Tag Archive for: marketing strategy

Instagram Marketing for Small Businesses

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Instagram is a social media platform that allows you to share photos and videos with your friends, family, and the world.

The platform has grown exponentially over the years and continues to grow in popularity. It all started as a simple photo sharing app, but now it provides live streams and video reels. It seems like there’s nothing this app can’t do!

If you’re looking for ways to harness Instagram’s power for your business, here are some tips you can follow to revamp your small business marketing strategy.

Having a Goal

Instagram is a powerful tool for small businesses. To get the most out of your Instagram marketing, there needs to be a clear goal in place for what you want to achieve on the platform. You might choose one or more of these goals:

  1. Increase sales.
  2. Drive website traffic.
  3. Generate brand awareness.
  4. Boost customer engagement.

Once you have a goal in place, you can use that to guide the type of content you post, the people you want to reach, and the general messaging to use on your page.

Optimizing your Bio

When you’re busy running a business, it’s easy to forget how valuable your social media presence is. But it’s not just about trying to sell something. Your Instagram bio is one of the first things people see when they visit your profile — think of it like the homepage of your website.

When you only have a few seconds to capture a visitor’s attention, what are the main elements or pieces of information you want them to take away? Your bio is a perfect place to let new followers know who you are and what you do. Start by writing a little bit about your company and the type of content people can expect to see.

Offer Exclusive Promotions

You want to get more followers on Instagram. We get it. It’s a numbers game, and the more followers you have, the better your chances of making sales. But how do you get more followers without flooding your feed with posts that make you want to turn off notifications?

The solution: exclusive promotions for followers.

Share a discount code that followers can mention if they visit your business in person or use at checkout when shopping online. To make the promotion even more exclusive, use Stories to share discount codes. Because Stories disappear after 24 hours, followers may feel a sense of FOMO if they don’t act on it quickly.

Promotions give your followers a reason to stay engaged and look forward to what and when you’ll post next, which helps build brand loyalty for your small business.

Make your Posts Shop Worthy

Instagram is a powerful platform for all types of businesses, but one of the most underutilized features is Instagram Shopping.

If you operate an e-commerce business and want to reach even a fraction of these engaged shoppers, take advantage of Instagram’s commerce tools. Instagram Shopping makes it easy for your followers to browse and purchase products directly through the app. After setting up your shop on your profile, you can add product tags to your posts.

Final Thoughts

If you’re a small business owner, you know how important it is to have a strong Instagram presence.

Instagram is the go-to place for young people, and they’re spending more time there than ever before. Whether you do or don’t have an Instagram presence, there’s so much you can do to grow your brand—and we’re here to help.

At Onimod Global, we specialize in social media strategies for big and small businesses so your business can reach new customers, increase sales, and build loyal customer relationships through the app for years to come. Contact us today to get started!

Best Practices for Great Landing Pages

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What makes a landing page great? The primary goal of a landing page is to nurture customers who aren’t ready to buy – yet. And show them how your company can provide them value in that area of curiosity. Great landing pages are essential to any business because they help drive sales to your product and services as well as boost customer experience.

Let’s take a look at how you can implement Onimod Global’s tips to make a great landing page.

Crafting Good Headlines

A headline is one of the first things that a user will see when they click on a landing page. With this in mind, it’s important to write headlines that sell. Here’s are a few tips on how to create a compelling headline for your website:

1. Don’t be ambiguous. Your headline should sum up the content of your video in an engaging, concise and eye-catching way.

2. Make sure it conveys the benefits of your offer. This will make users more likely to stay on the page and act on the call to action.

3. Keep in mind that an optimized page title can also help you rank better in the search engines. Having an indexed landing page on your site that is keyword optimized raises its visibility for that particular query.

4. Finally, make sure your headline for your landing page matches the headline of your email, ad, SEO copy, etc. for a seamless user experience

Having Separate Landing Pages For Different Campaigns

Message matching is an important part of a great user experience.  Message matching is defined as, matching the heading of your landing page with the headline of the ad or piece of marketing your visitor clicked. This is especially crucial if you’re a B2C company.

Most B2C’s create and distribute a large amount of content across many different categories and product types, simply sending users to your homepage or a different product page from your promotional pages won’t allow that message to match up properly.

