Connect, Communicate, and Convert: Optimize Digital Marketing to Boost Your Brand

There is such a need for good branding and marketing. So, businesses and even organizations can continue carrying their message, offer their services, and keep serving people effectively and relevantly in this digital age.

Technological innovations encompass all industries and businesses—from the novice to the maven. And with 4.54 billion people on the internet, more than half of the world’s population, websites have long ceased to be an afterthought to marketing plans.

If sites were considered as mere digital business cards in the past, it’s no longer the case today. Websites have become elements of trust for a tech-savvy, internet-powered society. Even startups enjoy a level playing field as more and more businesses compete on the digital front more than brick-and-mortar stores.

Your Website is for you to Connect, Communicate, and Convert

Your Website is for your business to get found online and connect with your target audience. Once the connection is formed, you can then communicate who you are and your brand effectively. You can engage the market regarding how you can add value to their search intent. Your aim is to convert most of them into valued customers.

That’s why your Website needs to be of high quality. With one visit, people can decide whether they want to trust you or not, and trust is essential. To get them to listen to you, you need to have their confidence.

It is crucial, then, what kind of digital marketing strategies you employ to boost your brand. How do you keep connecting, communicating, and converting effectively through an optimized digital strategy?

Reliable and Consistent Online Presence

Having an online presence should be a priority. Having a website is only the first step. You need to have a presence in social media as well. Most businesses and influencers know this too well. They have been migrating or mirroring content on different social media platforms also.

3.8 billion people are on social media. This is not surprising because social media content is just easier and quicker to consume. Since the majority of the world is also on mobile, social media makes content easily accessible by curating what’s trending for a fast-paced audience.

Social media helps you become “closer” to your target market. The formality that websites often have regardless of genre is simmered down even more with that brand’s social media account. It’s just more personal, and you can be as varied on the content you produce, from stories that change daily to high-quality video or high-resolution images. You can post quotes, do live streaming, and immediately respond to people’s questions, comments, and suggestions.

Your social media accounts can serve as a significant clickthrough point for your Website for those crucial conversions.

Therefore, your online presence needs to be reliable and healthy. You need to produce content consistently. A good number would be around 2 to three times a week, and you can do it through your Website or your social media accounts. Whatever you decide, it needs to be consistent for that stable, robust, and reliable online presence your business needs.

Localized Search Marketing

If your business is targeted towards a specific demographic, then it would be much better if you focus your initial marketing efforts to target that locality. 70% of people online are shopping for local products and services through their mobile phones. You need to rank high on those local listings on search engines like Google, and whatever your local market is often using.

Be included in local business directories as well. You can also set up an account on Google’s My Business. You can also run social media ads and campaigns targeted on your locality, like through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

You can also attend local events like expos and bazaars to enlarge your network and visibility in the community. You can also choose to partner with some local businesses. For example, if you are a marketing business, you can partner with local colleges to conduct free talks to budding marketers. If you are a local flower shop, you can partner with an event planning company or may a farmer’s market or bazaar. Advertise these collaborations on your Website and social media accounts, so people know that you are an active and trusted part of the local community.

Appealing and Accessible Web Design??

“Design is marketing, and if your design sucks, and it’s not usable, then no one is really going to stick around.” This was said by Neil Patel,  co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics, UberSuggest, Neil Patel Digital, and other websites.

Your Website’s design should be accessible, navigable, straightforward, and timeless. Readers usually spend only 10 to 15 seconds to determine if the webpage is potentially valuable to them. 58% of readers will simply skim articles.

Your Website should not only be good-looking but also pull people in to stay longer. If you cannot pique their interest enough to dwell, how much more to convert?

Your Website is also not an extension of your personal taste, whether you are the owner or website developer. It should reflect the taste of the people you are targeting to connect with. Yes, it should reflect innovativeness and your uniqueness as a brand. Still, your design cannot be so unique that it is beyond relatable. There is a balance between standing out and staying in sync with people’s pulse. This balance, once achieved, leads to reliable conversions.

Your design should be mobile-friendly and responsive. Having too many pages can actually hurt you more than you think. So, make sure that readers are directed well into your Website to have the best possible experience in the minutes they give to consume your content. Elements such as Contact Page and About Us Page should be easily locatable, for instance. Your best content curated in a way that should readers want to learn more. You lead them quickly to the most relevant and excellent content you have on the subject matter or search intent.

In short, make life easier for your readers and do the legwork for them.

So, if you plan to penny-pinch on your Website’s design and interface by doing it yourself, even if you may not be the best person to do the job, then think again. Your web design is like the front lawn of your Website. If it’s unclean, cluttered and uninviting, you wouldn’t even be able to successfully get people to the living room.

Skimping on web design then can cause you to lose potential customers at the get-go.

Make convenient connections through social media as well. Use the platform for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) actions to like empathizing during this challenging time of the global pandemic. You can post support for those on the frontline, help gather funds for donations, help increase public awareness of the virus and what the public can do, and the like.

