5 Great Ways To Promote Your Blog On Social Media
Are you spending valuable time writing quality content for your blog? Are you gathering all the interest from your content marketing? If not, you may not be marketing your content productively!
In contrast to what business sites do, it doesn’t seem right to promote your blog through paid advertisements. Be that as it may, what different choices are available at your disposal?
In this blog, we will demystify how you can promote your blog using social media.
The following are some ways you can prepare your blog content to be socially shareable.
1. Interesting Blog Content
Social Media is a platform where we have numerous writers expressing their knowledge about a specific topic. It’s very common to find similar blogs on a particular subject. You don’t need to worry about that. In that given situation, you just need to focus on how you can write it in a unique way to grab the eyeballs of your readers. As a writer, you must do your best to reach out to your target audience. You must try to put in an interesting fact to change the viewpoint of your audience.
2. Select Trending Topics And Images
It’s very important that the topics you select match the interest of your audience and it should contain valuable insights on the topic so that it will attract the readers and also provide them with some valuable addition to their knowledge. Apart from content, the audience also gets attracted by interesting trending topics and images. Social media is all about attractive visuals that catch the eye and mind of the reader. If your blog does not have a unique/identifiable introductory image or any image at all, people will be less inclined to read and share it.
3.Use The Right Hashtags
Social media and hashtags play a vigorous role. Aids of creating the proper or correct hashtag can make our content more discoverable. Using accurate hashtags is another cost-effective marketing strategy for your brand. By adjusting the hashtag or using keywords that are closely related to your industry or market, you can make your content more discoverable to your audience easily.
4. Promote Your Blog At The Right Time
“Time Is Money” and it is applicable in posting your blog too. Here you might think of how time can be so vital in posting a blog. It is as vital as the content of the blog. Because you invest a lot of time in writing your content and if you don’t choose the appropriate time for promotion, there are chances that your promotional posts will end up getting lost and fail to drive attention and traffic to your sites. Your target audiences are not likely to devote their entire day to social media. So, you have to influence them during the hours when they are active and energetic. This needs detailed study and thought to find out when your target audience is spending their valuable time on social media. When are your promotional posts likely to receive the highest visibility? When can your post be shared in large numbers?
5. Engage With Your Audience And Build A Loyal Community
One of the significant advantages of social media podiums is the facility to connect straight with your audience. You can connect with your audience personally through likes, comments and other interface options. It helps you recognize your requirements and also provides access to material.
Provide your audience with insights like what your contributions have determined to be valuable and additional details that are difficult for them to extract from analysis or modest observation. Observe your social media followers and community.
6.Repurpose Your Blog
Several social media users love to watch videos, listen to podcasts and check out infographics, etc. Does this mean that they don’t read blogs? Not really. Likings can differ; but notice that everyone is searching for information. So why not try to provide them with the help of different content formats, floating their curiosity and driving them to your location to check out your blogs?
Regardless, rotating your blog into other content formats for promotion makes sure that your content is repurposed well. For illustration, when creating video content on the same blog topic, ensure that you offer treasured information that can increase sufficient interest, so the one who was just there to watch the video should get so curious that they reach out to the blog page in search of additional valuable information.
The 5 Best Facebook Automation Tools To Save Tons Of Time
Facebook is an influential channel for boosting brand awareness, developing leads and increasing sales. You need to keep your social media feeds up-to-date to make the most of Facebook. For this, you have to devote many hours to this platform and it is clearly not simple. Thankfully, Facebook automation tool exists. Facebook automation is super productive for social media marketers willing to save time and resources.
Here are the 5 best Facebook automation tools to enable you to improve your productivity and build the best-suited Facebook marketing strategy:
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management tool which is user-friendly. It enables you to organize all your posts from other social media accounts from one dashboard. It is one of the top-rated applications. You can control and schedule posts in bulk. It allows you to reply to comments even when you are out of the office. You can easily analyse your social return on investment (ROI) and launch social media adverts. With the help of this, you can monitor and prepare content.
2. Pictory
Pictory uses AI tools to turn texts into professional videos with great quality. It can be done with a few clicks, which is why you don’t need any skills, extra time or equipment to produce the video. All you need to do is copy and paste the text into the app. The AI directly creates a customized video based on your inputs. You can have access to the library containing 3 million royal royalty freezers and audio clips. Moreover, Pictory also integrates with Hootsuite. So, you can effortlessly schedule your videos for posting.