Be Mindful of the Images You Choose

Hubspot estimates that 65% of people retain information paired with relevant images compared to 10% of people who only hear that same information. Because of this, you want to make sure that your images are inspiring, original and eye-catching, but most importantly you want to make sure they inspire your visitors to action.

A concise, educational video can also boost conversion rates if you’d prefer to go that route. But be mindful of the images you choose. Your images should always help you earn conversions, not distract your visitors. 

Implementing Engaging CTA’s

Your call-to-action (CTA) button is the most important part of your landing page because it’s the way that new leads are created in your system. Without this button, you don’t get potential new customers, and the rest of the copy and images on your page lose their importance. Great CTAs can increase your conversion rates, see some of our following tips below:

  1. Having a convincing CTA button. Avoid using terms like “submit”, “get started”, and use terms like “Get my free trial”, or “Send me the eBook”.
  2. Your CTA button should contrast the surrounding elements on your landing page in order to draw attention.

Final Thoughts

Design and digital marketing go hand in hand. Without the two it can be hard to have your campaigns stand out in order to drive engagement and new leads. At Onimod Global, we can help you craft a strategic digital marketing plan to meet your company’s needs.

Whether you need help with your web design and landing pages or your social media strategy, we are your one-stop-shop for all things digital marketing. For more information on our services, reach out to us today!

Long-Tail Keywords: What are they?

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Are you tired of trying to rank for the two or three-tail high-competition keywords as your competitors? Long-tail keywords could be the answer. What are long-tail keywords and how do they work in search marketing? Let’s find out!

Targeted keywords filled with intent can help you reach your target audience. If they’re clicking to your site from the search engines, chances are they’re finding you through longtail keywords. Let us break down how to use long-tail keywords for your business’ benefit.

What are Long-Tail Keywords?

Long-tail keywords are specific search queries that tend to have relatively low search volumes. They make up a large percentage of overall searches when added together. The term long-tail was coined to describe the phenomenon of niche products becoming a top seller.

The term “long tail” refers to the tail at the end of a curve when looking at keyword searches on Google. Long-tail keywords are specific but least-searched. A head keyword is typically a broad term when it comes to searching for a product/brand.

Here are a few examples of long-tail keywords vs. head keywords:

Head Keyword:

Nike

Long Tail Keywords:

Nike Air Max Ones

Nike sustainability policy

Vintage Nike shoes

Nike Men’s Yoga Shorts

While exact length doesn’t matter, long-tail keywords are typically at least three words in length due to their specificity.

Why Are Long-Tail Keywords Important?

Head terms are competitive, especially the popular ones. This in turn, makes it difficult for them to rank well with SEO. By using long-tail keywords you’re able to differentiate your business and services while having fewer to compete with to rank on the first page of Google.

Long-tail keywords can help you get more out of your advertising return on investment. High-volume keywords have a high cost per click, but they don’t convert well. Low-volume keywords are highly targeted and therefore have a higher conversion rate.

Using Long-Tail Keywords Effectively

Finding a good long-tail keyword is only part of the heavy task at hand. Once you’ve found your desired keywords, you need to use them strategically on your page. Here are a few on-page SEO tips that apply specifically to long-tail keywords:

  1. Using keywords naturally
  2. Placing keywords strategically
  3. Consider your user’s search intent

Final thoughts

The foundation of any successful SEO campaign is keyword research. In addition to long-tail keyword strategies and other digital marketing updates, we will continue to share case studies and the latest SEO updates to help you drive your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to all things SEO, general social media advertising, and digital marketing. Got questions about keywords or want to learn more about our services? Contact us here today.

Marketing Metrics Businesses Should Be Tracking

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Marketing metrics matter because smart marketing is built on the foundations of solid data. That is why any business with a digital marketing strategy should be closely monitoring the following 4 metrics. Let’s hop right in! 

In today’s digital marketing landscape, there are a number of data points to measure. Some of these will help businesses with consumer insights and others with direct response. This can be tricky as trying to measure both consumer behavior as well as whether specific marketing activities have led directly to sales. After all, aren’t you ultimately in the game to book more meetings?

