Inclide blog- Online marketing strategies to try out in 2022

Online marketing strategies to try out in 2022

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2022 Online marketing strategies Menu

Online marketing strategies to try out in 2022

Introduction to Online marketing 

It’s a new month and that means new plans and goals, if one of your goal is to market your business then this is for you. We will be reviewing some marketing strategies for SME’s to help improve their odds in the market against their competition and to gain a competitive edge.
Most of these strategies doesn’t require big budget, they’re quite simple and you can try some of them out with minimal budget in order to attract and maintain a customer base.

We previously posted an introductory article on online marketing, you can read through to understand the basic terms. Here’s the link  Online Marketing  

2022 online marketing strategies

Online Marketing Strategies

We will begin by listing these 7 strategies out.
  1. Local listing and classified websites
  2. Online videos and tutorial / Webinar
  3. Blog blog blog
  4. Lead Generation / Email marketing
  5. Freebies (Review, Audit, Consultation)
  6. Vertical partnership with other businesses
  7. Paid Advert
  8. Google my business
devlop-banner

Local listing – There are business listing websites with high authority that can show your business to potential customers. You can submit your website to these websites, otherwise know as local directory websites. Think of this as a low cost – almost free advertisement. Examples include Yelp, GMB, BBB, Vconnect, Business listing, Finelib, Nigerian business directory etc.

Video Content– This is becoming popular because what’s get people attention has changed from long paragraph text to visually engaging graphics and video content.
You can create interactive video to answer popular questions related to your industry. Other Video ideas are Webinar, Tutorials, how-to’s, presentations and discussions.

Blogging– Content is king. This involves creating content on your website blog page.
Blogging is important as it helps to position your brand properly as a leader in your industry, get your business more online visibility and build credibility. Unfortunately, this is an underused solution with many benefits.

Lead Generation – This involves the process of collecting details of potential customers and nurturing them until they’re ready to make a sale. You can Collect customer details through web contact form, lead page, website directory, Paid ads etc and covert them through cold calling, email marketing, inbound marketing, targeted marketing etc.

Freebies– Who doesn’t want a freebie, especially if they’re given genuinely. As a business you can provide various things from a free audit, a discovery call, free consultation, discounted sales, or a free trial. Basically anything to attract the customer to you (obviously something of value not a click bait) with the hope of converting them into a full time paying customer.

White labelling / Reference – We can’t be a one stop shop for everybody, so that’s why why this comes into place. Imagine a Digital agency, being asked about App development, Motion design etc
Instead of building out a section to provide the services your customers require, a more easier alternative can be pursued which can either be white labelling or providing reference to a partnership company. With this way you can provide additional services to your customers either under another company or through your reference.

Paid advert– An online advertising model in which you pay advertisers to show your business to users of your choice. It basically involves you renting advert spaces on a popular website with hope of generating leads that can be converted into paying customers.

Google my Business– Google is the most popular search engine world wide, with billion of search terms daily. So therefore, imagine having your business in the face of potential customers when they search for your business or similar service. GMB is important for promoting your business to a wider audience.

That’s all and I we hope you can learn something from our post.
Happy new month.

Online Marketing FAQ

Online Marketing is a good strategy for increasing your brand’s awareness through digital means. It is the promotion of goods and services on the internet. There are certain actions you can carry out on the internet to inform people and make them interested in purchasing your products or services.
With online marketing you can expand your business reach. I’ll be explaining a strategic guide you can apply for online marketing. Internet marketing is incomplete without these.

With online marketing you can be rest assured of getting:

  • Prospects which can be converted to customers.
  • Increase your brand’s ROI
  • More visitors to your website
  • Connecting with the right audience  

Online marketing has become very common, many business owners have tapped into it. You need to be creative, flexible and updated with trends if you want to be at the top of the market.

Search Engine Marketing

Email Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Affiliate Marketing

 

 

We try to make our posts as simple as we possibly can, so you can try them out yourself. If you’re lost feel free to reach out to us and we will put you through.

promote your website

Ways to promote your website

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Ways to promote your website

After successfully creating a website, you might be confused about the next step forward. You don’t just expect people to come across the website, you have to make them know about it.

A fresh roller-coaster of work begins, which is promoting the website. Most people have fears about this, because they tend to weigh the cost and get drawn back.

There are a lot of plans you can put in place and execute successfully to promote your new website and achieve all your goals.

1. Optimize

Never forget the power of SEO, this is a guaranteed plan. It helps boost organic traffic and it’s totally free unlike search engine marketing.

You should set relevant keywords throughout your website. This makes your website rank on the search engine. Let’s say you have a website for logistics services, if the website is properly optimized – do you know how much traffic this could get you? Adopt backlinks, optimize your page titles, image descriptions, URLs and every keyword in your content.

