Author: Abhishek Yadav
April 21st, 2023
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The internet has revolutionized the way we do business in the 21st century. In order to survive and grow, your business still needs customers – that part hasn’t changed. And in order to gain customers, you still need to market your business – that part hasn’t changed, either. What has changed is the way to reach your target audience effectively. In the old days, it was often a matter of choosing between a physical flyer, brochure, postcard, or placing and in the local newspaper. But in today’s world, none of those traditional marketing approaches can hold a candle to the myriad of digital possibilities for more potent marketing.
2020 saw an increasing number of businesses using digital marketing channels like SEO, social media, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on Google, Bing, & others to reach more users & increase online visibility. The question is, where is digital marketing taking us into 2021?
Wish you knew the most effective ways to increase the online visibility of your business? Or maybe you’d just like to start by learning what your choices are to begin with? Well, there’s good news – you’re in the right place!
Ready to stand out from your competition, and stand out to your customers and potential customers? Let’s take a look at some top digital marketing strategies for promoting your business in 2021.
PPC has the potential to grow your business quickly by attracting new leads, driving more sales, and increasing profits. A solid strategy can deliver some impressive results. Conversely, diving headfirst into PPC advertising without proper planning can end up being an expensive mistake.
Pay-per-click or PPC is a web advertising approach that allows you to place ads on relevant search engine results pages for your targeted keywords. Where SEO focuses on achieving rankings through content and website optimization, PPC basically allows you to purchase clicks for the keywords that are relevant to your business.
PPC also works well when dovetailed together with SEO. By combining both approaches, your business has many more opportunities to increase your online visibility in search results. When users look for keywords related to your products or services, you want them to be able to find you! If you’re not ranking organically, PPC could be a great boost for generating more traffic based on your target keywords.
There are many PPC platform options available, including Google Ads, Bing Ads, Local Service Ads, and other native ads. But if you’re new to paid marketing, Google Ads is probably your first best option since it integrates with the most popular search engine in the world. Google Ads also provides various options for beginners and small businesses that can aid you in achieving your desired results.
The onset of the recent pandemic forced more businesses to become even more creative with their marketing efforts while trying to adjust to our “new reality.” The limitations of in-store purchases also served to expedite the further adoption of online shopping. According to reports, there was 129% year-to-date growth in U.S. and Canadian ecommerce orders, and 146% year-to-date growth in all online retail orders.
Going forward, PPC will continue to be a very efficient advertising channel for any marketing budget. But if you’re serious about increasing your online visibility (as well as your revenue), you’d be wise to partner with a professional PPC campaign manager like Cibirix.
You’re probably aware that people have been spending more time at home – and online – over the past year than ever before. And they’re not just conducting internet searches; they’re also giving significant amounts of time to engaging on social media in particular. For businesses who are poised to take advantage, this creates a great opportunity to increase their level of engagement with their target audiences as well. To that end, did you realize that social media budgets accounted for 24% of business marketing spending the second quarter of 2020 alone?
All this means you have an unprecedented ability to interact with new audiences and also re-engage with existing clients. And since more and more businesses are focusing on customer retention through social media marketing, you really don’t want to be left behind on that front.
An active social media strategy can enable you to gain more potential customers, interact with more existing followers, drive more traffic to your website, and ultimately produce more conversions. Paid social media advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube,& others can be a very effective way to advertise your business.
Social platforms also allow you to choose your target audience for advertising based on demographic info like age, gender, location, and even interests & behaviors. This can maximize results by enabling you to reach the most relevant users who are looking for the exact kinds of products or services your business provides.
SEO has been an important component of digital marketing for many years, and will certainly continue to be so. The challenge with SEO is that it’s a constantly moving target. Updates continue to be made to search algorithms, and many marketers tend to scramble to keep up. One particular area of current focus for businesses will be about trying to gain SEO visibility in position zero. What’s position zero, you ask? Position zero refers to Google’s featured area which is separated in a highlighted box at the very top of the search results. Position zero provides intuitive answers to the user’s question, without the user even having to click on it.
Now, this might sound counter-productive since position zero doesn’t automatically take users to your website. But the real value is in how Google sets you up as the clear authority on the subject in question – that alone can be worth much more to you than a single website visit. And this is why many SEO marketers are really trying to capitalize on gaining position zero results for their respective businesses.