3. FS Poster
FS Poster gives you the capacity to publish posts to all of the most popular social networks at the same time. When you use FS Poster, you will have the ability to re-publish recently developed content and schedule posts in advance. Marketers may use FS Poster to post blogs automatically, bulk schedule and manage individual postings instantly on major social networks. It also enables you to share blog photos, infographics, movies or photographs from WordPress to visual sharing on social media networks.
4. SproutSocial
SproutSocial is a one-stop solution for all problems and a flexible social media automation tool aimed at simplifying all social media marketing activities. Both big and small-scale businesses can profit from its influential features. This tool allows you to add more social profiles beyond prominent ones. SproutSocial also enables you to schedule your posts from mobile, web, and browser with instant content suggestions. It is accessible on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google and Pinterest. It helps in content curation, posting, scheduling, reporting and analytics.
5. Buffer
Buffer is a social media platform that is easy to use and can manage a large number of jobs. Compared to other tools, it is user-friendly and superior to its opponents. This app gives an amazing experience to the users by quickly finding functions and discovering. You can command multiple social media accounts through the same dashboard and can also build your community and engage with audiences to gain customer trust.
5 Proven Ways to Drive Organic Traffic to Your Website
Whether you are running a start-up company or an established firm, getting better website traffic is a shared motive among many business owners and marketers. Your website is your online portfolio, where people can understand more about your offerings, build faith in your brand, and ultimately become leads and consumers. The more people you get in front of, the more sales you create. Therefore, organic traffic is the lifeblood of every business and it’s worth the effort.
Here are five best ways to get organic traffic on your website:
1. Prioritize Content Creation
First and foremost, your website must have a blog section, where you can regularly publish valuable content. The high quality of blogs will surely give more reasons to visit the website.
- Focus on Intriguing Topics: News and trending issues can improve your traffic in a short period. But you need to focus on creating content around topics that will be of concern to your audience.
- Compose Impressive Headlines: Headlines are one of the most crucial portions of your content. If the headline is not compelling or catchy, even the most extensive blog post will go in vain. You need to master the art of writing headlines so people will read your post above others.
- Add Video-Based Content: Text-based content is considerable, but video can persuade more visitors and keep them engaged. Add videos on YouTube to rank higher on YouTube, then add links to your website or the blog in the video description. Also, add call-to-action directly in your video that asks the viewers to visit your website.
2. Make Your Website Responsive
Responsive website designing isn’t a current trend or preference but a long-term strategy. The perfect website design needs to be responsive and user-friendly. Screens continue to develop and your website is required to fulfil the needs of every browser. Make the viewer’s experience enjoyable, no matter what device they are using. Today, more traffic arises on mobile than on desktop. Even on a basic website, you must ensure that it is accessible and comfortably viewable across a range of gadgets.
3. Regularly Refresh Your Content
Even the most evergreen subject loses its essence with time. Therefore, fresh content acts as a ranking component. When new content is published with the same old topic but with several modifications, which can result in a surge in traffic. But you can’t just rewrite a few words and then edit the post. You need to work on a few strategies to get more traffic from evergreen blogs:
- Update or add new information
- Replace outdated visuals
- Add links to current sources.
- Add different keywords
- Update current meta title and meta description.
4. Promote your Content on Social Platforms
It’s not enough to create outstanding content and wait for people to find it. Distribute your content on popular social media channels for promotion.
- Add Hashtags: When sharing the posts on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. You must use relevant hashtags to increase the reach of your posts. Keep the hashtags precise to the subject of the content to get discovered by the people.
- Add Social Share Buttons: Sharing content on social media platforms is a wonderful content marketing method. Social share icons allow viewers to share the page they’re browsing to their social platforms.
- Participate in Discussions: Give answers to the questions by replying in the comment section on various social networks. Through this, you can make a good impression on them and build long-term trust.
5. Answer Google’s Most Asked Question
You must dig deeper and search for the different questions on Google. So, instead of creating a generic post, use Google’s asked questions to generate engaging blog posts. If you create and publish content around real questions that people have asked, you are clear to drive organic traffic.