2. Blog

Produce unique content which can drive traffic to your website. This increases your expertise in your niche. You can also invite fellow bloggers to write a guest article on your blog, they are likely to share and link their guest article which could generate more visitors for your website.

Some amazing benefits you can get from introducing a blog on your website are – your links get to appear on external pages and you get to improve your writing.

3. Join a community

Forums are a great way of getting your website to people. Find forums that are within your niche, so you can relate with fellow like minds.

Quora, Nairaland and Reddit are very popular forums you can start from. Let people know you have something to offer by proving it first. Answer questions and join discussions, your engagement with people on forums can help drive traffic to your website.

4. Online Directories

Everyday people make use of search engines to find what they are looking for. Placing your URL in directories can make more people find it.

A hair stylist for instance, renders services to people, directories allow people to find your business when they search. It usually includes your website, a location map and contact details. Google My Business is a popular online directory.

5. Social Media

Even after producing unique content, you need to share the content with people to increase traffic to your website. There’s more to social media than just posting of pictures/videos and funny memes.

You can build a social media audience and share your content as a form of free promotion for your website. Share your blog posts to Instagram, Twitter and your Facebook page – this turns your audience to website visitors.

There are many other ways to promote your website. All these plans require consistency to pull them off. Which of these plans to you see as a measurable one?

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Brand Architecture: how your products become your company’s building blocks

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Have you ever wondered about the success stories of some popular companies and the strategies they put in place?
Procter and Gamble is a household name that has been able to ride its way through the market. Some persons may not know the name ‘P & G’ but if you ask around about Pampers, Duracell, Always, Oral B, Gillette – you will find out how much people know these household products, all of which are affiliate brands and make up what is called the brand architecture of the P&G company. P&G adopted a strategy which made their products gain more attention than the usual corporate brand. This individual branding strategy stood them out into one of the most successful companies in the world.

So, before I discuss the strategies companies like P&G use connecting their products, let me clear out what ‘brand architecture’ really means.Brand architecture is a strategic tool used to set up relationships between parent brands and child brands. It is a way in which companies represent their brands in relation to their various products, brands and sub-brands.
A brand architecture comprises of various sections, which all link together and shows how closely related brands are to each other. A master brand is the parent brand which conveys the brand name. A sub-brand is connected to a parent brand, with a personal brand name and identity.
Why You Should Consider Brand Architecture

Before you can consider any of the strategies of brand architecture, the target market should be put first. Some of the key benefits attached to a good brand architecture are:

  • The brands tend to have a stronger position in the market, this makes it easier to communicate with consumers.
  • Customers are targeted properly and this helps the company to make use of effective marketing strategies.
  • Brand architecture also helps to build brand equity of sub brands.

Brand architecture is a fundamental part of product branding. Various schools of thought typify brand architectures differently. In this blog post, we will consider brand architecture in three distinct forms so, you get informed on which one your company should or has adopted and work towards making it more productive for your market share, brand value and equity. So, let’s look at the different brand architectures in detail.

CORPORATE BRANDS


The parent brand is closely associated with the child brand. Corporate branding is very common. Companies that make use of this branding are usually strong. The Virgin group, Google, P&G are examples. This type of branding makes it easy for new brands from the company to be accepted with other brands that belong to the company. Branded houses and house of brands are categorized under corporate branding. The company serves as the master brand with its name linked to other sub-brands.
Branded house is also known as monolithic architecture. In this architecture strategy, the parent brand is present and its name is linked to other sub-brands. An example is Google; having Gmail, Google drive and Google maps as child brands.
House of brands are also called pluralistic brand architecture. The parent brand manages many sub-brands. The company promotes these sub-brands which all have their personal identities in the market. This is where the P&G company falls into, with its sub-brands like Duracell and Pampers
A big advantage of corporate branding is that it helps to save advertising money, the same adverts can be used for other brands. Although, it can be difficult for other brands to make a name for themselves.

ENDORSED BRANDS


The endorsed brand rely less on corporate brands, though they need support from corporate brands to fit into the market. They have their own brand identity but rely on backing from corporate brands. Some terms associated with sub-brands that are endorsed include ‘brought to you by’ or ‘by’. Examples of endorsed brands are Nescafe by Nestle, Double Tree by Hilton Hotels.

Sub-brands are able to leverage the credibility of corporate brands and still target customers. A disadvantage of this strategy is that they have to live up to the same consumers expectations from corporate brands. It also finds it hard to succeed on its own in the market without endorsement from the corporate brands.

HYBRID ARCHITECTURE

This is a mixture of branded house and endorsed house. Here, parent-child relationship exists. Some sub-brands have close relationships with parent brands while some have distant relationships. An example is Volkswagen which owns brands like Bugatti, Audi and Skoda – but it still carries a brand on its own name. It is a flexible architecture strategy for leveraging brand equity and products that suits different marketing segments. The hybrid architecture is rare and hard to achieve. A good brand architecture will make your customers understand the brand and want to purchase products and services. Unlike a poor brand architecture which creates confusion.
You just need to know which model works for your brand, this is why brand architecture should be an essential part of your business plan.


