For me, going to work entails making a mad dash to the elevator, and then going up to the tenth floor where my office is located.
However, all the individuals employed in the building want to do the same thing at the same time- go up. But there is only a limited capacity as to how many people the elevator can carry. So those who plan to arrive a few minutes early are the ones that avoid the morning jostle or let’s say, get ahead of the crowd.
Your approach to digital marketing should be the same. The digital market is just as crowded with brands fighting for the same space.
The aim is to get ahead of the competition. So planning an effective marketing strategy can help your business achieve greater success much faster than others in the same industry.
Essential marketing tips for your brand
Each business has individual goals. Employing the right techniques can give you a boost in the right direction. But did you know that there are a couple of tricks and tips that can help you overtake your competitors?
Here are 7 Digital Marketing Tips to Overtake Your Competitors
So let’s get started.
# 1. Get noticed
You need to get your business listed in specific kinds of niche directories. You have a couple of things to gain. This is your opportunity to:
- Amplify the online visibility of your brand.
- Improve SEO rankings.
- Strengthen your reputation.
- Increase brand awareness.
- Reach out to your target audience, especially local ones.
Surprisingly, not many brands are banking on this opportunity to pull ahead of the competition. Have a look at the statistics pertaining to businesses that are not claiming a presence in online listings.
To rank well in local search and across all major listings, businesses need to have consistent NAP data (name, address, phone), website name, location, working hours, etc.
Unfortunately, some brands are making crucial mistakes when entering essential information about themselves on various platforms. According to Vendasta, 86% of businesses have either missing or incorrect company name information listed across multiple listing sources. And only 7% of them have correctly provided these essentials across all the directories.
# 2. Speed things up
Let’s hear it from one of the SEO gurus, Neil Patel. Slow loading times can severely impact your rankings and damages UX.
Every second costs you your visitors and customers. According to 2018 research by Google, 53% of mobile users abandon a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Moreover, a slow page load is penalized by search engines. Well, there goes your SEO campaign down the drain.
Consider implementing the following tactics to improve loading speeds:
- Shrink your images
- Use a cache
- Improve your Javascript and Cascading Stylesheet (CSS)
- Clear up redirects
- Consider a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
It does sound quite technical. However, working on these aspects can significantly decrease the bounce rate. The more people that stay on your website, the less your competitors will have.
# 3. You must be mobile-optimized
Mobile-First web design is essential nowadays. Considering that currently many people are continuously on the go, they prefer to use a smartphone for almost everything.
Today, nearly 60% of Google searches are done via mobile devices, while 5 years ago, the figure was roughly half of that (34%), claims Statista.
So on April 21, 2015, Google released a new ranking algorithm that significantly changed how Google ranks its search results. More importance is being given to mobile-friendly sites. And as of July 1, 2019, mobile-first indexing will be the default for all new web domains.
To optimize your website for mobile-first indexing, consider the following:
- Speed up your site
- Manage content for mobile such as smaller texts for tiny displays
- Consider tap targets. Everything is going to have to be finger-friendly.
- Smoothen navigation
- Facilitate checkouts on mobile devices
You may need to invest in a dedicated team that can find creative and effective ways to achieve all this and more.
# 4. Vamp your visuals
Visual content is crucial for digital marketing. When content is presented with relevant images, it can generate 94% more views claims digitalmarketinginstitute.com. So it’s the ideal way to capture your audience’s attention and market your brand.
Typical visual elements include:
- Images
- GIFs
- Logos
- Videos
- Infographics
- Memes
- Slides
But you probably already knew all this. Most businesses use a variety of these elements. The key is to provide a healthy mix of different types of high-quality visuals.
Consider implementing the following tactics to get ahead of your competitors:
- Begin by placing a featured image at the beginning of the content.
- Create your own images. Instead of using stock photography, invest in utilizing photos created just for you.
- Enhance the quality of your images. Use clear, precise photos.
- Think of creative ways to connect with your target audience. How about creating your own memes? This not only helps your business stand out from others, but it will also aid in building a community around your brand.
