It’s 2016 and online marketing is more prominent that ever. We have a few marketing trends that can help your small business stand out among the masses online.
Hop on the Mobile Trend
Mobile has exploded in the last few years and will only continue to keep growing. There are currently more searches on mobile devices than desktops or other devices combined.
If your business’s website isn’t optimized for mobile viewing, then you’re already behind. Google now penalizes sites that aren’t optimized for mobile by giving optimizing sites better search rankings. Optimization is important for SEO purposes, so your business can be found. It is also important for mobile viewing. If more people are using their mobile devices to search the web, and find your business but your website won’t load or rather, loads incorrectly, then you start losing out on potential customers.
Content is King
It’s a major buzzword that gets thrown around when anyone mentions online marketing. If done correctly, it can certainly payoff. Provide content that adds value to your industry – thoughtful blogs, videos, photos, whitepapers, infographics, etc. are all popular content types.
Geo-Target Marketing
Small businesses can rejoice – there’s no longer the stress about how to reach everyone in an area that could benefit from your goods or services. Online advertising with Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, and other social-platform ads make it easy to choose specific locations (some right even down to the zip code) to serve ads to. Using these tools can help save you money too. These methods will only cost you when someone takes an action on your ad.
Pop-Ups
Remember those pesky ads from way back when? They’re making a comeback – but with 2016 style. Gone are the hundreds of ads that offer a “FREE CELL PHONE” and other scams. Instead, these pop-ups have a purpose; these are lightbox pop-ups.
They are windows that appear on a website when a visitor has stayed for a certain amount of time or appear when a visitor is first on the website. They provide businesses with an opportunity to collect emails or other information from their customers. But what’s in it for the customers? Usually, customers can receive a sweet offer – a discount, free products, free shipping, and regularly e-mailed coupons.
Email Marketing
It may seem like another blast from the past – but it’s a way to tailor content to your audience and remind them of your business. The pop-ups you install on your website will work to feed your email lists so you can continuously reach people that have visited your site. You can send special offers or exclusive deals for those in the email list or even send a newsletter of content your target market may find useful.
Gmail accounts now even filter spam from offers from legitimate businesses into one folder for user convenience. Email marketing is even simpler with tools like Constant Contact and apps for CMS systems (I.e. Shopify, WordPress, HubSpot) to help business owners create email campaigns and report back on the stats.
