Marketing in the 21st century combines the old with the new in surprising ways. The basic maxims of marketing are as old as mankind and are as applicable to the modern e-commerce environment as they ever were in the past.
Yet, while the core methods remain the same, they must be increasingly adapted to the fast moving context we find ourselves in today if they are to gain traction and lead to increased revenue.
Below we’re going to look at some of the best ways that modern online brands can use the tools at their disposal to boost their engagement and sales in targeted and effective ways.
Run Viral Competitions
One of the most effective ways to turn social media to your advantage, irrespective of whether you’re small or already well established, is to host viral giveaways to grow your brand. The reason these are so effective is that they are low-cost, and accomplish several things at once.
For one – giveaways and competitions never fail to drum up interest, both among repeat customers and prospective ones, as they offer the opportunity to experience your goods or services for free.
What’s more, viral marketing competitions also work like free publicity, as the conditions for entry in the give-away are normally that the entree re-shares your competition post. In essence, the more people that enter the competition, the more people will see the competition – and with it, your brand.
As people tend to filter out information they don’t find interesting when scrolling their feeds, this type of give-away is often self-selecting, with only those likely to be interested in the services you provide tending to want to re-share and enter your competition.
This process can massively grow your organic reach and will increase the likelihood that people will think of your brand when seeking goods or services in your category.
Get Listed
Becoming an affiliate and getting listed on a comparison platform known as a leader in your sector is one of the most efficient and reliable ways to raise the profile of your organization. All over the world, brands operating in diverse sectors and regions strike up working relationships with reputable directories in order to connect themselves with new customers.
For example, the very best betting sites operating in the Netherlands can all be seen ranked alongside one another under SBO’s coverage of that nation. In establishing a relationship with a well-known platform like this, iGaming providers working out of the Netherlands can buy into the international acclaim that is being validated by SBO, a platform that provides vetted recommendations of iGaming providers in over 50 countries, represents.
Likewise, a small yet growing brand in the automotive insurance space should strive to get listed on websites like The Zebra in the US, where it can appear directly alongside the best rated and most popular organizations in its market. This will lead not only to organic growth by association but also to increased digital footfall by furnishing its patrons with competitive rates.
Scatter-gun Approach
New social media platforms, apps, and websites are emerging constantly nowadays, and while there are prevailing trends that you can count on – such as an increasing move towards short-form video content becoming an increasingly powerful marketing tool, the reality is that nobody could have foreseen the runaway success that Instagram or specialized marketplaces like DePop would become, ahead of time.
As such, the best way to ensure you’re keeping up with a rapidly changing marketplace is to adopt a scatter-gun approach to marketing across platforms. TikTok is a great example of this, as it’s now among the most popular social media services in the world.
Brands that got in on the ground floor of this platform and began making content before they had any certainty that TikTok would become anything as relevant or culturally dominant as it is today were well served by their multi-faceted approach.
Around 30% of apps fail within 18 months of their initial launch – as such, by around 12 months it’s normally possible to tell whether your time and energy will be better served by moving on to creating content for new platforms.
In hedging your bets in this way, you’re ensuring that you won’t get left behind and playing catch-up on the next big platform.