- Include live videos on your landing page. This can increase conversions by 86%, states eyeviewdigital.com.
- Use live videos to humanize your brand.
- Keep your infographics simple. Many brands overload them with too much information. Look into Hubspot’s infographic style to get a clear picture of how to design the most effective infographics.
- Make it real. Use stats and quotes.
- Use charts to organize and simplify data representation.
# 5. Create evergreen content
By now, you must already have devised a great content marketing plan for 2020. This is where you can let your creativity explore all the avenues out there.
From utilizing up-to-date technology to reach your audience to creating effective ad campaigns, there is a lot you can do to provide valuable, relatable, and useful content. In fact, it is still considered to be one of the aspects of marketing activity that can make the most impact.
But there is a lot of content available on the net. How can you make your content better than others?
One way to do that is to focus on creating evergreen content so that readers will always find it interesting or useful. Moreover, this type of content is usually published once and can often be used across numerous channels.
- Write content with CTAs that lead users towards an intended action such as a purchase, download, or subscription.
- Monitor user experience to understand what content customers prefer.
- Content should not be time- or event-related. However, it must always be relevant to your brand’s storyline, core message, and key offerings.
- Do not bore the audience with repeated content.
- Build a library of core pieces to strengthen your brand’s message or goals.
For example: If you own a leather jacket online store. You need to be clear of one thing, push strategy will never work. Here, pull strategy saves you. What else can be better than investing your time, effort, and money in creating evergreen content?
And because it aims at being timeless, the content will remain useful years after it is initially published. So evergreen content contains the irresistible pull. It helps to deliver more traffic continuously to your website.
Some examples of evergreen content that you can create include:
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- “How To” Guides
- Size Guides
- Tutorials
- Return Policies
- Testimonials
- Industry Resources
- Glossaries of Terms and Phrases
# 6. Find your stance on social media
Some brands make the mistake of trying to maintain a presence on too many social media platforms. You need to avoid the two extremes: being utterly invisible to being everywhere at once.
To create an effective yet potent social media campaign, consider the following ideas:
- Select the channels where a majority of your audience can be found.
- Consistency should be your primary goal.
- Focus on social media platforms that are giving you the highest level of interactions, such as likes, shares, or comments.
- Stay active and keep your audience engaged. Try leading discussions, sharing the latest news, or posting relevant information related to the industry, etc.
- Influencer marketing can reel in the customers by making convincing recommendations. In fact, 70% of consumers that are greatly influenced by non-celebrity personalities such as their peers are Millennials.
- Your strategy should incorporate tactics that promote brand promotion as well as community building, such as contests, giveaways, promotional offers, quizzes, polls, etc.
# 7. Incorporate the latest technology
The aim of digital marketing is to enhance personalization and automation. To step out of the norm, you will have to take drastic steps. At the moment, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are helping to do just that.
As mentioned earlier, live video helps to build the groundwork for other technologies. It has already opened the door for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
At the moment, AR has picked up a great deal of momentum. Though it is relatively in the early stages of adoption, some brands are already a step ahead. Sephora, IKEA, Snapchat, Pokemon Go, the list is endless. It’s time to catch up and incorporate newer concepts into your marketing mix.
Wrapping up
How are you planning to achieve your goals? In order to gauge where you stand among your competitors, it’s necessary to identify appropriate key performance indicators (KPIs). Moreover, you need to monitor the right metrics to measure the growth of your business and the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaign.
Utilize this information to communicate with your team members and delegate tasks to generate optimal results. More importantly, you will be able to build a successful relationship and build on the sales funnel. Because at the end of the day, it’s not only about the ROI. It’s your customers- or the lack of- that can make or break you as you plan to overtake your competition.
Author Bio:
About Ashley Rosa: Ashley Rosa is a freelance writer and blogger. As writing is her passion that why she loves to write articles related to the latest trends in technology and sometimes on health-tech as well. She is crazy about chocolates. You can find her at twitter: @ashrosa2.