To know more about this, you can do quick searches for people who asked Questions using websites like AlsoAsked.com or AnswerThePublic. These tools are built to find a web of questions around the subject you enter. AnswerThePublic gives valuable insights regarding who/what/when/where/etc. questions and Asked.com works with a branching method that takes prominent questions and begins what people search.
How & Why SMBs Should Focus on Personalized Local Strategies to Grow Their Business?
As a small business owner, you’re always looking for modern ways to get your business’s name on the radar of customers. Utilizing personalized local strategies in business is a considerable way to engage with existing customers as well as attract new ones. Local marketing leverages your businesses with tools, tactics and strategies to make it simpler to convert the local traffic into leads, either online or in person.
Here are some of the local strategies you might be unaware of that could incredibly strengthen your small business:
• Use Local Listing
Have you ever heard of listing your business on Google?
You can register your company with Google as it enables potential customers to find your company’s location. Consumers can also publish reviews and feedback regarding your company. If you will make a business account on Google My Business account, it will increase the visibility of the online searches for your business. This is only less than a free form of advertising for extending your reach.
• Attend Local Events
As the covid effects are diminishing, things are opening up now. Get a list of all the local events happening around you. Attend those events to expand your relationship with local people. Participating in local events can be an efficient way to expand your business without going over your promotion budget. Local events help to reach out to consumers and boost client relationships. You meet new people and you can describe the expertise of your business, and they might connect with you, and there you get a business out of that.
• Use Relevant Hashtags
A reliable call-to-action hashtag can be an incredibly effective marketing tool for your small business. Some social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn allow users to follow hashtags. It enables you to find other posts tagged with same hashtag in account’s feed. Hashtags can increase impressions, enhance your content’s searchability, and motivate people to speak about your brand. The technique of using trending hashtags strategically will help your content reach your potential audience.
If you are a small business located in GTA, you can use the hashtag #SMBSinGTA to be discovered by people in GTA.
Let’s understand this in this way, if someone clicks a photo in a restaurant or conference hall in Brampton and post it with the hashtag #Localbusiness #startupsinBrampton #Smallbusinesstips or even a simple one like #ChillingWeekendinBrampton #ThingstodoinBrampton #Weekendideas, they’ll naturally see a page that showcases all content with the same hashtag.
• Join The Chamber of Commerce
Meeting your area’s Chamber of Commerce can be a wise move for your small business. You will be in contact with big and small business owners and many other industry experts. By meeting different people, your business can accumulate and thrive quickly. Businesses that participate in this group nurture and work together to promote each other’s business. There are several ways your area’s Chamber of Commerce can help you in offering valuable networking and marketing system. After joining this, you can find out about local events happening in your neighbourhood where you might set up a cell and endorse your business. You will also be referred to other Chamber members’ connections.
• Get in Touch with Your Local City Members
You can communicate with your local Government for assistance. On the networking level, there are more opportunities to meet the right people at the right time. You can discuss pinpoints of your business and get exposure at that level as well. This only happens when you engage with local and genuine people. You promote each other’s business when you meet people from the local community. By joining relevant conversations about the trials and hardships of owning a small business, you get tips to balance your business objectives and budget. Here, recommendations can be worthwhile in growing your business. Also, Word of mouth works as an exceptionally effective promotional technique for your business while meeting people at event or local community.
Using these strategies is an essential part of your brand’s social media and marketing strategy which provide an excellent means for creating greater brand awareness. Therefore, you should utilize these ideas to develop new leads by connecting to people who want to discover products and services for SMBs. If you need a strong marketing plan for your SMB, Contact MarketinGrow now!
5 Powerful Marketing Strategies Small Businesses in the GTA Can’t Ignore
COVID brought a whole bouquet of challenges for businesses worldwide; small businesses in the GTA are not immune to it. These challenges have forced businesses to rethink, adapt, and evolve the way we operate. The rise of Work-From-Home culture, virtual events, and ramped up digitization are a few such examples. The practice of holding events virtually isn’t new, however, the practice has gone mainstream in the small business community in recent times. With the accelerated adaption, laying the foundation of best practices surrounding hosting and attending virtual events must be addressed.
The given strategy will indeed turn your virtual event valuable:
- Create an online Event page for your webinars:
You must create an event named page/profile on the social media sites.
