In this day and age, everybody is rushing to digitally integrate all of their businesses. Even now, where we think all businesses are set up that way, some see the value in promoting your business in the space of the Internet. There is no doubt that the billions upon billions of eyeballs that the Internet has to offer are enticing for anybody Pitching a product. That goes without saying. But oftentimes, there is no Roadmap on how to do this. A lot of the guides are from five years ago. Where a lot can change in five years, and in the space of the Internet, a lot has.
In the past half-decade, we’ve seen the rise of new media. We’ve seen the downward spiral of traditional television, and its grasp on the global consumer. We have seen new forms of social media aimed directly at the youth. We’ve seen how individual views, opinions, and therefore buying habits are greatly affected by algorithms fed by tech Giants. If you are in business or are looking to start one, there is no doubt that the Internet is going to be A major space to promote.
Here, will explore the various ways and means in which you can go about it, as well as real-world examples supporting it.
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Make A Website
The first thing you have to do is start a website. A website is your first step to having an online presence. As a business, it is advantageous to keep a central point of reference in terms of image and communication. All the other tendrils of online influence should point back to said website. It is your central command.
If you’re not quite familiar with how to get one made, that’s fine. There are plenty of experts in every city that are willing to help when necessary. There are a few rules to abide by when making a website. They’re not explicitly strict, just friendly guidelines on how to maximize your output. Here are a few.
Hire Local
Hiring locally makes for the best website. Sure, you can outsource for cheaper, but in the end, you’ll find it much easier to communicate and express what you need to be done in terms of content and design. That’s not to say they can’t capture the same concepts, but locally serving businesses have their quirks and signals to ensure customers. If you’re in Canada, hire Canadians. If you can, narrow it down to a province.
For customers in Alberta, Calgary web designers like these know exactly the trends and looks that work best. There is also an advantage in terms of meeting and discussing in person, or over a video call. You’re more likely to get the right tone, and the right wavelength by being in the same time zone. No sleepy, jumbled, midnight business calls!
Discuss User Experience
Once you’ve hired your web designer, discuss the user experience you’re trying to elicit with your site. Are you trying to get them to request a quote? Are you trying to get them to purchase directly? Are you gathering customers for a pre-order? These are all details that you should be discussing with the designer you hire. There is much wiggle room in terms of delivering information, but the sales funnel is always the same: don’t make your customer think.
There’s a concept in web design: “don’t make me think” that uses social proofs and common sense to guide how one clicks, taps, and goes further into the sales funnel. That’s something that should be discussed and agreed upon. In the end, though, one should give creative leeway to the designer. Being hands-on in terms of content is a must, but the actual user experience and the behavior one is trying to get out of the design is, ultimately, in the realm of the designer.
Go For Quality
Good work isn’t cheap, and cheap work isn’t good. This is still true in the sphere of making a website. There’s a lot of people out there that are willing to do it for half the price. The problem is, you can’t hold them to the same accountability as you would someone with enough of a reputation and resume to build something tremendous. If you’re looking to knock it out of the part with your central point of command in your online presence, hire someone you know can deliver a quality product. That, in turn, reflects on your business.
Social Media Presence
The go-to notion of promoting anything online is through social media. It’s the first place people in a think tank go to. Building a social media presence should be secondary to the website. With that said, nothing makes a business grow in terms of notoriety than a good presence on all platforms. If this is the avenue that you’re looking to get into, this is how you would go about it.
Hiring A Manager
A social media presence may be free, but managing it is not. It takes time and effort. If you’re going to hire a social media manager, this is where you can look towards outsourcing. There are plenty of people across the globe that know exactly how to work these platforms to your advantage. The basic criteria are to establish who you want to reach, at what time, and with what content.
Those are the basic tenets of social media marketing. From those points, all other things pop up. Make sure you find a social media manager with proofs and customers you can refer to. A basic CV is often a barrier to entry when looking to outsource this job. Remember, everybody online thinks they can be a social media marketer, not many deliver.
Dealing with online platforms across the web and beyond social media isn’t easy, either. For example, maybe you’re looking to get your law firm website off to a strong start, but optimizing your site for search engines is tough. You may need a manager to handle your law firm PPC, or pay-per-click, ads.
Because of this, you may need someone who can do it all – engaging with your audience, handling ad spaces, and attending to your social media efforts.
Doing It Yourself
If you’re looking to build your presence, you should first find out who your audience is. This is often a carrier over from your market research. If you know who you’re trying to sell to, you can figure out which platform is the best to jump on.
