Content marketing is the most important thing that businesses do to promote their brand. Everyone knows that the more digital “assets” you have, the better you will do in the online market. The challenge is knowing which assets or platforms to use to have the most significant impact.
Should you use Instagram and social media more, email marketing, or blogging?
The answer is that you should use all of these methods to reach your target audience. An integrated approach is always best when you are trying to produce the results you need. The most difficult challenge is in the specific techniques you use to help these platforms work for you and to let them complement each other in a way that will produce the best results.
Take a look at these tips on each method and see if you can utilize them in your own online marketing campaigns.
Instagram is a great platform for displaying photos and video to your followers. Unlike some social media platforms, Instagram focuses only on your subscribers and sends content directly to them. So the key to success on Instagram has to do with building your brand and creating quality leads that will allow you to promote photos or video content that will help your brand.
The goal of Instagram is to incite interest and increase the level of engagement among your followers. So, if you are a flower shop, for example, send out a beautiful picture of flowers that you offer in your shop along with a “click for a coupon” link underneath the photo. This is an excellent way to promote interest and gain immediate results from an ad campaign.
Another tip for Instagram is to create hashtags such as #flowershop or #flowersformothersday, and other similar hashtags. The hashtags work on Instagram the same way they do on Twitter in that they are meant to connect others who have expressed an interest in this topic or keyword group.
Using hashtags and beautiful photos are two ways you can maximize your impact on Instagram. Try these tips to increase your results this year greatly.
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains one of the most important aspects of your digital marketing campaign. Optinmonster reports that more business owners are sending emails than ever before and the statistics show that this will continue to increase over time.
Some business owners have wondered if they should stop their email marketing campaigns and focus instead on social media or video marketing. While all of these are important, email marketing is still the most critical aspect of your digital marketing campaigns.
That being said, the goal to succeeding in the email marketing game is to outsmart your competition by winning the customer. To do this, try the following tips:
- Be helpful and offer a free incentive for clicking your links.
- Offer extreme value.
- Avoid salesy language.
- Be friendly.
- Don’t ask anything in return.
You may want to try any or all of these tips one at a time to see the results you get or try to include all of them in the same email. Of course, friendliness is always essential. If you offer an incentive for clicking on the link you provide, you are asking them to do something, but you are giving them something in return. So they get something for their efforts and time. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive or hard to do. Try including a free eBook on the same topic that you know your customers will appreciate. This improves the level of value that people will feel when acting on your emails.
You may think of other things that will improve your click-through rates. Include links to video or podcasts is a good idea, too. People love media, and they will tend to act on content that includes multimedia more than text-only email.
Blogging
Blogging is still another great tool for online business owners. Through the blogging platform, you can create a personal connection between yourself and your readers that you cannot do on your main landing page. Blogging is also an informal way to hit on the pain points of your audience so that you establish rapport with them.
How do you do this?
One way is to know your audience. You need to know them well in order to address the topics and the problems that are important to them. Back to our flower shop example: If you know that your customers enjoy buying flowers for a vase but they do not know which vase is best for which flowers, or how to properly cut flowers, you can create content on this topic.
Tip: Use multiple media types to cover the topic.
Using a variety of types of media to cover the topic is important. For example, you could create a video showing how to properly cut flowers, a podcast addressing the types of vases, and a blog entry that talks about choosing a vase for certain types of flowers. By saturating your blog and your media content with the very things that your readers value, you will be able to increase your readership and raise your engagement level immensely.
So make sure you have an active blog that you contribute regular content to, use email marketing and blogging on a regular schedule, and create true.
Your readers want to know that you understand their needs and wants. When you provide quality content that addresses these issues, you will start to see an improvement in your results. Don’t forget when you host a blog to include links to all of the media that we talked about in the above paragraph so it is easily accessible.
Using All Three in Unison
I’ve always liked to play with creative ideas on how to maximize my results. One way to do this is to crosslink content from one digital asset to another. For example, try including a link from your Instagram post to your blog or vise-versa. Mention repeatedly in your blog posts about a new eBook you have written that you think would interest your readers.
Email marketing is an excellent way to mention any type of media you have produced that will spark the interest of your blog followers. Include links to your YouTube channel and ask customers to subscribe. Offer them something free for subscribing.
It’s important to remember that this is not just about advertising; it’s about brand building. By focusing on building your brand rather than just advertising a product or service, you will win a customer for life, rather than a one-time sale.
It’s a bit of a paradox, but the more you take your focus away from sales, the more sales you will make! Try it: it just might work!