A business is only as good as the data it collects. Data reveals the most critical questions to help a business grow faster. Here’s a look at digital marketing performance indicators, along with best practices on how to evaluate the data they provide.

Traffic Sources

Knowing where your future prospects are coming from is important. Did they visit your website after google searching your company? Or did they find you through social media? There are so many places where your clientele can stem from, and its valuable knowing how they found you.

By having access to these insights, it will help you prioritize and optimize those channels. Once that has been done you can easily make simple improvements to other channels that are underperforming.

Tracking Engagement

When someone visits your website, it’s always best practice to know how long they’re browsing. This metric reveals how interested visitors are in your content and if you are attracting additional visitors.

If you see that visitors are only browsing on your website for a few seconds, it could be an indicator that they either didn’t end up on the site they were looking for or quickly realized they’re disinterested in what you’re offering. On the other hand, if you see that your visitors are on your website for an extended period of time, it can signal that you have content the market is interested in.

Everytime you post on social media, send out an email campaign or put out display ads you should be measuring your engagement rates. A great example of this is seeing how many likes an instagram post gets. At times one post may have more likes than another post. Knowing how your audience engages with your content will help you cater and craft future content for them.

CAC & CLV

CAC stands for customer acquisition cost, CLV stands for customer lifetime value. Both of these are crucial to your marketing metric strategy. With customer acquisition cost, there is a cost associated with every customer. Businesses need to measure how much it costs to acquire customers throughout their buying journey.

With customer lifetime value, you’re measuring how much the average customer will spend on your brand during their lifetime. This metric indicates the total financial value a customer brings. Ultimately, this metric will help you decide where to invest the most.

Brand Equity

Lastly, become an expert on your audience. Know how they view you and your products. Household name brands such as Nike and Coca-Cola are all names you recognize, even if you don’t buy their goods. A great example of this would be referring to the product as the brand name. Most people purchase disinfecting wipes and refer to them as “Clorox Wipes,” whether or not they’re purchasing that specific brand.

Analyzing your brand strength will help you know how strong you are in the market and if customers prefer your brand over competitors. It will also be a relevant factor in whether or not customers are willing to pay more for your products since they find your brand valuable.

Last Thoughts

When it comes to business, every company is different, and as such, will need to rely on their own unique set of KPIs and metrics to track their performance. Even the digital marketing metrics that are relevant to your business will vary greatly, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.

We hope you have learned a little bit more about the importance of metrics and how beneficial it can be to your business. Our goal is to ensure we help improve your marketing and drive success.

At Onimod Global, we regognize the unique and individual nature of every client, and work with your business to help develop a custom strategy that is designed to bring you the highest success possible. Digital Decisions driven by Data is our mantra. Advanced analytics and reporting capabilities is what we do best.

Got questions about tracking and measuring your business performance? Contact us here today to start the conversation.

How To Choose Content Marketing Topics

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When choosing content topics, most digital marketers try to write about things they believe is relevant to their audience. While relevance is important, alone it’s not enough. Furthermore, some seemingly relevant content topics may not be a good fit for your brand. 

Effective content marketing grows only when you understand the competition at stake when trying to get the audience’s attention. One of the biggest questions you can ask yourself is, how do you determine topics that are a good fit but also have a positive impact on ROI?

Here are a couple tips on how to choose your content marketing topics effectively.

Find the content topic that your audience is most interested in

If you have two related topics in mind, write about the one that gets more average engagements on social media. While this may sound simple, its often times overlooked. A common problem most people run into is quickly sorting content or blog ideas to find the best topic out there. Evaluating topics with alongside of your social data can be a significantly easier step for analyzing content.

For example, if you’re writing about nutrition or fitness, you might want to critique different diets. In this search for the terms “Paleo” and “Vegan,” it’s easy to see that content about vegan eating is more popular.

“Vegan” has a much higher average level of engagement. So, writing about it can give me a competitive edge, making it easier to get my audience interested in my content, and extending its reach with more social shares. This search took less than a minute, making the Content Analyzer an efficient choice for maximum ROI.

Find topics with less competition

Just as it can be wise to opt for long-tail keywords with lower competition instead of core keywords with tons of competition, using content marketing topics that meet your business goals AND are less competitive is a great option for maximum impact.