How did you find this article? Helpful? Let us know in the comments section and, look forward to next week’s post!!

social media ads

How to get the best out of your Social media ads

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Why do businesses find no significant impact on revenue growth despite increase in social social media spending?

Whatever the 2017 CMO survey says, One reality the world must come to terms with, especially with the covid-19 outbreak, is that social media advertising has come to stay and has been proven to be effective.
The statistics however are difficult to ignore as, according to the survey, social media advertising budget is projected to increase by 32% by 2018 and double by 2023 but synergy of social media with marketing strategy showed no progress from Feb 2012- Aug 2017. It is therefore not surprising that there was no clear-cut effect of social media advertising on business and revenue generation.

social media ads


There are currently over 3 billion people on social media, with Facebook, the world’s social media giant boasting of as much as 2.2million people. According to hootsuite 2018, The 8th reason why people use social media is to buy. Social media advertisement is easier to access, cost effective, adjustable to fit marketing budget and offers a wider audience reach even with a target audience clearly specified. Why then does it not show significant effect on business growth?

social media ads


Highly suspected is the degree of importance placed on the ads produced, as a core tool in driving lead generation and impacting the entire marketing process. Poor content, setting unquantifiable metrics and under-utilization of analytics to draw actionable insights are enough to make social media advertisements have no effect on lead generation, talk more, conversion, despite huge amount of money spent.

How much value do you place on the quality of ads used in promoting your business on social media? we have identified 6 nearly-indispensable nudgets to critically consider when using social media ads to promote your business.

Have a marketing plan that prioritizes social media advertising

Businesses must come to the realization that social media ads are not only here to stay but are poised to become a key factor in competitor analysis. Marketing agencies now use number of followers on social media, rate of engagement per post and other quality metrics in their competitor analysis for marketing communication campaign plans. Your advertising budget should be one that gives social media top priority. Whatever platform you are choosing, be sure to set aside adequate funds to put up audience-captivating adverts on social media.



Select and stick with social media platforms that best suit your product type.

While Facebook and Twitter ads have been shown to suit most businesses, advertising on Instagram may require some specificity of products. Promoting fashion and lifestyle products seem a better choice than promoting an agribusiness or an investment plan on Instagram so, choose wisely and do monitor your ads. Once there are indications that your ad is struggling on a particular platform, be proactive enough to stop the ad so that marketing funds are re-targeted towards platforms where your promotion is highly embraced.

Carefully choose a target audience but be creative in your choice.

The urge to want to reach the over 3 billion people on social media is one that many businesses and marketing units must curb to the barest minimum. Design a clear-cut social media advertising plan that targets a specific group of persons whether based on geography, gender, age, social status, professional/industry status, etc. But beyond this, you want to be creative about your choice. For example, a fashion business producing a one-size-fits-all gown and targeting promotion of the product to expectant mothers is an indication of creativity in choice of target audience.


Be deliberate about producing quality contents for your social media ads

It is often said that ‘content is King’. Your contents could be your goldmine or your worst nightmare. Bad contents are a complete buff off for social media users therefore, typographically flawed or excessively wordy content with no clear-cut direction are highly unacceptable.
Never post an ad without a visual!. Never! Facebook posts with pictures get 5.5 times more likes than those with only texts. But while a ‘no image’ ad is considered unattractive, an ad with blurry image could get completely ignored. Avoid passive, abstract images and always use graphics that connotes life and vibrance.


Make your ad contents relevant, if not, the social media space does have its own trashcan.


Begin to Incorporate the use of videos in your social media adverts if you have not started.

Social media users are fast embracing video ads and if yours is high quality and relevant, it may get more attention than it gets ignored. 46% of of respondents in Hoot suite’s annual customer survey are already using social videos, 26% are planning to use.
The use of true testimonial videos have been shown to convince social media users more readily than fiction videos so, you may want to start placing high premium on acquiring shot live videos from block-to-block costumers who show satisfaction upon being served by you.

Set metrics that produce actionable insights and make good use of your marketing analytics

It becomes uncomfortable to know that most businesses rely on influx of patronages only to measure their ads’ success and when this does not happen, they are quick to conclude their ads did not thrive. Are you considering the lead generation process that is set up from your social media ads? like the number of visitors to your website from the platforms where your ad is running? How many from there were close to check-out on your website but did not complete the action? that way, you could begin to consider using ads re-targeting, most effectively through display advertising, another digital marketing process, to bring back those visitors to your website so as to complete check-out. Hence, the effective utilization of marketing analytics is no mean factor in the integration of a wholesome marketing process and when combined with its earlier mentioned counterparts, it gives social media ads the wherewithal to impact revenue and overall business growth both in the short and long term.