Competition in the business world is almost rabid these days. Businesses have no choice but to constantly fight competing firms for a greater market share. In today’s landscape, every industry and niche has so many players selling the same products or services that standing out has never been more critical. Why does visibility matter? Perception, of course! When you see an ad for Spectrum internet, you know what the brand is even if the service isn’t advertised much.
While yours may be a smaller firm, the same principle applies. You want to break through the clutter and capture attention. This attention will, in turn, help you get more conversions and sales. Read on to discover why online platforms are a natural fit for this, and which ones could work best.
Table of Contents
Using Online Platforms and Tools to Boost Brand Visibility
Branding and marketing are distinct fields, even though they often overlap. Marketing is typically about encouraging people to buy products or services. If nobody knows what your product or service is, you’re less likely to see sales. Branding, on the other hand, is more about “selling” the brand itself. Of course, if nobody knows your business, there will be nobody to market your products or services to. Therefore, both marketing and branding will feature prominently in almost all your online efforts. Luckily, online tools and platforms are cost-effective and deliver demonstrable results. Here’s how you can leverage them for your business:
Optimised Websites and Search Engine Ads
Your business website is important not just as a place for customers to reach you, but also as a credibility booster. Most businesses already have a website. But they may not always make the best use of it. Your website may need optimization based on SEO best practices and the browsers that your audience uses the most. The correct optimization can help your business website and web pages rank higher for the right queries. This helps to boost organic visibility and increase traffic on the website.
At the same time, search engine marketing helps boost visibility for particular queries and search terms. Usually, for transactional search queries, search engine marketing will use your designated budget to push your ad to the top of the search engine results page. SEM is a great way to boost visibility as well as to start generating sales almost immediately.
Social Media Platforms and Audience Targeting
Social media is among the most important aspects of our digital age. These platforms emerged as social networking spaces, with billions of active users all over the world. However, this massive user base offers key opportunities to businesses in terms of boosting brand visibility. Since most of your target buyers already use these platforms, the idea is to make sure they see more and more of your content/ads.
To make the best use of social platforms, some audience research may prove useful. Understand your audience demographics, problems, and preferences. This will help you decide which platforms would be the best use of your time. At the same time, it will let you define the audience you want to target on these platforms. Most social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn offer very useful audience segmentation features. When you select a specific audience, your ads and content start targeting it. This makes for much more efficient use of the funds you spend on social media marketing.
Email Platforms and Email Marketing
Email may not be the most cutting-edge online tool for business visibility. But that does not take anything away from its usefulness. Email marketing tools like MailChimp can help you send out personalised emails to your mailing list. Use this to leverage more attention for a newsletter, promotion, limited-time offer, or even a flash sale. Since many people access their email applications on their phones, you can be reasonably sure they will see it and engage with it. The popup notifications on smartphones increase the chances of this happening.
Third-Party E-Commerce Marketplaces
Amazon and Alibaba are two of the most used online marketplaces in the world. If you sell physical products, these e-Commerce platforms can help you reach even more customers than you already do. Stores like Amazon have rating systems and their algorithm ensures users have access to products from reliable sellers. It may take some time, but once your Amazon or Alibaba store starts gaining traction, it can become an additional revenue stream.
And in parallel with better reviews and ratings, you can be sure more people will recognize your brand name. Especially if your product offers more value than other similar ones. It may not always be possible to drive traffic from an e-Commerce marketplace back to your website. But nothing stops a buyer from looking you up and choosing to buy directly from your website or social media page.
Affiliate and Influencer Marketing
Social media influencers are one of the most significant phenomena to emerge as social media platforms gain more and more users. Using content like health, fitness, beauty, lifestyle, and other interests, influencers gather large followings. In most cases, their followers will outnumber the ones you have on your business page. But the good news is that many influencers are willing to affiliate themselves with businesses.
Reach out to a social media influencer that has content or values in resonance with those of your business. Work out endorsements, sponsored posts, or even a shoutout after a complimentary goodie bag. The idea here is to capitalise on the influencer’s audience. It helps to do this more organically when the influencer’s content is similar to the products or services you offer. Many followers value the recommendations and advice these influencers offer. So, all you have to do is find the right influencer with a sizable audience already interested in the type of products or services you sell.
An outdoor equipment store, for example, could work with a travel blogger. Similarly, a makeup store would work best with social media influencers that offer makeup tutorials and tricks. The endorsement/recommendation looks far less forced that way. And it increases the chances of driving traffic from the influencer’s audience onto your product/service catalogue. More traffic ultimately results in more sales and visibility.
