Top 3 Ways to Market Your Business Online in 2017

We are witnessing the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) unfolding before us. Just as you have information about your product on your fingertips, customers also have information on their hands.

They are connected through a net and they can access data and information anytime and anywhere they want. The digital world is the first place where you get in touch with your potential customer for marketing your products. Knowledge on this alone won’t suffice. We are in 2017 and it is the age of cut-throat competition. Your products may perhaps be the best but to be the first is a daunting task and for this, it is essential to get the basics correct first.

Website

The foundation is laid with your website. Customers first visit websites to check out what you have to offer, to see the descriptions, check if any offers or discounts are there and the shipping rates if they happen to be placed in a far flung region, and so on. For this, the homepage needs to be simple yet attractive. Information must be visible without having too much to scroll. This is important since many customers wouldn’t be patient to see what is down below.

Establishing communication is another factor in having a successful business outcome. Can your customer, if you are a service related business, see a click to call icon above the fold, i.e. without scrolling, and can he by clicking that call you up directly instead of having a service provider do the job.

These are certain tips to be kept in mind while constructing a website in the year 2017. Also, it is the age of smart phones and everything is made available instantly through phones carried in pockets. Search Engine Google had last year stated that it is giving importance to mobiles first and then only desktops and laptops.

Since around 60 per cent of the searches are now carried out on phones it is imperative that you have a mobile friendly website. You need to keep this factor in control else fix it as soon as possible to stay competitive in 2017.

Ad Words and SEO to improve Search Engine Rankings

Google is by default the place where anyone would search for information. This huge search engine has created the most measurable forms of marketing and advertising in history. Google Ad words enable you to reach out to millions in one shot.

You can sell your goods or services to the entire world. Splitting your campaigns and Ad words will be a good idea. The campaign usually must be a base word. For example, you can keep your campaign as “manufacturing” and the ad groups within that key terms can have variations such as “electronics manufacturing”, “plastic manufacturing”, and so on.

Your work will become more organized, creative and you will end up viewing the performance of different terms and create extremely specific ads for your target customers.

Also Read: Strategies To Drive More Traffic To Your Website

Ad words and search engine optimization (SEO) are closely related than ever before in 2017. Google’s Quality Score is a witness to that. Google looks at the content on your website which is the same content contributing to your organic ranking.

It looks at that and the Ad words and how much they are related. If yes then your rankings improve. A good Quality Score can place your company above your nearest competitor.

Quality Scores and SEO are directly interrelated along with the organic ranking and the more time you spend in enriching your content in those directions the better your ranking will become with Google gradually placing it above your peers.

Facebook Lead Ads

Are you on Facebook? It is an often asked term. Facebook has more than 800 million active users and 200 million logs on to the medium on a daily basis. Your Facebook page is the extension of your website and it needs to surpass your website in terms of your interaction with the customers.

You can spend some time daily on browsing through web pages that have used Facebook to the optimum and reproduce their formula on yours as well. Facebook will help you create fan pages and for this, you need to frequently post new content such as videos, short messages, audio visuals, replying promptly to comments from viewers, get them to press the like button, and in the process develop a one-to-one relationship with your client.

Develop an interactive page and get a lively community of people to discuss your business among them. Cash on to the opportunity brought forth by the digital world and achieve extraordinary results.

7 Tips for Successful Video Marketing

Unleashing the incredible power of video marketing even if you are a newbie can pay rich dividends. You may fail to convey about your product but a well-crafted video will do the job for you working 24×7.

Video marketing has gained more prominence as we navigate through the fourth industrial revolution. It is the best tool to communicate your ideas and your message and in the process earn for you dollars. Best is to keep things as simple as they can be. The key is to be well-versed with your objective before you start making your video.

Why to publish a video? – This is the first question that you need to ask yourself before posting it online. Is there a requirement? The video should connect with your viewers. Often customers search online for finding solutions to their problems. It could be anything, may be buying a product, or getting rid of something which bothers them, and so can you give a solution to their suffering. If yes, then they will watch your video for tackling their ailments.

The plus point with putting up videos is that you don’t take the pain to explain again and again.

Videos will build your brand. When you are new in the market you can use videos to reach out to potential customers telling them about your company and your products.

Once they like it then they will share the video through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook or WhatsApp and in the way not only bring traffic to your website but also boost your sales. You do publishing and if your video is liked then public will take care of the rest.

Also Read About: Promote Your Business With Mobile Internet Marketing?

