Short-term marketing tactics such as special offers and promotions might temporarily boost traffic and sales when investing in your brand and business. However, if you’re looking to build your business and take it to the next level, you’ve got to think beyond the short term and start looking at strategies that will help you consistently grow. If you’re ready to invest in your marketing for long-term success, consider incorporating the tactics below — and remember, there are no natural shortcuts to sustainable growth.
Email Marketing
If you’re looking for a reliable way to stay connected with customers and prospects, email marketing might be the solution you need. Despite introducing newer techniques such as social media and influencer marketing, email is still one of the most reliable, cost-effective ways to gain and retain new customers. With roughly 4 billion email users around the globe, you can’t afford to ignore this marketing strategy.
With email marketing, you can send personalized messages directly to subscribers who have permission to receive these communications. You can also send automatic responses and drip campaigns when someone fills out a form on your website or makes a purchase with your company. The key is striking a balance between “too much” and “not enough” so subscribers don’t lose interest in receiving emails from you and unsubscribe. About one email per week is a good goal.
Social Media Marketing
With social media marketing, you create content that your target audience wants to see, share, and engage with. This may include blog posts, photos, videos, or infographics. You can distribute this content through your social media pages and engage directly with your target customers through comments and messages.
The key is to create content relevant to your target audience that they’ll want to share with their friends and family. Remember that not everyone will be interested in every piece of content you publish, so try different approaches until you find something that works! You can also turn to influencer marketing to have influencers promote your brand in exchange for a free product or a commission on sales.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO, or search engine optimization, works by improving your website’s visibility on Google and other search engines, which enables you to reach more people and increase sales. SEO is investing in marketing for the long term because it requires time and effort to achieve results. To optimize your website, make sure that you’re publishing content consistently. If you’re unfamiliar with how this works, here are some tips:
I. Produce Quality Content
Don’t forget about content marketing as part of your long-term marketing strategy. Create blog posts, whitepapers, videos, and ebooks that provide helpful information for your customers and prospective customers — it’s a great way to attract new leads who might not know about your company yet but will be impressed by what they read.
II. Prioritize Keyword Strategy
Doing keyword research and using keywords naturally in the text is another critical part of SEO. It enables people searching for specific things on Google to find your website when they search for those terms. Make sure that all your articles include keywords that relate directly to what they’re about so Google will index them easily.
III. Engage with Reviews
One way to improve SEO is to ensure you are responding to your online reviews so that Google sees you as a reliable, trustworthy business. Businesses that respond to their reviews are more likely to rank higher when people are searching for businesses like yours. Plus, responding to reviews also helps you build relationships with your customers and show them that you care about their experience with your company.
Paid Advertising
Advertising on social media and search engines provides both short-term and long-term benefits. As people discover you through pay-per-click and other ads, they may click over to your website or social media pages. Even if they don’t immediately buy something, the more they see your ads, the more likely they will eventually buy. For instance, someone might be in the process of researching blinds for their living room. Even if they don’t buy from you today, if they keep seeing your ads, eventually, they may purchase because you’ve stayed top-of-mind.
How Are You Investing in Marketing?
There is no long-term success without a certain level of brand loyalty. Whether you’re building a startup or trying to expand an existing company, you’ll want to make sure your customers are coming back for more. The above strategies are ways a company can “snowball” their growth and increase revenue through various streams, by investing in marketing that generates sustainable growth that you can keep building upon month after month.