Another option would be to pursue different types of content based on how saturated or competitive the content landscape is. If you are writing about a topic with high competition, here are a few tips:

  • Create higher production value content such as videos, courses, ebooks, or original research
  • Consider paid distribution, such as advertising on social media
  • Collaborate with influencers to increase the distribution power behind the content
  • Make sure you have a promotion plan in place that extends beyond the initial post-publication phase

Can the message be shared across multiple mediums?  

Social networks are where conversations take place on different topics. In most content areas, the conversation will gravitate toward one network over another. By comparing the performance of different topics through various networks, you can develop content that will appeal to target audiences on specific networks.

Content marketing takes a good balance of storytelling, educating, convincing and should include a call-to-action. Once you’ve landed on a strong topic, it’s equally important to ensure you’re able to create multi-purpose content out of it. You want to choose topics that you’re an expert on, but you don’t want it to be too niche. This may cause a shortage of material and of those actually interested in reading it. Not only that, but it might also be difficult to share that content across multiple mediums and platforms.

For example, mobile app development content performs better on Facebook and low code performs better on Twitter. If you want your content to reach people on Twitter, it would be a good idea to frame the piece around low code. You want to find the sweet spot between broad and niche. Ideally, you will find content pieces that can be featured in a number of ways. For example how-to content could be created as:

  • A YouTube video
  • An infographic
  • A blog post

You want to be able to then share these pieces of content across social platforms. Having flexible content ensures that all members of your audience will be able to find something they best relate to and be able to find it in multiple places. This also creates less work for you, as you can successfully reuse and share topics.

Final Thoughts 

Mapping out and choosing the right topics for content marketing takes strategic planning. Learning what content performs best among your audience takes time and experimenting. Continually measure and track your strategy and make changes when necessary. Choosing the right topics is essential to developing and driving an effective coverall content marketing strategy.

More From Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. If you’re looking for assistance with your content marketing or any other areas of digital marketing, contact us today!

Why You Should Invest in Video Ad Marketing

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Investing in video ads can help drive brand awareness, more engagement, foster a greater audience connection and ultimately boost sales. If you’ve yet to commit to a solid video marketing strategy, here are 3 reasons to consider. 

Better Engagement

Movement and sound are two elements of an ad that easily catch user attention. They also help convey efficient, effective messaging, both which lead to higher engagement. This format is additionally effective in delivering your narrative to the target audience with a tailored message that’s easy to consume. Video ads that capture the interest of users and follow through with a CTA are more likely to succeed with keeping audiences interested. 

Additionally, research has found that the average user remembers 95% of a message when watched, compared to 10% when read. Meaning potential customers are more likely to recollect your brand’s message through video content, rather than a static image or text ad. 

More Shareable

Video content is quick, concise and makes it very easy to tell stories that are easy to consume by users. Video ads offer brands the perfect opportunity to express themselves and tell consumers why they can be trusted and why their products or services are worth purchasing. All of these elements also make videos much more sherable. As seen on Twitter, where 700 videos are shared by users every minute. Posting more shareable content helps increase your brand reach, generate more awareness and put yourself in front of more customer prospects. 

Higher Click-Through Rate

Along with being more engaging, videos also get a much higher-click through rate. According to a Smaato study, the average CTR of video ads via mobile is 7.5 times higher than standard display ads. One particular brand even found that video ads generated 47% higher CTR on Facebook than text ads. 

Final Thoughts

Though video ads can be more time consuming and costly to create, their ability to effectively narrate your story allows you to engage more prospects, gain higher reach and generate more ad clicks. 

At Onimod Global, we’re experts in all things digital marketing, including SEO, SEM, social media, web dev, graphic design, branding and more. If you’re looking to get started on building a video marketing strategy, we can help. Contact us today. 

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Tips to Keep Your Marketing Emails from Getting Flagged as Spam

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When you put a lot of effort into creating your email marketing strategy, it can be frustrating looking at the stats and seeing that a large amount of your messages end up in spam. A report from Return Path revealed that spam filters are more rigorous than ever, with one in five emails failing to reach the inbox. This can be very concerning, especially when email marketing is a large part of your overall strategy. But there are a number of things you can do to help prevent your emails from getting marked as spam by filters and consumers. 