Make your video interactive – Interactive videos attract maximum people. Comments from your audience matters. It improves your SEO. Respond to the comments, tweets, raise questions and allow your viewers to answer them in the comments section.

Watching your video – The job is not done just by uploading the video on YouTube. You need to keep a tab on how much of your video is watched. It is important to know where your customer switches to another channel. Keeping your customer engaged is an arduous task. To overcome this challenge it is advisable to keep your video short. No one has the time to watch an entire movie. Research has shown that videos that last around 5 minutes are the ones watched most.

Searching your video – Content is as important as visuals. A well written content will give your video meaning. People visit content and read a bit and then click on the video. Search engines cannot locate your video and if you want it to appear on search engines then content is a must. Keep an attractive headline and a punchline pulling your viewer to watch out the video for more action, introduce those like buttons – “Facebook, Tweet”, etc. which promote your video.

Read About: 9 Content Marketing Ideas For Success!

Notification of video – It is a good thing to notify your subscribers about your video. But when you upload too many videos and each time your subscriber gets notification then you are spamming him. He may discontinue watching your videos. To avoid this when uploading your video make it private and then when it is uploaded uncheck “notify subscribers” in advanced settings and then make the video public. This will ensure that you reach viewers and keep your subscriber base intact as well.

Further actions – You have succeeded in drawing their interest and now you want to retain them further. It is a challenge. This can be overcome by including links below the videos to direct your customer to find out solutions. For example, if video is about your production process then you can have a page which directs them to information about your other products. Or links such as get the exact product here or talk to an expert here will also serve well. The idea is to keep the visitor engaged on your page.

Hiring professionals – You may be taking all these steps and yet not finding success. If you are not experienced then it is difficult to find the right video marketing strategy. Video production or marketing professionals can do that for you. May be time to hire them.

The Importance of Reviews for Online Marketing

With the advent of e-commerce, people are buying products from the convenience of their homes. However, they are careful about what they buy, thanks to online product reviews

Online reviews are the magic tool which can help a business gain more customers. It also adds more credibility; people will trust your product when you have a lot of positive reviews. In fact, while browsing for mobile apps, online buying or even booking movie tickets, online reviews influence our decision. Only after reading those reviews, we decide on whether or not we should go ahead with the respective app download, product purchase or movie ticket booking.

Getting Reviews

Getting reviews are very important for any business. You can dedicate a separate page on your website for customer reviews. We can also offer popular bloggers a few free samples of our product, in exchange for a review. Existing customers should not be ignored either. You can also forward them samples of your new product in exchange for their valuable time and effort in reviewing your product. Automated software or an e-commerce review application like Trustpilot can also be incorporated onto the website. That way, visitors will be prompted to leave a review before leaving the site.

Handling Bad Reviews

For every ten good reviews, you may receive at least one bad comment. It is a fact of life, you can’t appease everyone. A negative review must immediately be responded to. If the product is genuinely faulty, then it must be replaced. If there is something wrong with the service you are providing, you might need to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused and set things right immediately. In fact, your timely response to a negative review will have a positive impact on the other web visitors who are watching, and will take a note of your prompt customer service. If you are sure that the customer is mistaken and there is no fault from your end, you may convey it politely. If at any point you feel that the customer is being unreasonable and any further communication is pointless – then it is always better to keep silent and stay away, as further communication will aggravate the situation.

Good for SEO

Having good business reviews also helps in search engine optimization. Google always looks for fresh content. Having a review form incorporated into your website provides for the same. People also search for product reviews on Google; thus, reviews are good for online marketing. Having your ‘product name’ PLUS ‘review’ typed in the Google search box will automatically get you a share of that traffic depending on your ranking.

Do Customers really Read Reviews?

According to a recent study, 86% of the customers read online reviews before buying a product. About 80% of them said that their decision is influenced by negative reviews. Most of the positive reviews came on Facebook while the negative reviews came via review websites. One thing customers are skeptical about is websites with ‘All-Positive’ reviews. The common perception is that ‘Nobody is perfect’; therefore, a company having only positive reviews is most certainly faking it.

If your company is not yet online, you may plan to do so, and approach a Webdesign Company to start with. The next step would be, to promote it to attract more customers. Apart from social media promotions, having genuine reviews from loyal customers will definitely give your product the much-needed boost.

Here is what you should do to Video Market your Small Business

A lot has been said about how videos can improve your Google ranking and how they help in business marketing. However, the question remains, “How do I go about it?”

