Online marketing strategies are revolutionary in that it has one major ingredient that offline advertising lacks: real-time monitoring. Unlike offline marketing, you can measure your results as they occur. If a certain tactic is not working, you can simply make a few changes and try it again. This type of A/B testing and cost efficiency are making Singapore businesses change the way they advertise.
However, not all business owners know how to get a return on their online marketing investment. And that’s why is so important that best practices always be considered when starting a new marketing campaign. Here are a few tactics that can ensure businesses get the best results with their day-to-day digital marketing.
Create a Call-To-Action
If a business releases an ad, it’s very important that they include a call to action. What is a call to action? It’s whatever you ask the potential customer to do. ‘Buy Now’, ‘Call Now’, ‘Contact Us’, ‘Sign Up No’. The significance of the call to action is that this is what gets the person from the ad to the actual page. It takes them further down the sales funnel and pushes them closer to buying a product or service. Not only should the ad have a call to action, but it should also be very visible. That’s why many companies include large green or red buttons in their CTA.
When choosing a CTA, the business should avoid phrases that are generic. Sure, ‘read more’ or ‘learn more’, may be a valid request, but is it unique? A customer is unlikely to click on a CTA if they don’t know what to expect.
So businesses should make the phrase clear and it should fit the language and personality of the business. For example, if a hotel chain created a call to action in their advertisement for a luxury suite, they would use the phrase ‘Book Now.’ Potential customers understand that they are being taken to a page which will allow them to book their stay or at least learn more about the room and other rates. If an ad is missing a clear and visible call to action, then conversion rates will be very low.
Craft a Compelling Messaging
One of the most challenging parts of online marketing is catching the target audience’s attention. Why is this so difficult? Well, according to Statistic Brain, the human ability to remain focused is making a steady decline. The average attention span has decreased by 33% since the year 2000 to only 8.25 seconds in 2015.
It only takes the average consumer a few seconds to lose interest in what is being presented to them. So it should come as no surprise when business owners that a great majority of brand messages will ultimately be dismissed. The good news is that there is a way around this.
When crafting a message, the business should make sure that it is compelling. In most cases, this means the message should stick to things that evoke emotion. The phrases should be short and to the point. The message should also highlight the value that the business offers. These elements will ensure that the potential customers click through.
Let’s say that a Singapore shoe store is holding a special sale for its online shoppers. Not only is everything 30% off, but they will ship the shoes for free. The compelling message would read something like this, “Enjoy Free Shipping + 30% Off All Online Orders.”
This message is compelling because it evokes emotion with the word ‘enjoy’. It highlights value by mentioning the free shipping and the discount. Also, there are also less than 10 words here so the customer can read it very quickly.
Make Use Of Landing Pages
When a business releases an ad and it catches the customer’s attention, the customer expects to click on that ad and be taken to the product or service that is most closely related to that ad. This is why it’s so surprising that many businesses choose to, instead, link the ad to their homepage.
When customers are taken to a business’ homepage instead of a page that is related to the ad that they initially saw, they become somewhat disoriented. This is especially the case if the page is filled with a ton of products of different varieties. Many will hit the back button or exit out of the page entirely. Only a very small group will choose to stay.
Unfortunately, businesses lose a lot of money this way. They create the perfect ad, compel the potential customer to click the ad and then inevitably the customer leaves. So how can this be avoided? How can a business ensure that the potential customer actually follows through with this process and makes a purchase? The answer is simple, the business needs to dedicate a page that is exclusively designated for that product or service.
This is what is referred to as a landing page. A landing page holds the exact product or service that initially got the customer’s attention in the ad. While some argue that sending customers to the homepage will make them more money because it exposes the customer to a variety of products, it can actually do more harm than good. The landing page keeps the user experience consistent and increases conversion rates.
For example, the shoe store discussed earlier has just released its newest model and wants to get as many online sales as possible. It creates a compelling ad which highlights the shoe’s best selling point. When the customer clicks the ad, they are not directed to the home page that happens to feature the shoe, they are directed to the exact product page for it. There are a few more details about the shoe and a ‘Buy Now’ button is placed below. The customer is very likely to make a purchase, or at least look around the store to find more products that they may be interested in.
Use Incredible Images
A picture is worth a thousand words. However, it can also be worth a lot of revenue if used to create the perfect advertisement. Customers are presented with loads of images throughout the day. From the television to social media platforms, there is no lack of visual stimulation. And this is why businesses need to be somewhat picky when choosing the images for their advertisements.
No matter the product or service, images must be of the highest quality. They must be bold and clean. A business’ images set the expectation for the customer. And if the lighting is bad or the resolution is less than sharp, there will be very few conversions. Even for products that are not considered to be beautifully or aesthetically pleasing, businesses should go the extra mile to make sure the photo stands out. In short, the images used affects the way customers perceive the business.
Test and then Test Again
One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is becoming too comfortable. And this can be relatively easy to do, especially if its advertising campaigns always seem to be successful. The only problem is that things are always subject to change online. Its instructive to use a combination of search engine optimisation and search engine marketing to test different marketing messages.
These changes may be as simple as the time of day that followers use social media platforms. No matter how small the change, it can make a really big difference in a marketing campaign. Business will never know what they need to focus on if they are not able to identify what needs to be improved upon.
Businesses owners should place much of their efforts towards monitoring their campaigns as well as the elements that tend to vary. Even if a campaign is doing well, the business owner needs to ask themselves why the campaign is doing so well and investigate. This is the difference between luck and deliberate success that can be replicated over and over again.
A/B testing is crucial to marketing success. Businesses should never be afraid to make changes if they are needed. There is nothing more valuable than knowing exactly what resonates with an audience.
The Takeaway
The strategies discussed here are not new concepts. In fact, some have been around since the start of the internet. However, businesses still seem to struggle with or entirely ignore the value of these concepts every day.
These five strategies all have one thing in common. They all take into consideration the user experience. When creating an online campaign, businesses must take the time to think about how their customers will experience it. Is the customer impressed by the images in the ad? Does the customer have a reason to click on the ad; does it relay value? Will the customer know which action they should take next? Will the customer be able to quickly identify the product that was featured in the ad they clicked? Why does the customer keep coming back?
Sure, online marketing has completely revolutionized the average business model. Businesses are now able to reach people that they never thought possible. However, are Singapore businesses getting the most out of their time online?