If your market research says that your customers are most likely to be female between the ages of 35-65, then you’d have a heavier presence on Facebook, which caters to a millennial and up a crowd. If you’re selling trendy sneakers, Instagram is the gold standard for lifestyle brands. Once you get 11-17, you’re looking at things like TikTok. This very basic analysis can help you keep your money where it needs to be by making sure the right people get to your advertising.
Timing
You need to be putting out content consistently if you’re going to grow on social media. That’s the whole point of the platforms, to be able to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible. To do that, you’ll have to get your target audience within a half-hour of when they all start scrolling. Think after work, before they go to bed, that time in between dinner and sleep when people want to zone out.
That’s where your entry point is. If you set up your drops from that point, and an hour or so prior, you get to their feed twice in a spaced amount of time. It’s all about anticipating behavior. If you’re looking to get more followers, go on high-traffic profiles and actively comment positivity when necessary and controversy if it serves you. That’s a tricky game to play, but if you know how to play it, the engagement goes through the roof. As a rule of thumb, stick to your company’s guidelines for brand image, and you will be just fine.
Buying Ads Online
The simpler, more straightforward approach to building your business online is through paid advertising. It’s the same model as one would if they bought out some air time on a local access network or a cable channel. Some of the rates are similar, as well. When you pay for ads on the internet, you’re securing eyeballs in a very specific manner. How you present your product is also a bit different. Here are the ways you get to your audience, depending on the medium.
Google Ads
Google ads are one the biggest and most sought after means of getting a product out there. You can do this a few ways, but they’re all dependent on, like the other means of advertising, keywords. Since Google is so massive, you’re not going to be able to—or would be hard-pressed to, get your ad out to anyone using google or any purpose. You’re going to have to narrow it down.
If you have a selection of key search terms, you can get people who are actively looking for a product like yours. If you have a cleaning service in Calgary, you might make a Calgary-based website and put up ads every time someone types in “cleaning service Calgary”. They come in the form of banners on the side, which honestly you don’t see as often, or sponsored searches. Your website, for a fee, becomes the top search, on the front page automatically. This is limited to the combinations of words as well as the availability of the slot, as well.
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are a bit different. They use a separate algorithm to track who they get their customer’s brand out to. This is called a micro-targeting. The micro-target algorithm is constantly changing and tends to shuffle with the ever-shifting tide of what users look for, so you’ll have to bear with them. First, set up a Facebook Ad Manager account. Next, choose the name and the aim of your ad campaign.
From there, the basic info narrows down who they’re going to target your ads to. Where are you advertising? Which demographic? They ask upfront what your ad type is going to be. Are you going to put out an image ad? Is it going to be a poll ad? Will you be putting out a video? After everything is reviewed by their team, they will alert you as to who will see it, and how long your ad will be up.
Instagram, being owned by Facebook, has a similar model through which they pitch ads. The nature of Instagram is the scroll and the like. Those two functions are key to establishing a proper marketing campaign. The point of putting things out on Instagram is to catch them, have them click on the ad, and [push them towards the initiated sales funnel. Instagram makes it pretty easy.
Oftentimes, you can go from clicking on the post to selling a product in just a few clicks. Most people have their credit card information already pre-set into their phones, and devices, so it’s almost an “out of sight, out of mind” transaction. Instagram is pure straight-line visual marketing. Once they’ve shown interest in a product or interest, it will continually pop at regular intervals throughout the day. It’s quite genius.
Affiliate Content
Another massive way people get their product out there is by hiring content creators to fill affiliate marketing sites. These authority sites are meant to inform and build a sense of mastery in a particular niche. If the audience finds themselves looking for a kind of product, the first thing they do is go to these authoritative websites and find what the best possible option is. These affiliate sites are often open to having your content or company featured as part of their many lists.
The connections between and around this transaction are one of the most powerful drivers of content on the internet. Couple that with search engine optimization, and you can have the tremendous combination of an authority site promoting your business as well as a potential first-page spot on the search engines. That is what people look for when buying online.
When it comes to promoting your business online, there are a million ways to go. Regardless of the route you choose, there are some basics involved: create a website, get your brand recognized across various platforms, and build your presence on authority websites. Once you have that kind of mastery over your business net, you can focus on getting individuals down the coveted sales funnel. From there, it’s all about profits.
If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels, then we have a lot to choose from.
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