By Jo Sabin
Your customers are online looking for your products and services right now. Your competitors are testing landing page variations, copy and design elements in banner ad campaigns, email offers and talking about conversion rate optimization and long tail SEM landing pages. Don't miss out on traffic and customers because your customers can't find you.
Online channels allow you to be highly targeted with your marketing budget and in many cases are much cheaper than traditional marketing channels like print advertising or trade shows. You can see in real time how your campaign, website or promotion is performing and optimize at the click of a button. Online enables you to be precise. Control whom you target, when and what content customers see.
If this is all new to you, a great starting point is to create a coherent brand identity and then tailor your landing pages and graphics to suit your campaigns. But it's not all about graphics, when your business goes online; data is your new best friend. More on that last point later!
Whatever your objective is - to make direct sales, generate leads, build a database, promote your business to the community - you can grow your business through developing an online branded presence and testing online channels until you find the right marketing mix for your business. To get you started, we've handpicked 9 awesome / proven ways grow your business online in 2013.
#1 Get a Website
Example homepage design on DesignCrowd |
When your customers are searching for information about you or the products and services you sell, make sure you have a website they can visit. Don't be invisible! Having a Facebook or Twitter page is great but someone else owns those platforms.
Your own website is the best place to promote your business and 100% in your control. Setting up a domain is easy and hosting is cheaper than a tank's worth of petrol and you get it for a year! Your website is your brand's home and the best place for customers and prospects to meet you and start a relationship. Get a custom web design on DesignCrowd today!
#2 Banner Ads
Launch targeted banner ads that capture clicks.
Display advertising on websites your customers visit will keep you top of mind. Try Google Adwords allows for tremendous reach while niche networks such as BuySellAds) can offer properties in particular industries.
Another form of display advertising is known as "remarketing". This involves showing display ads to visitors who have already visited to your site and left without taking action (purchased something or signed up to your newsletter for example). By tagging the visitor when they arrive at your site you can then follow them around the web with ads. Remarketing is offered by Google and other companies like Criteo.
#3 Email Marketing
Send email and newsletter campaigns that convert.
Email marketing is one of the oldest yet most effective digital marketing channels. It's cheaper and better than buying marketing lists. Create strong calls to actions for your customers to sign up to your company newsletter. Give customers lots of reasons to hand over their email address such as access to exclusive content, product testing, launch events, product giveaways and other incentives to build loyalty and a deeper relationship. Don't forget to ask for their permission to contact them!
#4 Search
Create SEO-friendly landing pages to support SEM campaigns.
Google's AdWords is the cheapest way to start advertising your business online. When a user enters a search query into Google they are using a keyword or phrase that shows their intent – i.e. what they’re looking for. Google's AdWords tools like its keyword search tool allows you to research keyword trends and build lists of keywords to use in your AdWord campaigns. AdWord bid management tools enable you to bid up or down on keywords that convert. This price is related to how much you'll pay when a user clicks on your ad based using said keyword. You'll learn what the most competitive keywords are for your industry or category but you'll quickly get a cost per (customer) acquisition (CPA) that you can use as a baseline for campaign budgets. For small change you can start testing different ad copy combinations and convert more traffic. A mix of branded, and non-branded long tail keywords is best. Don't forget to test campaigns on search engines Bing and Yahoo too.Get an SEO friendly landing page design today.
#5 Blogging
Start blogging to get links and traffic.
Example blog post graphic on Techcrunch |
Write useful content that you can optimize and get out to places where your target market hangs out online. This will generate links on other relevant websites that point back to your website. Make sure you approach sites that relate to your business and are credible in your customer's eyes. That means high traffic, high authority blogs. Offer to write guest editorial or a product review. You can go one step further and create custom graphics for your blog posts. Recently Alec Lynch, DesignCrowd's CEO needed needed a crowdsourced graphic for an article he wrote for Techcrunch. For $200 budget the contest received 42 designs from 21 designers.
#6 Conversion Rate Optimisation
Convert more traffic by testing online landing page copy and design elements.
Legendary ad man David Ogilvy once said:
"Never stop testing and your advertising will never stop improving."
The same is true for websites. Tools like Optimizely and Performable teach you what content converts the best and then optimize or tweak combinations of design and copy elements into conversion perfection!
#7 Landing Pages
Be more targeted with custom landing page design to attract lucrative customer segments.
Example landing page with sign-up form |
We've talked about the importance of testing different search and display advertising combinations to learn what gets clicks. Well, once you have a website and homepage and your Google ads set up - you might consider testing "landing pages". A great SEM campaign or SEO strategy need great landing pages that convert traffic into leads, sign-ups or sales. There are different types of landing pages and different things you can try. You might test different combinations of design and copy elements (like banner images and call to action buttons) or different page lengths (long or short) to find the perfect landing page design that delivers the highest conversion rate possible.
Useful tools to get familiar with include Google Analytics Content Experiments Tools and AB testing platforms like Optimizely to learn what content converts visitors.
#8 Social Media
Engage fans and friends with branded Twitter and Facebook page design.
Custom Facebook / Twitter page design will reinforce your brand in the minds of customers and help you build general awareness. Custom graphics for coupons, sweepstakes and other promotions will increase online sharing, which means clicks and potential sales for your business. If you're running campaigns that drive users to Facebook page investing in branded graphics will help increase conversion. Start a Facebook page design or Twitter page design project today.
#9 WordPress
WordPress is a particular type of blog that is free to set up and easy to customize.
One of the world's most popular and smartest blogging platforms, WordPress comes with built-in social sharing tools to create instant community and help spread your content plus SEO-friendly design, and easy to customize templates! For credibility add your logo and get a WordPress theme (or a custom WordPress design from DesignCrowd).
We hope you enjoyed these 9 tips to help our grow you business online. Were these tips useful? Which tips will you try? Let us know in the comments below!
Want to grow your business online today? Start Now!
Written by Jo Sabin on Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Jo Sabin is Head of Designer Community at DesignCrowd. She's led the company's public relations and social media programs since 2012. With more than ten years' experience working with Australian and international tech startups in the creative industries, Jo has been instrumental in meeting DesignCrowd's objectives in Australia and abroad. Get in touch via Twitter.
