To reach your audience, your best bet is to manage multiple channels in order to cover all grounds. Social media marketing is all the rage today and more and more businesses are focusing on it. While Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter all have huge numbers of users, your clients aren’t necessarily among them. You risk sending out messages that don’t reach your target group at all. That’s not a risk many businesses are willing to take, especially small ones.
This is why you need to use multiple channels to acquire customers. We’ll discuss those with the biggest returns in this article.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Obviously, SEO is at the top of our list. It involves the rank of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). You need to find out how people are learning about your business to improve your ranking if that’s what you want. To make sure potential customers who are looking for your product or service find you and not a competitor, you must include commonly searched terms (keywords) that are relevant to your sector or industry in the texts on your website.
The best strategy today is to use natural language keywords and key phrases. Most people search using long-tail keywords or natural language, such as “the plumber nearest me.” You’ll get a list of the three plumbing services closest to your location. You’ll always get a list of top 3 businesses regardless of your query. SEO experts call this the holy trinity. Every business vies for this coveted top 3 ranking.
2. Backlinks
Backlinks are when two websites link together, creating an incoming or inbound link. Not all backlinks are good. In fact, some can even hurt your ranking and get your site flagged by Google.
Use Google Alerts
To analyze your backlink strategy, use Google Alerts. This notification service will send you an email every time your brand is mentioned online. You might also find Check My Links helpful. This Chrome extension checks for broken links by crawling your webpage. Monitor Backlinks is a useful keyword and backlink monitoring tool.
Building good backlinks is a science in itself. Google cares most about trustworthiness. In other words, your site needs to be perceived as trustworthy and reliable. To build quality backlinks, start by listing your site in business directories. Make sure you’re in the best business directory sites and that your listing is current.
Conduct surveys – companies in your industry will link to them if they are legitimate and valuable. Build internal links to motivate people to stay on your site. Building links internally is also a good way to show Google people need to know about your content.
Finally, create data-driven reports. Consumers want to know the direction, in which
their industry is headed.
3. Guest Posts
Quality guest posts are an excellent way to gain new customers. You can get a post to rank on the first page of Google by promoting it continuously and making sure its quality is higher than that of competing articles in the same niche. The higher its quality, the more visitors to your site and shares you can expect.
An Influential Platform
Look for an influential platform or site that accepts guest blogs and send them a polite email with an offer to contribute an article. Remember that the post shouldn’t be too promotional. Examples, stories, or occasional mentions are an acceptable way of drawing attention to your business, but the majority of the article should not focus on it or on your product or service.
As for popular types of posts, people share video lists most often. Smartphones
are the main reason for this. More and more users are surfing the internet via a mobile device and such material is easiest to share and navigate.
Alternatively, you could write a testimonial or review. These are an important consideration in the search for a local business. Just over two-thirds of respondents in a recent survey stated they needed to read a minimum of four positive reviews to gain a sense of trust in a company or brand.
4. LinkedIn
We mentioned overreliance on popular social media like Instagram and Facebook. LinkedIn is a vastly underused, yet potential-rich social medium. It’s a great way for businesses to connect with customers. Create a profile with a nice professional photo of your company and yourself. Include as many details about your education, location, and background as you can. Those who include their location appear in up to 23 times more searches. Those who add their education appear 17 times more often.
Sending an Invite
Your message has a better chance of being opened and read if it’s personalized. Your subject line has to be clear and specific. Identify yourself and address the person by their first name. State what you have in common with them: industry, interest, group, acquaintance, etc. Offer your service or product and don’t forget to include a clear call to action.
Benefits of Hiring a Content Marketing Agency
Do you feel overwhelmed by the mere prospect of all the work and research multiple channel customer acquisition involves? You’re not alone. And even if you aren’t overwhelmed, you probably have a lot on your hands as a business owner already and couldn’t deal with marketing on top of that.
A content marketing agency can take the reins for you. They employ experts in paid search, social media advertising, website and landing page optimization, and email marketing campaigns. Having a professional on board to track your campaign results will guarantee you’re not wasting money because advertising is anything but cheap. Most brands will agree that outsourcing marketing to an agency helps them stay abreast of the competition.
Before you start calling or emailing random content marketing agencies, visit their websites and see what types of marketing campaigns they do. Experienced agencies have seen trends come and go and weathered the storms of internet content marketing. They leave no corner of content creation unexplored and dispose of vast data on producing content that stands out by sending a clear message.