And SEO no longer simply considers what users search for, but also takes into account how they search. With the ever-increasing use of voice searches, search engines don’t just pay attention to keywords, but also the context, meaning, and intent of a particular search. Businesses must therefore learn how to specialize in optimizing their content such that it will best answer a user’s queries. In other words, website content needs to be more focused on including common questions people ask in order to rank higher in the search results.
Images, graphics, and videos will continue to play a greater role in SEO strategy, as well. More and more people prefer visual content that helps to answer their questions. Businesses should therefore be focusing on adding and optimizing more images, graphics, and videos in order to attract more users.
According to HubSpot, around 80% of marketers report that they’ve seen a rise in email engagement over the past year. Email is one of the oldest digital advertising mainstays, and all signs point to the fact that its popularity will only continue to increase. In fact, email marketing done well can produce some of the highest ROI for small businesses.
And just consider the numbers; the amount of global email users is projected to grow to 4.48 billion by 2024. This fact alone has gotten the attention of growing businesses, and this is why many are looking to increase their overall investment in email marketing.
Plus, email does more than simply push out advertising content. It can also allow you to better understand user behaviors and attitudes about your business in particular.
In an increasingly customer-centric world economy, areas of investment will continue to focus on ways to personalize for both new and existing customers. This will also include effective ways to use email marketing automation technologies which make personalized email campaigns even easier to implement & manage.
We can’t ignore the value of good content, either. Thanks to the pandemic and its resulting lockdowns, demand for digital consumption is now at an all-time high. Quality content marketing and content branding are thus also more needed than ever. Good content is absolutely critical for promoting your products and services, as well as for improving your brand awareness.
Looking at 2021 and beyond, there are some content marketing trends which bear noticing. For one, content marketing will focus on inclusivity which factors in variations of races, sexualities, religions, and folks with disabilities. There is also going to be a push towards content which emphasizes environmentalism; many brands may benefit by broadcasting about their ecologically sustainable practices.
And it’s not only written content which will be important. For example, video blogs are overtaking blogs with static content in terms of content marketing value. Video advertising in general has now established itself as a vital strategy. Video promises to become one of the effective ways to gain clicks, and not just on YouTube. Instagram and Facebook Stories are two more platforms which are also seeing a rise in video ads. It makes sense why this is true; video plays well to customer engagement, and video ads can help increase website traffic, lead generation, and sales production for businesses.
Interactive content will continue to play a crucial role in user engagement as well. It’s been popular for some time, and is already recognized as a best practice. Interactive content is more engaging by design, and thus promotes a better user experience. Plus, when users engage with interactive content, they’re much more likely to spend longer amounts of time on your website.
The internet offers almost endless opportunities for businesses to reach more customers across a multitude of channels. From PPC to SEO to social media to email to quality content production, you’ve got many digital marketing strategies available if you want to drive more traffic and generate more leads (leading to more sales) for your business.
For most brands, a combination of digital marketing strategies is usually the best approach. Try experimenting with different ad types and platforms to learn which ones produce the best results for you. Test similarly targeted ads on each, or you can also try targeting different audience segments on different networks. If you’ll be intentional about observing your results and making ongoing adjustments to your strategy, you can maximize your results and generate more engagement for the benefit of your brand and your business.
As with many things, planning is the key to successful marketing. Keep this checklist in mind when deciding about any particular advertising method or approach:
If you’ll follow this checklist and also verify the performance of your marketing strategies, you’ll get a much clearer picture of which approaches are best for driving more traffic and generating more results for your business.
Following the above-mentioned tips can certainly help you, but if you don’t have a competent team leading the digital marketing charge for your business, you probably need more than just a few tips and tricks. Cibirix is a full-service digital marketing company that specializes in effective strategies for SEO, paid advertising, social media management, content marketing, and web development. No matter where you are in the process, we can help you to land on the digital marketing strategy that works best for you. By partnering with us, you’ll be freed up to focus on taking care of your business while we take care of your digital marketing, branding, and lead generation efforts.
Connect With Us Today, and let our team assist you in reaching your marketing & business growth goals!
Since founding Cibirix, Ashish has leveraged his marketing degree to lead the agency in crafting meaningful digital marketing experiences for clients. His results-driven approach is a unique mix of analytical thinking, crisp visual aesthetics and a desire to simplify frontends while developing robust architecture. With a passion for design, technology, & marketing, He leads each aspect of the agency’s business and oversees its talented team of digital professionals.
