How to Grow Your Business from Surviving to Thriving!

Remember the times when online marketing was just a new, different way to reach your audience? You had to be one of those daring entrepreneurs to use it in order to grow your business. Back then, the skeptical said it was just a fad, a trend that will pass.A lot of things have changed ever since.Digital marketing has tremendously grown in importance as customers either preferred or had to conduct most of their business online. You don’t have to jump into the new metaverse bandwagon to realise that online marketing will continue to play an increasingly important role in our lives.Another thing that has changed, too, is that online marketing tools have become very accessible and easy to use. Actually, it would be more difficult to promote your business the old-fashioned way than to have a strong online presence!So, if you are in the online marketing game anyway, why not make the best of it?In this post, we will pinpoint the main aspects you need to consider in order to grow your business, not just keep it alive. And, more than that, we are here to help if you need support!

Benefits of online marketing

Are you wondering: what’s in for me if I focus on digital marketing? There are some great benefits to enjoy if you decide to promote your business online intensively:

• Controlling costs

With the advent of accessible online marketing, small and medium-sized business were offered the opportunity to develop. Now, these small companies can score just as high as the top corporate players when it comes to promotion, due to digital marketing tools becoming very affordable. An effective advertising campaign on Facebook costs just a fraction of the cost of printing leaflets and will target the audience a lot more effectively. This means each dollar is spent more wisely and with a larger return on investment.

• Being more environmentally friendly

Speaking about prints, by moving your marketing online you generate less paper and waste that goes to the landfill. Even the invoices you send to your customers can be created and transmitted online, thus reducing your business’s environmental footprint.

• Increased speed

If you want to be ahead of your competitors and fulfill your customers’ needs as they expect, speed is crucial. With online marketing you can send your message out there more rapidly, with a simple click, and responding to customer requests will also be faster and more efficient.

• Measurability

Online marketing tools such as websites and social network accounts offer you valuable insights on what your audience is thinking and how they are responding to your actions. You can find out information such as how many people have visited your website or how many subscribers have clicked on links in your emails. By having access to such data in real time, you can take corrective actions immediately and improve your marketing campaign results throughout their execution.

• Engagement

Cultivating strong relationships is one of the most effective marketing strategies, both traditional and online. When it comes to digital marketing, this objective is easier to attain due to automated tools that enable you to create personalised messages. There are also communication channels such as chat and email that allow you to respond to customers immediately, potentially transforming an issue into an opportunity and a complaint into an upsell! 

What digital marketing trends to incorporate in your business in 2022?

As 2021 is swiftly waning, marketing experts are starting to research the latest marketing trends to expect in the following year. Many of these trends can be used to grow your business and they are easier to employ than you imagine:

• Multichannel marketing hubs

The term may sound a little pretentious, but what multichannel marketing means is the use of multiple media channels to spread marketing messages. These can include email, print, social media, display ads, television, radio, and more. Each business can choose the channels that suit it in order to interact with customers across multiple touch-points and deliver comprehensive campaigns.

• Conversational marketing

Remember the engagement benefit we’ve mentioned earlier? Two people who have a relationship communicate to each other regularly. And digital marketing provides multiple tools that help you talk to your customers: social media chat tools, email, SMS, phone calls and live chat.Live chat and chatbots are two of the first things that come to mind when we refer to conversational marketing. Chatbots help saving time so your agents don’t waste time replying to basic questions, and they also help you deliver a personalised communication experience. A well-built chatbot will be helpful and filter your customer requests efficiently; be careful about its construction as the bot tool can end up annoying people if it doesn’t provide them with the right answers.

• Personalisation engine

According to a definition from Dynamic Yield, a personalisation engine is:“Software that enables marketers to identify, deliver and measure the optimum experience for an individual customer or prospect based on their past interactions, current context and predicted intent.”Personalisation engines use data from user profiles or track user behaviour on the web to segment and target audiences. The data is used to deliver the right messaging and content across marketing channels. The result is that users are offered the information they want to see, the way they want, and when they want to see it.

• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Not only marketing campaign evaluation is automated, but also decision-making. With the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, businesses can enjoy the following benefits:

• Predicting unique buying patterns across geographic regions;
• Alleviating stock-outs and back-orders;
• Optimising media mix models;
• Accelerating revenue growth and improving performance;
• Shortening sales cycles;
• Unlocking greater value from marketing technologies;
• Generating greater ROI on campaigns;
• Creating and delivering real-time personalised experiences;
• Increasing customer retention rates.
• Consumer privacy and consent

 With such powerful tools that make it possible to track the behaviour of Internet users, the concern for protecting your privacy online has grown as well.In Australia, businesses that are APP entities need to comply with Australia’s Privacy Act (APA). Before sending any marketing to anyone, you need to consider how the Privacy Act applies to your business.  For instance, businesses must adjust, destroy or de-identify information of an individual either upon request by the individual or if the information is no longer used for its intended purpose.Even if APA has been into effect since 1988, its importance is growing due to the tracking and data collection tools used by an increasing number of marketers.

Which digital marketing techniques should your business use in order to thrive?

Not every digital marketing technique on the following list applies to your particular case, but most of them can be used successfully to grow your business:

• Local SEO

Local SEO is search engine optimisation that helps your business become more visible in local search results on Google.

• Search engine marketing

A business can increase its visibility in search engine results pages through paid advertising and by increasing its organic search ranking.

• Content marketing

Quality content helps to attract the right audience. At the same time, it portrays your website as relevant to search engines for queries based on certain keywords.

• Remarketing

Remarketing is reaching out to customers who have previously visited your website with banner ads. This method works by tagging website visitors with a special cookie, which makes it possible to advertise to them again, online.

• Responsive web design

Providing a seamless user experience across multiple devices is vital if you want visitors to convert to paying customers.

• Email marketing

Email marketing is one of the most powerful promotion tools which allows you to build relationships with customers and leads by speaking to them in their inbox.

• Social media marketing

This tool permits you to reach a large number of people within seconds, either through free or paid posts and ads.

• Marketing automation

Marketing automation takes the legwork out of nurturing those leads that show real promise. Marketing automation additionally provides benefits such as generating better leads, personalising customer experience, and obtaining a detailed view of customer behaviour.

• Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is using external content creators to advocate for your brand’s message. This type of marketing is so effective because prospects tend to trust influencers and people they admire more than they trust brands that are trying to sell their products directly.

• Video marketing

An image is worth a thousand words. Video marketing is a powerful tool for effectively engaging your audience, and is not complicated or expensive at all. A smartphone with a good camera and a well-thought strategy are enough to start using your creativity to grow your business.Navigating through all these marketing trends and tools can be difficult when you are busy with running your business. Visual Marketing Australia can help by offering a wide range of digital marketing tools and strategies – check our services on our website!