- 🠚 LinkedIn event pages are crucial for awareness and engagement. The features encourage the audience to sign up or register for the event. With the help of the page, you can invite all of your connections, start a discussion, and manage your attendees. Your connection can also share the event with people outside of your network which assists in boosting your visibility and organic reach. Your connection can attend the event directly with Just one click or you may ask them to fill out a form to save their data. Even the interested attendees can add this event to their calendar directly by clicking on the page's feature.
- 🠚 Facebook Event pages easily connected with Facebook Live which allows you to promote your live stream on an event page. When you create a new event page, it appears in the timeline of your page's followers. Attendees can attend one events tab on Facebook and share it with friends. One can easily connect the event to their smartphone by the events calendar feature.
- To increase visibility, keep creating posts for both LinkedIn and Facebook event pages with all small or big announcements. This helps in generating excitement and lets the audience see what they can look forward to.
- One can also be updated with the latest events with the help of websites like Eventbrite. It has features like online ticketing and getting a personalized experience. Eventbrite is a portal where people post about online or offline events. It allows people to come and look over the information about events organised in their localities. Organisers can post these events for free or paid.
Make the Most Out of Your Virtual Events!
COVID brought a whole bouquet of challenges for businesses worldwide; small businesses in the GTA are not immune to it. These challenges have forced businesses to rethink, adapt, and evolve the way we operate. The rise of Work-From-Home culture, virtual events, and ramped up digitization are a few such examples. The practice of holding events virtually isn’t new, however, the practice has gone mainstream in the small business community in recent times. With the accelerated adaption, laying the foundation of best practices surrounding hosting and attending virtual events must be addressed.
The given strategy will indeed turn your virtual event valuable:
- Create an online Event page for your webinars:
You must create an event named page/profile on the social media sites.
- 🠚 LinkedIn event pages are crucial for awareness and engagement. The features encourage the audience to sign up or register for the event. With the help of the page, you can invite all of your connections, start a discussion, and manage your attendees. Your connection can also share the event with people outside of your network which assists in boosting your visibility and organic reach. Your connection can attend the event directly with Just one click or you may ask them to fill out a form to save their data. Even the interested attendees can add this event to their calendar directly by clicking on the page's feature.
- 🠚 Facebook Event pages easily connected with Facebook Live which allows you to promote your live stream on an event page. When you create a new event page, it appears in the timeline of your page's followers. Attendees can attend one events tab on Facebook and share it with friends. One can easily connect the event to their smartphone by the events calendar feature.
- To increase visibility, keep creating posts for both LinkedIn and Facebook event pages with all small or big announcements. This helps in generating excitement and lets the audience see what they can look forward to.
- One can also be updated with the latest events with the help of websites like Eventbrite. It has features like online ticketing and getting a personalized experience. Eventbrite is a portal where people post about online or offline events. It allows people to come and look over the information about events organised in their localities. Organisers can post these events for free or paid.
Digital Marketing Trends in 2022
- Cryptocurrency integration is growing exponentially – Quite a few businesses have started accepting currencies such as Bitcoin as a mode of payment. There are quite a few advantages of integrating cryptocurrencies as a mode of payment. Cryptocurrency transactions are far more secure as compared to credit and debit card transactions. However, cryptocurrency integration also comes with its range of challenges. A cryptocurrency is irreversible and has its own tax implications. Regardless, the crypto market has seen an exponential surge and is expected to continue to grow in similar fashion.
- B2B influencer marketing is on the rise!– Several tech giants such as Adobe have jumped into the trend of using influencer marketing in the B2B space. As per Business Insider Intelligence, Influencer marketing is expected to see a whopping global spending of around $15 billion in the year 2022. It is highly recommended that businesses try to collaborate with influencers in their space to unlock the seemingly enormous potential that B2B influencer marketing has to offer.
- LinkedIn continues to serve as a gold mine in the B2B space– LinkedIn is undoubtedly one of the most famous social media platforms in the world. Unsurprisingly, LinkedIn is the most widely used social media platform among Fortune 500 companies. If utilized to its fullest potential, LinkedIn can generate plenty of business opportunities for your brand.
- Customers are increasingly concerned about data privacy– Marketers have to establish a strong relationship with their customers, especially when customer data is involved. It is understood that customer data is required in order to run ads seamlessly and provide useful information. However, that is irrelevant for the customer. At the end of the day, the customer is still left wondering how his/her personal data could be misused. This is where marketers need to be extra cautious. A more smart approach would be to be completely honest to customers regarding data usage.
