We hope that 2017 has been good to your business so far. But no matter what happened, there is still time to grow in the 2nd half of the year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasted that global growth would recover from the slowdown in 2016. Halfway through the year, 2017’s outlook remains optimistic, particularly for emerging economies in Asia and the Pacific.
There are plenty of opportunities to grow your business, but you should be using the right marketing strategies. Here are our top 4 marketing strategies to grow your business in the 2nd half of 2017:
1. Mobile Advertising – Marketing Strategies
According to the independent web analytics company StatCounter, mobile exceeded desktop by internet usage, for the first time ever in October 2016. If you make no other changes your business in 2017, you should ensure that your website is mobile-friendly.
Websites benefit from mobile-responsiveness for two key reasons. First, conversions typically increase when mobile users can navigate more easily. Second, Google favors responsive websites in its mobile search results. Check out Google’s Mobile Playbook!
Not sure if your website is mobile-friendly? Test this by grabbing the right side of your browser window and dragging it to the left. Responsive websites will properly deliver your content, while content on an unresponsive website will look cut off or jumbled.
You can also test the mobile responsiveness of your website and view statistics for mobile traffic with Google Analytics. This can be a good way to gauge the responsiveness of your website and identify any necessary changes.
However, success in today’s mobile-centric marketplace requires more than just having a responsive website. New technologies and marketing platforms come out every day and there is great untapped potential as businesses start to adapt. We identified two trending ideas in 2017:
Mobile app: creating an app is more affordable than ever and the potential uses are unlimited. Sell goods and services or improve your overall mobile experience with an app.
Mobile payments: enable customers to pay you with a simple tap on their smartphone. Mobile payment services like Google Wallet, PayPal and Apple Pay are becoming more popular this year.
2. International Marketing Strategies
The global gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow 3.5 percent in 2017. The Asia-Pacific region in particular, is estimated to grow at 5.5 percent. Meanwhile, there are booming economies and lots of money to be made all over the world.
New technologies and marketing tools enable businesses to transact with foreign market like never before. International marketing can offer a huge ROI – when it’s done correctly.
Brand awareness is crucial. However, building brand awareness doesn’t necessarily require a major investment – if you have a website. Considering its massive worldwide reach, advertising on search engines and social media is relatively inexpensive. You might also want to try international SEO.
Accessibility is also important when doing business internationally. We wrote about the top reasons to get a virtual phone number for your business, and accessibility is the first reason. Customers feel more comfortable transacting with a business when the business offers a local phone number or support hotline.
Companies use international call forwarding to offer a contact point to customers and prospects in foreign markets. A local or toll free virtual number can serve as a sales or booking hotline or it can serve to let customers know that your business is reachable over the phone. Confused about international call forwarding? Allow us to explain.
Opportunities exist all over the world and there are new marketing strategies to grow your business internationally.
3. Email Marketing Strategies
Email marketing isn’t a new strategy by any means, but it can still bring in new business.
The key to a successful email marketing campaign is providing relevant, valuable and helpful information (think DIY guides, industry news, and blog content). Email marketing should not be used to blast out unwanted sales pitches.
With the help of eMailmonday.com, we identified four top email marketing trends for the 2nd half of 2017:
- Responsive emails
It depends on your industry and target market, but anywhere from 20-75% of emails get opened on a mobile device. By sending mobile friendly emails, you can reduce barriers to engagement.
Adapt to the mobile trend by attaching by attaching interactive photo sliders and image galleries to your emails. It’s also useful to include promotional offers and implement buy-it-now functionality in your outbound emails. - Deliver an omnichannel experience
An omnichannel experience builds brand familiarity and helps customers connect with your business. It involves an integrated multi-channel approach that allows customers to easily transition from emails to shopping online, on a desktop or mobile device.Walgreens and Starbucks deliver a consistent experience through email, websites and mobile apps. - HTML5 video attachments
HTML5 video attachments help companies build connections with their audiences through providing high-value content. - Automation
14.2% of people surveyed by a 2017 Litmus study believe that 2017 will be the year of automated emails. There are some tools like MailChimp and Active Campaign to help with email automation.
Welcome emails and abandoned carts emails can generate a big chunk of revenue for a lot of companies.
4. Digital Advertising
Advertising across several digital channels is one of the top marketing strategies in 2017. This is commonly referred to as cross-channel advertising, and it can be done through direct deals with publishers (think Google AdWords, Facebook for Business) and with cross-channel advertising software.
Top digital advertising mediums include paid search, social media and mobile ads. Paid search puts your product in front of a huge audience with high conversion rates, since visitors are already searching for similar products. Social media advertising is a fast-growing segment that can significantly expand your reach and boost brand awareness. We predict Facebook’s continued ascent as a major marketing outlet in 2017. Lastly, mobile ads like banner ads, mobile video ads and in-app ads are becoming more targeted.
No matter what your digital advertising strategy, here are some things to keep in mind:
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- Cohesive data: it is important to document all available data points to form a cohesive, integrated consumer database across multiple channels
- Consistent message: it is important to deliver a consistent message to build familiarity with prospective customers.
What marketing strategies do you use to grow your business?
