If you’ve just started learning the nuts and bolts of online marketing, you can’t expect to get the same results that seasoned marketers in the industry are enjoying.
Just like all the marketers who have succeeded, you’ll have to go through a season of dry spell where people will barely respond to your marketing efforts. These are the times when no matter what kind of marketing strategy you’ll use, and no matter how huge the amount you’ll spend, the number of visits, clicks, or sales you’ll get will still be miserably minute to what you were expecting.
It really is frustrating, isn’t it? But often times, due to your lack of experience and know how, you can’t help but fall for the “not so obvious” pitfalls that other newbie or budding marketers are falling for.
Unless, of course… someone will share with you some online marketing shortcuts that are proven and tested to work!
If that’s exactly what you’re hoping to learn by reading this guide, then you’re definitely in the right place. Today, I’ll share with you the online marketing strategies that I’ve used in the past (and am still currently using right now) that’s helped me garner better results from my marketing efforts.
Let’s get started.
1) Add “share triggers” in your content
As you can probably imagine, share triggers are elements that you add in your content that will make people want to share it.
I’m talking about…
- Content lockers
- Tweetable lines
- Quoting other personalities
- Memes
- Adding other people’s articles on your “Related articles” section
The list I shared above is far from being complete. But integrating a couple of these on your post alone can prove to be quite powerful as far as helping you garner organic links, traffic, and even leads (among many others).
Important tip – In terms of getting social shares, I’ve been getting really great results with using content lockers. If you aren’t familiar with it, you can check out my post on How Spending 1 Hour Per Day In Linkedin Got me 3 Clients in Less Than a Month, to see how I’ve locked one of my most powerful Linkedin outreach templates that has helped me get more clients from the platform.
2) Send your traffic to your testimonial / success stories page
Instead of using your homepage as your landing page, use your testimonial or success stories page as your landing page instead.
The fact is, no matter how amazing your website’s graphics are, and how neatly laid out your home page may be, your customers aren’t really interested in any of those.
All they’re interested in is whether you can solve their problems, and whether or not you (or your business) are a credible entity to work with. Of course, your testimonial or success stories page can address both of these issues.
If your visitors can see how successful you are at what you’re doing, you’d have already won half of the battle. You’ll be on a very strategic position to pitch them your services and ultimately close the deal.
A good example is how Malmanlaw.com crafted their legal case results page. You’ll notice how they’ve been quite generous at the successful case results they’ve shared on their page. The fact that their free case evaluation form is also quite prominent in the upper right corner of the page makes it easier for their prospect customers to inquire about their services.
3) Leverage on your existing customers. Capitalize on repeat business.
In most cases, the cost of acquiring new customers is about 6 – 8 times more than it would for you to sell to an existing one.
That’s quite expensive, isn’t it?
It’s exactly because of this that you need to get as much mileage as you can from your existing customers. Of course, you do that by capitalizing on repeat business.
Here are some of the methods you can use to invoke your existing customers to order from you again.
- Give them a free trial.
- Run contests.
- Include them in your email newsletters.
- Include them in webinars on how your new product can help them.
Here are additional resources where you can learn about repeat business.
- Getting the Most from a Client – PRmediaonline.com
- Plan for Repeat Business – Entrepreneur.com
- How to Get Customers to Come Back – Foxbusiness.com
4) Focus on creating epic content versus publishing a mediocre 500 word article
If you really truly want to provide massive value to your readers, then you’ll want your blog post to be as comprehensive as it can be.
However, you need to remember that your content’s length won’t do you any good if you’re just blabbering. That said, don’t just increase your article’s length for the sake of making it lengthy. Your goal should be to solve as much problems as you can, and be as clear as you can be in giving instructions.
TL;DR – Don’t make it fluffy. Focus on solving your readers problems.
According to Neil Patel of Quicksprout.com, the average number of web pages ranking number 1 in Google’s search results have at least 2,000 words of text. That in itself should be a powerful enough incentive for you to go for the lengthy epic posts that we’re talking about.
5) Build relationships with other influencers online
A common misconception that newbie or budding marketers have about building relationships with influencers is that it’s an impossible task to accomplish. While there is certainly some truth to that, it isn’t 100% correct either.
There is a way for influencers to notice you and actually participate in whatever activity you want to have them to be involved with.
How do you do that, you might ask? Simple. Just reach out to them. You’ll be amazed at how some of them will reply to you like you’re one of their close friends. I have found a lot of these influencers to be quite friendly when they replied to my outreach message. I once reached out to Pat Flynn and Neil Patel and they were very personable.
To increase the chances of them replying to you, I need you to consider these 3 things.
- These people are very busy. So make your outreach email short and crisp. Keep it at 100 words or less and state clearly what it is that you need.
- You need to look for the place or platform that they frequent on. If you see them constantly posting on Twitter, then you ought to reach out to them using that platform. Remember. Sometimes, their website’s “Contact us” page isn’t the best place to connect with them.
- Be sure to include in your outreach message the benefits that they can get from helping you. Answering the question, “What’s in it for me?” should always be addressed one way or the other when you reach out to them.
An article published by Ann Smarty at SeachEngineJournal.com on How to Build Relationships With Influencers Through Content is also a good resource to learn more about the strategy.
Conclusion
I myself am a firm believer that experience is in fact the best teacher. But that doesn’t mean you have to go through unnecessary failures just to achieve success on your online marketing endeavors.
If you’ll take the time to learn from other people’s experience and apply your learning to your own circumstances, then you’ll be able to avoid the unnecessary pitfalls that you would have gone through if you didn’t take the time to learn from others. Learning from others will serve as your shortcut to achieving the success you’ve been looking for online.
Photo: © Konstantin Yuganov / Dollar Photo Club
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: 5 Online Marketing Shortcuts That Will Fast Track Your Success Online
More Digital & Social articles from Business 2 Community:
- 7 Tips To Keep Your Business Safe From Hackers [Infographic]
- 5 Recommended Tools For B2B Social Media Management
- Digital Marketing: Not For the Faint at Heart
- Your Marketing Trends Roadmap for 2015 [Infographic]
- How to Make B2B Marketing Videos the Right Way