- Avoid being the “jack of all trades”– In today’s marketing world, several online businesses have established a very ‘thin’ presence on their social media channels. Smart Digital marketers, on the other hand, focus on a single channel, meticulously planning on how to dominate in that specific channel. It is highly advisable that marketers today focus on quality rather than quantity
- Establish an unparalleled user experience– No matter how many SEO ‘tricks and tips’ you know, unless you are not able to provide users with a seamless user experience, you are bound to see a high bounce rate on your website’s landing page. Instead of only focusing on making your website “SEO friendly”, spend more time on understanding your buyer persona and create an appropriate user experience.
- Facebook is here to stay experience– Facebook has been disregarded by several online businesses in recent times owing to the growing interest in Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok. Regardless, Facebook is still one of the largest social media platforms for Online Sales and Advertising. Furthermore, Zuckerberg recently announced the introduction of Meta, a totally unique concept which will use Virtual reality to help people connect with each other. Hence, it is recommended that marketers not bet against Facebook!
REBRANDING 101
Wondering how to and when to upgrade your brand to attract new customers, or stay in sync with the existing ones? MarketinGrow, brings you a blog that will help you decide how and when to upgrade or change your brand approach. Let’s start!!
What do Netflix, Amazon and Apple have in common? They’ve evolved with changing times. Change is a common part of any business cycle, irrespective of whether you are a small large business. And some hard times such as the current virus pandemic and also bring with it a good business opportunity.
Most small businesses and entrepreneurs start off as an idea and idea that converts to profit. But to make it sustainable and succeed in today’s economy if your brand can’t share the same values as your audience it’s non-existent to them. Given that you face competition not only local but global and your customers are often lured either directly or indirectly through different means, making it your responsibility to make your brand stand out.
And that’s exactly why a business reinvents itself. This doesn’t mean the core values of the business or the brand have to change but just changing how you offer the product can be a good enough strategy for a small business.
According to Shawn DuBravac, a Small Business expert and author of “Digital Destiny” DuBravac says, “it’s important for a small business to constantly innovate and re-innovate the organization, from what they offer, the value it provides to how they treat their employees” especially if you are an e-commerce or technology-based firm that fear larger corporates overshadowing your product innovation and re-innovating what you offer keeps your customer profile growing.
When should a business rebrand itself?
Typically, a firm would be advised to rebrand or renovate every 5 years to stay in sync with their customers. But there are other scenarios that may be a no brainier such as image crisis or financial crisis.
But one time a small business can re-innovate their existing product or services is when there is a global slow down. This is the time most small businesses take a hit but a smart brand would know how to be a winner in such situations by providing value and need.
How do you reinvent for a small business?
If you choose to reinvent and rebrand it’s a crucial step. In requires a strategy, goal and finances and most importantly time to support a successful rebranding. We will give you a step by step approach to doing this below:
- Know when to change – for a small business timing is everything. Change or reinventing doesn’t have to be just because we told you so, but also based on calculated facts. Like your personal finances such as paying for your children’s college tuition or a new mortgage. Things don’t come easy and rebranding halfway is never a good idea. Make the changes subtle and scale up accordingly to what you think you can handle or hire an agency that understands your market and its demographics to help you with it while staying on a budget.
- Know your customers – both existing and the target audience. Knowing how to get your existing customers to accept a new image of your business is half the war won. Since we want to grow the business you have to take into account the existing customers and survey their needs and wants and strategies ways with your marketing team for an approach that will be accepted by the existing customers. While it also is able to lure potential customers in.
- Make use of technology – An easy way most firms are able to evolve their brand image is to do this is via social media talk to your audience see what they like and what can be incorporated in your brand image and voice keep evolving with technology and use it to benefit your brands such as videos ads or AI. This doesn’t have a direct impact on the customers but subtle enough to encourage new audiences and traffic to convert into loyal customers.
- Make the transition smooth: evolution did not take place overnight nor does your brand growth. Constant evolving and renovation are the laws of nature too and is most easily accepted rather than an overnight change in the brand itself. This will also help you handle the transition in a much-organized manner on a personal level instead of feeling overwhelmed.