Videos are undoubtedly a very good source of web traffic. When incorporated into your marketing strategy, they help your SEO rankings, by attracting more visitors to your website. They also increase the ‘visit length’ i.e., the amount of time a visitor spends on a website, from a few seconds to several minutes. In fact, YouTube has become the second largest search engine after Google, after overtaking the likes of Yahoo, Ask and Bing.

In fact, many people are more interested in watching videos, than reading articles about the required information. A blog article with an embedded video carries more value as it increases the average ‘visit length’.

How influential are these videos?

The age old saying goes, “A picture is worth 1000 words”. We would like to add that, “A video is worth a billion pictures”.

Video Marketing Example for a Restaurant

For example, if you are a restaurant, and want to do online marketing for your brand, it will make more sense if you use videos rather than pictures. People will find nice looking pictures of restaurants everywhere; they are very common. But videos are a different ball-game altogether. In fact, there are different types of videos that can be put up on your website or blog to attract more visits, increase the visit length, and obviously, improve the SEO rankings.

Videos of the restaurant exteriors, interiors and overall ambience
Video reviews of restaurant by customers
Do-it-Yourself (DIY) recipe videos

All the above types of videos can be incorporated into your website or blog, to attract more customers to your restaurant offline as well as online. Apart from YouTube, there are similar sites like Vimeo as well as Vine (a part of Twitter), which are also a great source of videos. The embed code is provided in these video sites so that you may incorporate any video you like into your web page so that it plays on your website.

What exactly do I put into these videos?

The material for these videos depends on your product or services. Here are some tips to start with:

Product videos: If you are selling a physical product, you can shoot a video of the product from different angles. For example, if you are selling a mobile phone, then it must be shot from all angles, in order to give a correct perspective. The same logic is used to sell clothes, where models walk on the ramp wearing them, and their video is shot from various angles.
How-to videos: People love to see how the product actually works in real life. These videos can include celebrities, giving a demo of the product. This is an interesting way of online marketing.
Product testimonials: Testimonials can give authenticity to your product. People who use your product may be asked for testimonials, which you may incorporate into your website. Whether it is a physical product or a fast food place, genuine customer reviews add tonnes of authenticity to your brand.
Be consistent: Create a sense of expectancy; make your videos so interesting, that people long to see your videos, and there is a sense of expectancy and buzz, even before the new ones are out.
Being human: You can cut across barriers by showing your human side and letting people know that you are not just a business. You may shoot, “Behind the scenes” videos and introduce your audience to all your staff that actually makes your product ready, by putting in, many hours of work.
Voice-over and music: Your video will definitely look cool if there is a music clip running in the backdrop. A voice over can also be added, wherever it is necessary.
Working for a cause : Make your business benefit the society; work for a cause. Create a video about the charitable work you are doing. Let the audience know, how the community is being benefitted because of you.

The above points are just like the tip of an iceberg; you will learn more during the course of their implementation.

Process of shooting a video

In order to shoot your video for online marketing, you will need a good digital camera or mobile phone with a high-resolution camera. If you really need a high-resolution video, then you may have to invest in a High-Density video camera. Some cameras may also contain a provision to plug in a microphone, for audio clarity. Apart from that, you will also need good video editing software; in most cases, Windows Moviemaker comes in handy and can readily be downloaded for FREE. If you are having a Macintosh, then iMovie can do the job for you.

Video Marketing

Once you have created your movie, it is time for video marketing to help it reach a wide audience. You may post it on sites like YouTube or Vimeo. You may also share it on Twitter, Facebook and other social media with relevant tags. The titles you give to your videos are very crucial. They must be so interesting, that the user should be prompted to click on its link and watch the video right away, without wasting time. You may also encourage others to embed your video on their sites, in order to reach a wider audience. Thus your videos will be seen, liked and shared for by a lot of people. More and more people will start subscribing to your Video channel. You will come across as someone who provides value and people will start liking and even sharing your posts. People will begin to trust you, as you gradually position yourself as an expert in your particular field. It is only when this trust is established, that you can start promoting your product ‘directly’ through your videos. Since a trust has already been established with your audience, your product video will be received well. Last but not the least; make sure that your product lives up to the mark.

Website

Also Read: 5 Reasons Why You Need A Website Re Design

Ad Words and SEO to improve Search Engine Rankings

Also Read: Strategies To Drive More Traffic To Your Website

Facebook Lead Ads