Build Your Own Email List and Regularly Clean it Up 

If you’re buying email lists and sending content to people who never signed up to receive them, your chances of ending up in the spam folder skyrocket. The average office worker receives 121 emails daily, meaning it’s unlikely they’ll waste time opening unwanted messages. It may take more time, but organically building up your email list will be much more effective in the long run. 

Once you have a good size list built up, it’s important to manage it. Some recipients will naturally unsubscribe from your emails, but others will just start ignoring them. This will lower your engagement rate and make you seen as less favorable by the ISPs. This ultimately means your emails will more likely go to the spam folder. You can combat against this by regularly looking at your stats and removing unengaged users, bounced emails and role email addresses. 

Make it Clear Who the Email is From and What it’s About 

Most companies have multiple email addresses within their domain, depending on the size. You don’t want to change the sender field too often. Try to stick with the one that works best with promotional messages and avoid odd names, such as donotreply@yourdomain.com or 123456@yourdomain.com. Build trust with your recipients, meaning you don’t want to confuse them with using a variety of sender addresses or unprofessional ones. Try to either stick with a person’s name or your company name. 

Once you’ve made it clear who the email is from, make it clear what it’s about. This means avoiding spammy subject lines. Don’t want to try to trick recipients into opening your email by starting your subject line with “FWD:” or “RE:” implying there was previous communication. You also shouldn’t use click bait, such as telling them they’ve won a prize if they haven’t. Try to find something catchy and compelling that peaks curiosity, yet still gives enough information that recipients aren’t confused about what the email is. 

Use a Reputable Program 

A sign spam filters keep a lookout for is an IP address associated with the sending email address and see if there are any spam complaints associated with it. If there are, then even legitimate email addresses can get flagged due to association. To ensure this doesn’t happen to your emails, always use a reputable provider. All the top providers take steps to prevent spammers from using their platforms. They also have built in features to help avoid other common spam triggers, such as not including a physical address or using a sending email address that looks suspicious. There are thousands of marketing automation and email marketing companies out there, so just do research before deciding on one. 

Follow the Laws Governing Email Marketing

It’s always beneficial to be aware of the laws that govern digital marketing communications. Specifically, the CAN-SPAM Act, which outlines the practices you must use when sending commercial emails. There are some harsh penalties for sending spam emails, so you should be aware of what are considered spam emails. The CAN-SPAM Act defines spam as any message that are sent:

  • To a recipient without permission. 
  • Without including a mailing address. 
  • With a deceptive subject line. 
  • Without including a way for the recipient to opt-out. 

Most modern email marketing programs ensure you comply with the mailing address and opt-out by default, but you should be careful about subject lines and sending emails to those who didn’t sign up for them. 

Send Valuable Content 

At the core of any successful marketing campaign, is value. You shouldn’t be sending emails just to send them or to try to hit a quota. This causes engagement to suffer. When you send emails that don’t resonate with recipients, it’s unlikely it will get opened and more likely it will land in spam. One study found that the top reason why emails get reported as spam is because the brand sent irrelevant or too many emails. 

Before you start drafting an email, ask yourself these questions: 

  1. Is this new or urgent information? 
  2. When was the last time I sent an email about this? Was it recently?
  3. Do all my subscribers need to know this information or only a segment?
  4. If I received this email would I find it valuable? 

Takeaways 

Email marketing is an essential part of an effective strategy, but if your messages are getting flagged as spam, they’re just going to waste. The key is to identify why your emails are getting flagged and how to avoid this going forward. Keep in mind that the higher your email engagement is, the more likely your next email will end up where intended and not in a spam folder. 

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Tips to Increase Your Brand’s Engagement on Social Media

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Promoting your brand through social media has become vital for overall business success. But just being on social channels isn’t enough anymore. The key to real success is through user engagement. This can help increase your brand awareness, customer relationships, and conversions, ultimately improving profits. 

Something that often gets lost to marketers is this: engagement is much more than just likes. Engagement is also comments, shares, follows, re-tweets, clicks, private messages, etc. And these types of engagements are often more valuable than likes. That sounds great, but how can brands accomplish all this? We’re here to help. Here are 5 tips for boosting your brand’s engagement across all social platforms.  