- Stick to the plan – often even when customers seem to take the new brand image quite well it’s the owners, we notice finding it hard to let go of old habits or approaches. Given that some companies have been doing business a certain way for a number of years change can be hard. As owners feel they are letting go of a part of themselves and often tend to switch gears, this is directly counterproductive to all the effort you have put in so far and leaves your customers employees and partners confused as to what you are planning which is never a good sign for a brand image.
Easy ways to reinvent your brand
Change your voice – instead of selling your product sell its value, people will remember stories, not the slogans. What customers look for online be it through SEO or social media is for products similar to their likeness. If your product matches what they are looking for you have a sale. Send a message that resonates with the target audience, make your new voice acceptable and engaging with its viewers.
Change the medium – businesses are never constant, imagine you are a café owner your menu would have to incorporate those items that your customers are most likely to buy or include take-away options. Similarly, while reinventing your brand if you often opted for traditional advertising opt for new mediums such as social media, email and blogs that are more engaging and get a lot of traction required for a business to keep growing.
Incorporate technology – the biggest gift 21st century has to offer is the constant evolution of technology, for a small business in Brampton or Mississauga this may seem like uncharted waters but with the right team and approach incorporating AI as chatbots or analytics, studying your customers and what’s engaging them the most can be life-changing. Technology and level the playing field for all businesses big or small. So, use it in the best possible way that can benefit your business.
Hire a digital marketing agent or agency– most of our clients are those who have been in the industry for close to a decade or more looking for a wider visibility and access to their clients. Being in the field of marketing made us understand how a marketing agency is able to access, define and strategies your business plan in order to make a smooth transition with the least amount of stress or confusion.
Start with simple transitions – rebranding doesn’t have to be hardcore, simple subtle changes can make a lot of difference when we speak of a small business. From changing your website look and feel, creating an app to a simple logo and graphic changes can help customers engage with your brand much better than a complicated or out of date approach. Start simple keep it subtle to see how customers react and scale up gradually.
How much does rebranding cost a business?
On average, rebranding would cost 10-20% of your marketing budget. In Canada, rebranding can cost a small business anywhere between $1000- $20,000. The numbers may and will differ depending on what your idea of rebranding is? Is it just a simple website change or adding technology and social media to the mix or changing the logo? Starting off may sound risky and scary since you have put in so much effort creating your business but with the right marketing team and approach this risk would very well translate into a good business investment that translates into bigger more visible profits for your business.
Want to know how to start the evolution of your brand? We have it all covered for your contact or book a consultation with MarketinGrow to know-how.
MARKETING ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (MAP)
In light of the recent events we want to ensure our community and its small businesses in Brampton, Mississauga and surrounding GTA are still able to function at their level best. COVID-19 has caused businesses to rethink and strategize their current marketing strategy. MarketinGROW offers its support by launching a limited time Marketing Assessment Program aka MAP. MAP is a complimentary service by MarketinGROW that has been designed to provide small businesses with much-needed momentum when it comes to optimization and analysis of their current business plan and marketing efforts.
This includes:
1. Website Audit 2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) analysis 3. Social Media Marketing Analysis 4. Lead Generation Strategy
Book your free slot today. Let’s come out of this lock-down stronger and more efficient than ever!
COMPLIMENTARY ASSESSMENT FORM
Fill the form & we will get back within 24 hrs
THE PERFECT E-COMMERCE STRATEGY FOR YOUR SMALL BUSINESS
Thinking your small business needs an e-commerce store? Do you feel its time you own an eCommerce store to match demands or access new audience? MarketinGROW presents Strategic approach to help ease planning and launching your eCommerce site.
But first, Let us assure you, you are on the right track! It’s the 21st century and everything you need is on the internet. Favorite snacks from your childhood or a bridal dress everything is one click away.
Next, you may be looking for an easy e-commerce strategy to help you get started, hence this blog. Before we get started, it’s important keep in mind global audience means global competition. Even if you are not trying to compete with them, the customers may lean towards an outsider’s product due to a variety of reasons like: better website, easier checkout or better online ratings. The perfect eCommerce strategy considers all relevant factors that may directly or indirectly affect your business.
MarketinGrow provides an easy way to keep your existing customers and attract new ones to keep reading to know more.
