Whether you’re a Filipino who wants to promote a business in the local market or a foreigner who wants to market a brand to the Filipino consumers, online marketing can be a powerful strategy to achieve your objectives. Utilizing the Internet technology and other digital platforms is both effective and cost efficient. That is why business owners and entrepreneurs choose digital marketing as a tool to reach their market and attract loyal customers. If you want to bring your business or products closer to the Filipino consumers, here are some tips to promote your brand online.
1. Build a secure and user-friendly website.
A company website will be your most important digital assets when it comes to implementing your online marketing campaign. It will house your digital content and other useful information, such as articles, images, infographics and videos about your business and products. But to better promote your business online and build trusts with customers, build a website that will make its users feel secure and confident.
2. Verify your business.
Filipino consumers can be skeptical. Thus, you have to convince them that you have a legitimate, reliable and trustworthy business. To do that, you have to make sure that the information in your website and other online profiles about your company, products, place and people are complete and verified. Showing your business licenses and quality certifications can also help your business gain the trust of your target customers.
3. Start blogging.
Engaging blog posts can be visible on search engines and even become viral on social media. If you have a website, maximize it by building a blog within it using the same domain name. Publishing useful and interesting blog posts about your business, products and target market can enrich the content of your website, make it more visible on search engines, increase brand awareness, and help you connect to loyal customers.
4. Create higher quality content.
More than just creating blog posts, articles and other text contents in your website and other online platforms, consider creating higher quality content, such as in-depth articles, infographics, videos, presentations, eBooks and whitepapers to offer more value to your target customers. You can hire content marketers, graphic designers and other professionals to help you bring your marketing messages to the higher level and make it more captivating.
5. Optimize your business for the search engines.
Google is the place to go when people search for products and services they need. If you want to promote your business online, promote it on Google and other search engines. Match your website development, blogging and content marketing with your SEO goals. Start improving your page titles, descriptions, content and other meta elements to make them rank higher on search engine results pages for the search queries or keywords, which are relevant to your target market.
6. Promote your business using social media.
Filipinos are among the most active people on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Hence, don’t miss the opportunity to reach and connect with them. Promote your business on social media by creating official pages on those social media platforms. Moreover, integrate your website and blog with your social media pages so they can reach more customers. Seeking help from Filipino social media marketers, who are more familiar with your target market will also make sure that your goals will be met.
7. Reach out relevant bloggers.
Blog posts are usually topping the results on search engines and they can also become viral on social media. Their influence and authority can help you boost your brand online. Thus, don’t just rely on your own blog. Consider reaching out bloggers who are relevant to your industry to encourage them to blog or write a review about your business. You can invite them on your product launch or you can send sample products for them to review.
8. Invite the local press.
Aside from bloggers, inviting the press or local media during your product launch can also boost your brand awareness and online visibility. Most local newspapers are now operating websites or digital versions of their publication, which also have higher search engine and social media authority. Hence, if your business is featured by them, your search engine visibility and social media presence can also grow.
9. Promote your business using paid or sponsored ads.
Organic online marketing strategies like SEO and customer relationship building can take time to yield results. To get faster results, invest in paid advertising, such as Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising and sponsored ads on Google, Facebook and other relevant online channels. Google AdWords can help you capture potential customers who are using Google Search thru your target keywords, while Facebook Ads can help you increase Page likes, post engagements, and also reach your target audience.
10. Go for email marketing.
Email marketing is one of the earliest yet still one of the most effective online marketing strategies you can implement to reach your target market, generate sales, and build customer relationship. To promote your own brand, get a custom email under your own domain name or company name (for example, contact@yourdomainname.com). You can implement email marketing by directly reaching out potential customers and by inviting relevant users of your website or blog to subscribe their email to receive your regular updates and newsletter.
Final thoughts
Around 40 million Filipinos are using the Internet, lurking on Facebook and searching information on Google. Filipino consumers can be skeptical but they can also be loyal to your business once they become happy with your products. Thus, an effective online marketing should not only include harnessing the power of technology but it should also include building friendships, trust and loyalty with your target market. Finally, if you really want to succeed in your marketing campaign, it is wise to seek the help of a Filipino online marketer who’s very familiar with the Philippine market or a more local target market.
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
Great read! Creating a website is essential for business today specially for new businesses. I have been using Social media and SEO for my site and these to works very well. Tips number 7,8 and 10 are new to me, I would definitely try other ways as suggested by you. Thank you.