1. Talk about interesting topics, not just your brand. 

It’s common for businesses to frequently or exclusively post about their products or services. That’s not really not what social media is for, or what users want to see. The best content is exciting and informative. Ask yourself if it’s something you’d want to see or would share. It’s also important to ask yourself how it makes you feel. What getting people to engage, click, and convert comes down to is emotion. You should constantly be evaluating if your content is making you feel something and if that is worth sharing. If it’s not, editing and reevaluating may be needed. Most importantly, the content you’re creating and putting out to your audience should have value. The value is either making your audience happy, gives steps on how to get there, or anything else that’s beneficial. 

2. Join and hold Q&A’s and surveys. 

Joining Q&A sessions is a great way to provide your audience with value and get more brand awareness. You can spark discussions with prospective customers, all before competitors, you can become the go-to seller. Consumers are more impatient than ever and don’t want to wait for answers. That’s why, if it’s possible, you should have a dedicated response management person/team. While answering questions quickly is important, it’s also important to answer them accurately and clearly. We advise you to complete ongoing research for the most commonly asked questions and develop sample answers that can be customized for each question/situation. 

3. Share other people’s content. 

Constantly creating interesting, high quality, and engaging content is not easy. If there’s someone else providing quality answers to a query or other relevant content, make use of it. Your audience will see that you are there to give them what they need, no matter where it comes from. If your feed provides relevant and valuable information, whether it’s yours or not, people will be more attracted to your brand and be more encouraged to follow you. Keeping your feed diverse and from different contributors keeps audiences interested.

4. Make your customers feel engaged. 

To boost engagement, you need to be social. This means directly responding to all messages, comments, etc. Whether it be negative or positive, responding is essential. Show appreciation for the positive comments and suggest solutions for negative ones. It’s also important to respond to posts that aren’t addressing you directly, but indirectly or through hashtags. When responding you should present yourself as personable and approachable, ultimately humanizing your brand. Addressing comments with the person’s name is a great way to do this. It shows that the comment wasn’t computer generated and that someone really is listening to them. You should also try to match the person’s tone/emotion. If their comment was lighthearted and included emojis, feel free to use them back. This is a great way to generate a longer conversation and may even get other audience members involved. 

When it comes to negative comments, it’s smart to have a plan on how you’re going to deal with them. You want to be able to respond quickly to stop the issue from growing. You want to respond to show others that you’re not just ignoring the problem, but it’s also best to take the conversation offline and solve the problem privately. 

5. Post frequently and at optimal times. 

Posting frequently across all channels is vital for overall social media success. This shows your audience you’re relevant and up-to-date on the latest trends. This also helps your audience members stay up-to-date with you. Loyal customers want to know what’s happening with your brand the moment it occurs. Whether it’s a promotion, a new product/service, expansion, etc. This helps your audience stay connected and strengthens your relationship with them. 

A large part of engagement is posting at optimal times (when your audience is online and active). Most people are online during lunch hours or later at night, but it’s important to do research on your audience specifically. A/B testing may be necessary. Experiment with posting times to see which performs best and generates the most engagement amongst your audience. 

Social media moves quickly. If users think your page is inactive, they will unfollow you. Which is why it’s important to be posting as frequently as you can. Everyday isn’t necessary, but a few times a week is best practice. 

Final Thoughts

No matter what industry you’re in, social media is beneficial. It only continues to grow in value as times change in 2020. Brands that are focusing on growing their social media engagement are benefiting from better marketing reach, ROI and higher brand awareness. All which makes it easier to reach prospects and customers. Boosting and sustaining engagement is difficult and does take time, but it’s not impossible. It takes knowing your audience, a strong strategy and ongoing effort. In the end, it will be worth it. 

More from Onimod Global

As experts in social media marketing, our team knows where and when your customers need you most. We help create visibility for brands where their customers are searching, interacting and engaging. If you’re struggling in social media or any area of digital marketing, contact us today.

E-Commerce Marketing Strategy: Where to Start

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With the recent lift of the nation-wide shut down, the country is slowly opening up on a state by state basis, but the majority of businesses still remain physically closed. Due to the uncertainty surrounding the situation, you may be considering, or have already entered into the e-commerce space.

