According to the WA State of Digital Report, half of Western Australian businesses do not believe they are making the most of their current digital marketing investment.
But with spending on digital marketing set to increase in the 2017 financial year, there’s one thing businesses want to see – results.
Here are five ways digital marketing can help drive new business.
1. Targeted emails
Despite the continuing emergence of new digital platforms and technologies, email remains one of the most effective tools in digital communication. Targeted email campaigns can help drive new sales and encourage repeat business. But beware – no one wants to be spammed by persistent ‘sales’ emails. To strike the right balance between your content and your customers, you should:
- Maintain a well-segmented database to ensure relevant and timely content is directed to specific audience groups. Relevant content can improve your click-through rates, increase sales and improve a customer’s perception of your company’s brand.
- Personalise emails based on the customer’s past purchase history.
- Limit special offers and discounts to your subscribers to reward loyal customers.
- Develop a digital strategy for building your email database.
2. Facebook advertising
Facebook knows a lot more about its users than you think. It collects your personal information, tracks your likes, remembers your searches and documents your activities. This data can then be used to improve its advertising algorithms and introduce new targetedadvertising options, which are often more affordable than other online alternatives.
For this reason, Facebook ads can also be highly targeted to ensure your products or services are marketed at the specific audience you’re trying to reach. The results speak for themselves, with Facebook ads on desktops achieving 8.1x higher click-through rates and mobile ads achieving 9.1x higher click-through rates compared to normal web ads.
3. Social Influencers & User-Generated Content
Within the past few years, we’ve witnessed the rise of social media influencers and a growing increase in the use of user-generated content to promote brands, places and products.
Why? Because consumers trust user-generated content and endorsements from social media influencers more than branded promotional content – It feels more genuine and less like a direct marketing ploy.
But like all good relationships, these connections don’t last long if they’re forced. This approach works best when you take the time to develop a relationship with the social media influencer so that they become a genuine advocate and champion for your brand.
4. Marketing automation
Marketing automation software allows you to assist people along the buying journey and convert leads into sales by delivering the right message at the right time. It’s an effective tool to help nurture business leads and enhance customer segmentation based on behaviours and attributes.
For example, automated email campaigns can be established to send relevant offers or content to a customer in real-time based on certain ‘trigger’ behaviours or actions, such as clicking a link on your website, completing a survey orsigning up a newsletter.
Whilst not new to the digital marketing space, marketing automation is no longer just a tool for the big players, smaller businesses can also benefit now too.
5. Video
According to Cisco, by 2020 video content will make up more than 80 per cent of all consumer internet traffic. Video content is easier and quicker to process and generally more entertaining, which means it is likely to produce higher levels of engagement from consumers.
Facebook algorithms now give more weight to video content and Google-owned YouTube now matches search behaviour from Google account holders to advertising content on YouTube.
With the continued growth of platforms such as augmented reality and virtual reality, businesses which have not yet embraced video content are already falling behind.
Contact Perth’s leading digital marketing specialists on (08) 9200 442 or by email home@alyka.com.au for more advice on tailored digital marketing solutions for your business.
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Bernard Chia is the Managing Director of Alyka, Perth’s dominant digital marketing agency. The team of passionate digital marketing transformation specialists offer bespoke solutions to meet client needs and deliver results. Find out more: https://www.alyka.com.au/