How to set up an e-commerce site for a small business?
- Pick a niche and Research your market
- Pick a niche product(s)
- Create a brand and business
- Get an online store
- Attract your customers online
- Time to Advertise and marketing
- Post-launch care tips
- Pick a niche and research the market.
First things first, whether you are an online or offline store, you need to know the market. Research if it’s a good model for an e-commerce store and what is your competition like?
Consider the below points as crucial to making a profit on your investment;
- Are you able to warehouse the product?
- Will it be drop shipped or periodic shipping?
- Will the product need a special license?
- Is it easy to market and advertise?
- Are there buyers looking for the product with no good purchase options?
- Who does this product target?
- What are the price and the options your competition offers?
Pick a niche product
Apart from the basic research, it’s also important to start off simple start with few products or a single product scale up when you see the demand rising this helps avoid unnecessary expenses and gauge the market without investing heavily in it. Take for example Kylie’s lip kits the brand started off with a single product and limited Colors and now has spanned into a whole range of skincare and skin products. It’s a classic example of niche product testing.
Create a brand and business
Your brand has to be ready to take on the online scene. At the 11th hour, you can’t afford a copyright issue with the logo or an investment into a brand image that doesn’t match the target audience that you are selling too.
Follow the checklist below to start with;
- Pick a business name
- Register your business
- Get required registrations such as employment ID, tax number, licence and permits.
- Keep a list of suitable vendors ready
- Create a logo
- Create visuals that resonate with your brand image and it’s persona helping your audience relate and engage with your brand.
Get an online store.
The majority of the population today purchases a product after searching for it online and looking for reviews. Notice how bloggers “review” products all the time? That’s because there is a demand by customers to educate themselves before they make a purchase.
Creating an online store is easy. There are multiple websites that let you use a template and choose the URL you think best. Usually, these websites would charge upwards of $100 for basic features and design.
Alternatively, you can opt for Marketingrow’s $45 /m plan that lets you cancel anytime and provides a custom design and SEO content helping you gain better visibility.
Attract customers to your online store
Many small businesses struggle with this. We often get asked “how can i attract customers to an e-commerce store for small business?” or a new venture.
The answer, there is no simple method that will just get you customers over night. But there are some pointers that help your store operate and attract customers-
- Develop keyword driven strategies – if a customer is not able to find your product via a simple search engine search they are most definitely visiting the next best option. Aka your competitors. Pictures, content and the store itself needs to be Search engine friendly so it is easy to track and navigate.
- Have a website– having a website let’s you add more information about your business, engage with customers and over time add more products that they can navigate and shop through. This also helps in making your store rank better and stay more visible online.
- Content marketing- although the goal is to sell, your site needs traffic and for that it needs to have relatively good content that can drive traffic and lead to conversions.
Time for advertising and Marketing.
No online effort is ever complete without Digital marketing. How do you get your product noticed online? How can you get more sales on a e-commerce website? Or how to generate traffic on to your website? Digital marketing answers all of these queries.
Digital marketing helps a business gain popular among its audience and constantly stay visible and in the minds of the public so they are motivated to make a purchase.
Let’s talk about what does digital marketing and it’s strategies offer for e-commerce?
- E-mail marketing – helps create a list of leads and mailing addresses you can can connect and engage with time to time with offers, discounts and new products.
- Social media marketing– through FB ads and engagement over social media your product gathers high visibility to your niche audience. Keep in mind every business is very different and social media offers various platforms to reach them. For example LinkedIn for B2B and Facebook for B2B and B2C.
- Google and online search– google ads, google my business page, reviews on online portals and search engine optimization. May sound overwhelming for a small business owner to do but that is exactly what digital marketing agencies like MarketinGrow provides to its customers, all round optimization for best results.
- Back linking – anything from related sites reviewing or talking about the advantages of your product and services to listing it on pages that already has good traffic is a good start. Back linking basically does this for your business.
Feeling ready?
Now that you know how to get started with an e-commerce site. What are you waiting for? Alternatively, you can get in touch with us or book an appointment. All you have to do is have an idea of what your website and brand persona is so we have a clear idea of the persona and it’s target audience. Leave everything else up to us from research to marketing we will do it for you.
Also check out lite.marketingrow.com to buy your website and have it up and running in less than a few weeks time!