In today’s world, every brand needs an online presence and promotion. If you don’t market your brand online, you risk losing out on a big chunk of customers who prefer shopping online. In fact, just having an online presence doesn’t ensure the online promotion of your brand. You will have to actively market it through various methods to create brand awareness and start generating sales.
So what are some creative ways to promote your brand online? This article describes some tried and tested methods.
Page Contents
1. SEO-Optimized Website
Think about what you do when you first hear of a brand? You search for it online. Most of us do our research on the Internet when we want to know more about a brand. And imagine what a bad impression it would make on your potential customers if you don’t have a website. They would think that your brand is not authentic and go to rivals’ websites.
However, getting a new site and putting up some images and content is just not enough. Today’s ever-changing online marketing dynamics dictate that online retailers only post relevant content on their websites. Brands not doing that risk being ranked low in Google rankings and not appearing in the search results at all.
This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes into play. SEO optimization of a website means including keywords or phrases in your website content that users are regularly searching for on search engines. If you add more relevant keywords in your content, Google and other search engines will rank it higher and your website will get more hits.
An article about marketing statistics on HubSpot reveals the importance of having a secure website and its SEO-optimization. Its findings are summarized below.
2. Blog
You can connect with your customers and potential customers directly via your blog. You can engage customers by asking them to leave their comments on your blog.
Many companies have gained traffic and even increased sales by writing compelling and useful blog posts for their target audience. The following screenshot describes the importance of blogging for online marketers.
3. Email Marketing
Maintaining a customer-email-database and sending an e-newsletter regularly is an awesome way of retaining customers’ attention. Many companies promote their products through weekly e-newsletters announcing special sales and discounts. Reminder emails help shoppers in recovering abandoned shopping carts and completing the purchase process as well.
You can engage users when they first visit your website by offering them a free download upon subscription. Sending Welcome and Thank You emails on signup and every purchase respectively are also a great idea.
Studies show that email marketing has the best ROI as compared with other channels as portrayed below.
4. Social Media Marketing
In current times, every brand needs to maintain a social media presence and engage users on a regular basis. You should make a social media calendar and schedule different types of posts for your social media followers.
The following screenshot shows the results of a study that concluded that a majority of online shoppers use social media for ‘purchase inspiration’.
5. Online Advertising
You should also promote your brand through other websites belonging to the same niche as your brand. Use online platforms like Google Adsense to place your ads on other websites. Ad networks also generally allow users to customize ads based on location, keywords and user demographics.
In addition to these, promote your brand on Google in the form of Google ads. It is also possible to target potential customers by displaying ads on Facebook and other social media channels.
The following image portrays the ad investment plans of traditional digital marketers who prefer Google search over other marketing channels.
6. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing means that a company hires others (called affiliate marketers) to promote its products. Affiliates market the products of a company by mentioning or recommending it on their website, blog or social media accounts. For every product sold through the affiliates’ marketing effort, they earn a pre-decided commission.
The following image shows the expected growth of affiliate marketing in the coming years.
7. Relevant Forums and Communities
In order to do some serious brand promotion, you must join forums and communities relevant to your brand. But try to avoid annoying other users by mentioning your brand in every answer or comment that you posted. First build a rapport and add value to the online community. Limit posting your website links to only relevant answers.
Quora and Yahoo Answers are two good forums to start your network building and brand promotion.
Conclusion
To compete with rivals and promote your brand effectively, you need to utilize all the methods mentioned above. By using all these strategies in an efficient manner, you will be able to gain increased brand awareness and sales.