There is an increasing number of people online and numbers will most likely continue to grow as the year goes on. In light of this growing audience, many businesses are boosting digital ad spend and their online presence in general. Making the e-commerce space even more crowded than before. This can be intimidating for those just getting started, which is why Onimod Global is here with helpful tips for getting your e-commerce marketing strategy started. 

Step 1: Choose Your E-Commerce Software 

There are endless e-commerce platforms out there to choose from. When you’re comparing software, it can be hard to tell how seemingly minor differences in features can have a major impact on overall performance, but they can. When it comes down to it, what’s best for you will depend on a variety of factors, such as the industry you’re in, the size of your inventory, etc. We’re going to talk about the three most popular e-commerce software platforms and give pros and cons to each, but there are many online articles that discuss others and go into greater detail on each. 

BigCommerce: Ideal for larger retail brands. Also a good choice for those who have a brick and mortar store and are looking to expand operations. The interface is user-friendly and allows you to customize your shop without having to know code by using templates in design your store. 

Pros:

  • Excels with multi-channel selling
  • User-friendly 
  • Scalable 
  • Variety of quality themes 
  • Comprehensive abandoned cart feature 

Cons: 

  • Can get pricey 
  • No 1-click selling/up-sells 
  • Cart abandonment feature isn’t included in entry plan

Shopify: If you plan to drop ship, rely on Facebook Ads, or Instagram marketing, this may be the best choice. Two big downsides are weak SEO and rigid URL structure, meaning it’s not as user-friendly. You can change some sections of it, but not others. 

Pros:

  • Quick load time
  • Easy set up
  • Many certified partners 
  • 1-click selling 
  • Allow multiple channel and social selling 

Cons:

  • Poor SEO 
  • Unable to customize checkout process
  • Apps can get costly
  • A developer is needed for advanced features 

3dcart: Has many practical features, such as unlimited storage, no transaction fees, and advanced shipping solutions. The main downside is it’s not for beginners. Set up and customization takes a lot of time to understand and get used to. 

Pros:

  • A nice blog feature 
  • Supports any integrations you would need 
  • Good business user management tools (email, QuickBooks, inventory_

Cons:

  • Dated templates 
  • Lacks customer support 
  • Not beginner-friendly

Step 2: Optimize Your Site for Search and Mobile

Online shoppers are constantly bombarded with advertisements, promotions, product options, etc. This means when they do make it to a site, they’re not going to wait around for a slow performing site because they can easily go somewhere else.  46% of shoppers have said they’ll never return to a slow website. Going even further, Google reported that for every one second delay in page load time, conversions can fall up to 20%. While there can be many causes of a slow site, these are the most common: 

  1. Heavy Page Image: Optimizing images will allow the pages on your website to receive bytes faster, and this makes your page more efficient with a faster load time.
  2. Large Files: We highly recommend a JavaScript compression or a minimization tool to help decrease your download size.
  3. Plug-Ins: Enabling caching with a plug-in allows pages on your site significantly faster. This saves you copies of pages with the same request, which allows your server load in a much more efficient manner.

It may be beneficial to get a professional digital audit done to identify any areas your site might be lacking and to get help with finding the right solution. 

Step 3: Identify Your Niche 

E-commerce sites with hundreds of products, dozens of categories, and no real focus rarely find success, at least not when they’re just starting out. Unless you have a massive budget, you have to find a niche to be profitable. Choosing your niche is one of, if not the most important step of starting your online store. You can start this process by researching different niches and identifying successful companies in that space. You don’t want to pick an overly crowded area, but you don’t want to pick a space with no competition either. This can indicate there’s no market there. The more specific you get, the less competition you’re likely to face and also gives the benefit of having shoulder niches. These are spaces that are similar to you, but not identical. This gives you the opportunity to work with other businesses in those niches to cross-promote, become an affiliate, and grow your customer base. 

