blog only gets 500 readers, but your Instagram has 5000 followers, it might seem that Instagram is more worthwhile and successful for you. However, if the blog has a conversion rate of 7%, while Instagram only has 0.5%, this shows that your blog is doing a better job of converting people to sales, and shouldn’t be overlooked, despite the smaller audience. An engaged audience is more important than a big audience, as these are the ones who make purchases, spend money, and engage with your content.

Understanding The Challenges That Come With Building Your Own Website

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Build your own website|Understanding The Challenges That Come With Building Your Own WebsiteMany people take on the challenge of building their own website, nowadays. This is largely thanks to the large range of DIY website builders available on the market, with many offering the chance to build beautiful websites without having to learn a single line of code. Of course, though, there are a lot of challenges that can come with building a website, and it’s always worth considering them before you get started.

Using The Code

While tools like Wix and Shopify promise to enable you to build websites without code, taking real control of your online platform is only possible if you’re able to use HTML, CSS, and Javascript. It’s very hard to make a website stand out when you use the default options you have available, and this means that you need to have a way to give yourself an edge.

Security

Many people don’t realise, but websites are key targets for hackers. Viruses and other security issues can easily impact a website, and this means that you need to have a good understanding of security, backups, and SSL to be able to run a website successfully. This can cause serious issues for companies that take sensitive data from their customers, with most countries having strict laws to protect people when they give their information to you.

Search Engines

No matter how you build your website, you will always need to perform SEO work to make sure that you appear in search engines like Google. This sort of work is a very specialist field, making it hard to break into it when you have a lot of other work on your plate. DIY platforms are better at dealing with SEO than they used to be, but most of this work happens away from your website, and this means that you can’t rely on them to help you.

User Experience

Designing a website that works well and appeals to users is very hard, with most agencies requiring that their team members have a lot of experience in the field of UX. Many people find that they are able to build a site that appeals to them, but this won’t impact other users in the same way, and more work has to be done to create a website that is good for a range of users.

Overcoming These Challenges

Overcoming these challenges has never been easier, but you don’t have to do it for yourself. Finding a web design agency to help with your website will ensure that you get the best possible results, while also never having to deal with the long list of challenges that can come with a DIY website. In most cases, your users will have a much better experience with a professionally made website.

Building a website can be a challenging process, with many people finding that they need help along the way. Thankfully, there are plenty of agencies out there, and you can usually find a company that is willing to help with your website.

How to update your website for a profitable post-Covid push

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COVID-19 has raised serious questions for businesses, primarily how can they respond to the crisis and what changes will it cause going forward for consumers? Businesses are always looking for new ways to survive the peaks and troughs of consumer behaviour, and with lockdowns starting to lift, there are several ways for businesses to strategize to make the most of the post-COVID period.

Be clear about brand purpose

Many brands stuck to the side lines with traditional marketing until the outbreak was under control. But post-COVID, ensure that the marketing you put out to your audience is purposeful and considered. You don’t want to appear to be profiting off the misery of the pandemic, nor is it the time to poorly execute marketing campaigns in a bid to be seen as a ‘good’ company. Make sure that the messaging on your site is clear and simple, and above all sensitive, without being overly salesy.

Evaluate product offerings

It’s no secret that the pandemic has forced us to rethink how we live our lives each day, so businesses need to take this into account when it comes to their products and services. Some products will now seem irrelevant to the users’ needs while others will be more important than they once were, given the situation we now find ourselves in.

For example, if your products or services are primarily aimed at outdoor or in-person events, these may not have been necessary to your audience throughout lockdown. It’s important that businesses take this opportunity to reevaluate their audiences’ needs so that they’re as relevant as possible for your target audience, which can also help you mitigate any dip in sales from the past year.

Consider the customer experience

With more of us at home than ever before, businesses need to develop new strategic perspectives and reshape the customer experience. One way businesses can achieve this is to consider the user’s journey and the added functionality they can include to improve the customer’s digital experience.

“We improved the functionality of our website during the pandemic to improve user experience and enhance the online shopping journey of our customers”, say printing specialists You Love Print. The business enhanced their site to automate shipping costs as customers added products to their cart, for a more efficient shopping journey and to provide real-time information to users. Consider similar ways in which you can improve your website to create a better experience overall.

Reassess SEO

Businesses with an online presence should already be optimised for search engines, but post-pandemic, it’s more important than ever that your site appears high up in the rankings for your key search terms. This is even more crucial for brick and mortar stores who haven’t been able to rely on foot traffic to gain sales.

With more people shopping online than ever before, SEO should be a priority for any business, post-COVID, but companies need to take a different approach going forward. Businesses need to improve page loading times and speeds, to help customers navigate your site more easily, and create evergreen content within your niche. It’s also important that Google My Business listings are optimised for local search.

Ramp up digital interactions

Use this opportunity to promote apps, mobile tools and digital transactions. If your business doesn’t already utilise these tools, now is the time to consider how you can innovate to deliver your product or services in a digital way. Think about how you can offer further assistance to your customers and use digital tools to deliver these offerings in a personalised way.

Buyers want organisations to treat them as individuals and digital interactions can be an effective way to achieve this level of personalisation. Post-pandemic, customers will be seeking out more personal interactions, which is something businesses should strive to offer.

Final thoughts

Case numbers are finally starting to decrease and while it’s difficult to know when normality will be completely achieved, businesses can start to consider ways to ramp up their activities to increase sales. Your business should find ways to mitigate the losses experienced during the pandemic by adjusting marketing strategies, innovating and focusing more on SEO to make the best out of this challenging situation.