Brian Wallace, Founder & President, NowSourcing

Digital marketing is a very popular approach among companies today. In fact, it has been claimed that 2014 was the year of digital advertising. Advertising and marketing are very effective ways of drawing attention to a product or service. This is because it is direct and targeted at people who would be interested in the product being advertised.

There are 5 main types of ads: Virtual reality ads, 360-degree videos, 3D printing ads, online video ads, and interactive barcodes. The following list provides some top digital ad tips to help you choose which type of ad will be most effective for your business.

Utilize social media to amplify your message

In this day and age, it should go without saying that you should have a social media presence. However, did you know social media can be an extremely effective marketing tool for your product or service? Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and Twitter are just some of the many platforms to choose from.

As far as which one might work best for your business, consider who your target audience is and where they are most likely to be. For example, many young people prefer Twitter to other social media channels, so you may want to encourage your college-aged customers to follow you on Twitter if that is where they interact with their peers.

Use video marketing for increased reach and engagement

Video marketing is becoming increasingly popular, and for good reason. YouTube is still the second largest search engine in the world (after Google), and videos are shared over one billion times a day.

Animated explainer videos are very popular on social media, too; consider creating an animated video that explains your product or service to use as a supplement to your website, or use it as an opening video that links to your website.

Be consistent with your branding - use the same colors, logos, fonts, etc. across all platforms

Branding is crucial, and online branding is the most accessible way to reach your target market. It increases trustworthiness in your company if you present yourself consistently across all platforms. Using the same colors, fonts, logos, etc., will help build brand recognition.

Create a strong call-to-action on every page of your website 

A call-to-action (CTA) is something that prompts your customers to do something, like buy a product. It could be as simple as “submit” or “download now.” You need to make sure you include CTAs on every page of your website, and let customers know exactly what to expect when they click it.

Email Lists

Make sure you have an email list so that you can build relationships and maintain contact with potential customers over time. Utilizing an email list will allow you to communicate with customers on a regular basis, something that is often more effective than one time emails or traditional marketing methods. A handy way of reminding the customer that you exist.

Market on multiple channels at once (social media, blogs, webinars)

You are surely already using social media accounts to spread the word about your brand, which is great. But don’t stop there - do the same on other channels too. Your website should be optimized for search engines so that you can attract customers who are actively looking for your products or services online. Remember not to market only on ‘popular’ websites.

Keywords

Target specific keywords that have higher conversion rates or better ROI potential. Write about three to five keywords that you want your website to rank for and then focus on these alone. You can always expand out to more keywords or even re-visit and update the article with a list of more than five if you feel it necessary, but don’t do this until you’ve had some time testing which search terms are generating the best ROI.

It’s tempting to cram as many keywords into your page headings and titles as possible, but this is actually poor SEO practice. Use short paragraphs with 1-3 sentence headers for optimum readability. Titles should be concise so you can come up with creative ways to fit your keywords in.

Conclusion

Use these tips to get your website ranking for the keywords you want and then focus all of your efforts on getting one or two more linked terms up there, too. You’ll see better results if you pick a couple of specific terms rather than making the page 10 times longer with 10 different synonyms for each term. Do this, and Google will punish you.

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About the Author: Brian Wallace is the Founder and President of  NowSourcing, an industry leading infographic design agency in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH which works with companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500s. Brian runs #LinkedInLocal events, hosts the Next Action Podcast, and has been named a Google Small Business Adviser for 2016-present. Follow Brian Wallace on LinkedIn as well as Twitter.