Step 4: Utilize Social and Content Marketing

As we mentioned before, people are online now more than ever. Not only are they shopping, but they’re also spending time on social platforms. If you haven’t read last week’s blog, we go into greater detail on social media strategy, but for now we’ll just go over some general tips: 

  • Not every social network is the right one. E-commerce sites are highly visual, so choose social platforms that are image focused and give you the opportunity to show off your products, such as Instagram and Facebook. 
  • Be helpful. Give customers credible, detailed information about the things they need. Make it clear you’re there to help them. 
  • Be active. It’s important to let customers know solutions are available whenever, wherever, even if that means in the late evening or early morning. 

As far as content marketing goes, some might think it’s not needed if you’re just selling products online. Actually, content is extremely valuable for e-commerce sites. Content is one of the number one contributions of SEO, and when your business is strictly digital, SEO is essential. Here are some tips for using content to market your store: 

  • Write relevant blogs. 
  • Create guest posts for external websites. 
  • Publish product-related videos on YouTube. 
  • Include a keyword-driven FAQ section. 
  • Optimize product page copy. 

Final Thoughts

Even if you’re only shifting to e-commerce due to the pandemic, it can have great benefits for your overall business long after it’s over. E-commerce businesses have several marketing tools at their disposal. Using digital and inbound marketing just the right way, you can create campaigns that are designed to help your online store attract customers and grow better.

If you find yourself struggling with marketing in any area, you may want to consider outsourcing for your digital marketing needs. At Onimod Global we are experts in everything from SEM, social media marketing, Google shopping advertising, and more.

Learn more about what we do, take a look at how we’ve helped other brands, and become a client today!

Tips for Making Your Content Stand Out

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Right now, everyone is shifting the focus of their content to COVID-19. Rightfully so, as it’s impacting everyone and everything around the world. People are looking for answers and businesses feel compelled to respond. This creates a new dilemma, however. The “market” of coronavirus content is now heavily saturated. Consumers are constantly being bombarded with new articles and updates around the situation everyday. From this arises the question for many marketers: Should I continue to create content around the same thing everyone else is?

This is a difficult issue and there’s no simple, one-size-fits-all answer. We do know that content is still essential for long-term SEO success and in a time like this, you don’t want to fall silent. The key is finding a balance between creating relevant content but also standing out among the masses. Here are some tips for doing that: 

1. Focus on your audience’s current and most pressing needs. 

Content marketing is really just about helping your audience solve their problems. Currently, everyone is facing unprecedented challenges. There are no pre-existing rules or guidelines for businesses in this situation, so we have all been continually adapting and shifting our strategies accordingly. Marketers need to closely monitor their audience members, what they’re asking, and what they need. 

Your main focus should ultimately be creating content that helps your current and potential customers. Every time you publish a piece of content, ask yourself “is this helping my customers?” If the answer is no, and you’re just putting out content for the purpose of putting out content, it’s not worth it. 

2. Incorporate reliable research and accurate data. 

There is always massive amounts of inaccurate information circulating around the internet. When sharing or creating content, make sure it’s based on real research. Users want science and data to help them make the best decision, especially during times like these. Having solid evidence that supports your claim is extremely important. 

3. Don’t ask for anything in return. 

The biggest mistake a brand can make right now is appearing like they are trying to capitalize on the pandemic. Strive to deliver value without asking for anything in return. Instead of focusing on promoting your products or services, your main priority should be bringing value to users. 

4. Continue to publish regular content. 

Businesses are concerned that posting regular content will make them come across as insensitive or tone-deaf. While you should be careful with what you’re posting, continuing with regularly scheduled content is important for multiple reasons. The first is that, during this stressful and chaotic time, it’s nice to have tid bits of normalcy or light-heartedness. As long as the content is still sensitive to the current situation, it’s more than ok if it’s not addressing or focusing on the pandemic. The second reason being that SEO is still extremely important, and content is key for SEO success. If you delay or stop altogether publishing content, you’re only hurting yourself. 

Final Thoughts 

Right now, times are strange. Everyone is constantly searching for answers, but comfort as well. Making yourself stand out in an extremely saturated market is difficult, but not impossible. The key is finding balance between relevancy and uniqueness, while still providing value to users. Accomplishing this isn’t easy, but we can help. At Onimod Global we’re experts in social media, SEO, and content marketing. We help brands connect with their customers where and when they need them the most. Take a look at how we’ve helped other companies, and learn more about what we can do for you.