All these may not be directly related to your brand or product, but these are concerning your target market goes through. Most of them have probably lost their jobs or closed their businesses while lockdown or stay-at-home measures are in place. Most of them are feeling isolated and anxious, and since you built a website for people, then be there for the people through your online presence.

Get Set with Social Media Paid Promotions

Increase your visibility as a brand on social media by registering your brand for paid promotions. According to Pew Research, Facebook remains prominent among high-earners, which makes up 74% of its users. YouTube beats Facebook in this regard, as they have a reach of 83% high-income earners, while LinkedIn comes third, which reaches just 49% of users making more than $75,000.

Since most people are on mobile and on social media, you need to take advantage of social media ads. Potential buyers also research, some extensively, on comments and reviews on social media before they make a purchase final. If you are on social media along with good reviews from users and peers, then you can highlight those to optimize your digital marketing strategies.

Facebook, for instance, lets you boost posts, schedule them, and determine the target of your ads like more engagements (likes and shares), more messages, and the like. You can set who sees your post, what age, or what locality if you are targeting specific locations. You can adjust your budget, make changes along the way.  

Meet your target market where they’re at and follow their trail. If most of your target market is on Twitter, then be there. If most of them prefer high-res images on IG, then deliver. If most of them are on Facebook and appreciate stories, polls, contests, trends, and then find ways to stay in the loop with your posts.

You can cross-promote with businesses and accounts that complement your brand. You can tag partners in your promotions and or events and share user-generated content to boost your credibility too.

Being active on social media can be taxing. Still, it is an excellent way to establish brand awareness and strengthen networks.

Keep your Website SEO-friendly

You need to capitalize on what your business website and blog can do by making sure you optimize your Website & blog to rank higher on SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

Google search engines have more than 200 algorithm factors, for instance, and a good SEO in place can help you qualify and rank on SERP. Local search marketing can land you on search engines, but it is SEO that keeps you there. Start blogging through your Website as an added bonus. Target trending search intent, queries, and dilemmas your market is facing. Employ effective UX/UI measures on your page and produce high-quality content consistently.

Also, ensure you have a reliable web hosting service that does not cause slowdowns. Use cybersecurity measures to ensure your Website is free from threats that can hijack your sensitive data, or worse, your customers. Get yourself protected from malicious attacks with software that gives total protection against cyberattacks. If you compromise on security, you are compromising your credibility as a business, and that is not good for your brand.

Combine Digital Marketing Strategies

Your digital strategies should not be a one-size-fits-all, one-hit-wonder. You can combine different content marketing strategies, for instance, in a campaign running on social media, and organic website search, and email follow-up. Here are different marketing strategies you can use in boosting your brand:

Content Marketing

Content creates substance for a website. An excerpt from Matthew MacDonald’s book, “Creating a Website,” says, “The Web constantly changes. Today’s Web isn’t the same as last year’s—or even the Web of 15 seconds ago. The best websites are always improving. When a website stops changing, it’s on life support.”

Your content should be relevant, in tune with consumer demands, and fresh, regardless of how long the Website has existed. Update articles, so they adjust to changing audience and growing market trends. Every time your visitors show up on your Website, let them see something new. That’s how you keep your content alive. 

Content marketing is for your market NOT to feel they are being marketed to. The market responds well to stories, so be clear with the narrative of your brand and how you convey that in your posts on the Website and through social media.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is still a very reliable marketing approach that consistently puts content in front of your customers and subscribers. Be mindful and meaningful every time you send a new message to your email list. Make it personalized, well-designed, with a straightforward message and a Compelling Call to Action (CTA).

Mobile Strategy

Google recently started checking the mobile-friendliness of websites for them to rank in search results.  In 2018, statistics showed that 52.2% of web internet traffic happened on mobile devices. So, if your Website is mobile-friendly and responsive, then it’s a great place to launch mobile strategies that boosts your brand. You can also create an actual mobile application to complement your Website. You can send notifications, implement customer loyalty programs, and ease doing business with point and click transactions and communications.

Pay-to-Play Advertising

paid social media ads, pay-per-play audio ads, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, and Google AdWords is just one of the ways you can optimize your brand for success.

Conclusion: Knowing your goals makes for more solid strategies.

Know what you want for your Website and what kind of results you need it to deliver. Be on top of current trends in your niche and how to design and produce content for that market. Set realistic goals and stay focused on achieving them. You need to stand out from the competition for that awaited opportunity of getting noticed by your readers. SERP results are like added recognition of your best marketing campaign practices. It helps you refine goals until you hit the mark in boosting your brand and allows marketers to produce relevant?campaigns consistently that retain support well. So, whatever digital marketing strategy you decide to use in promoting your brand, have PEOPLE in mind. After all, you built your business for people, not rankings. You created your Website for your market and not for the algorithm, so produce content from the heart and make a difference in people’s lives.