How women entrepreneurs can use Digital Marketing to their advantage
Businesses today are either digital or becoming digital. With the massive reach and use of the world wide web in social media, content marketing and SEO today, pitching a strong and long time presence for your business with digital marketing has become essential. A strong online presence and using social media is considered a valuable asset for almost any business. However, for your business you need to make sure that it delivers a reasonable ROI on your time and resources. Women today are making their mark and presence felt in almost every field. They have realised the importance of marketing and how it could contribute to making their venture successful. Below is a vital checklist that should be followed to avail successful digital marketing results for your ventures.
1) While building a website or an e-commerce shop make the site user friendly as well as women friendly with soft colours, content related to beauty, maternity, health and shopping in the blogs, promotions, menu etc. Above all ensure that it is a quality site which is compatible as a mobile site, and that it opens up quickly within seconds.
2) Make your business presence felt in social media through channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google plus. Get real followers by promoting your page. Post vital updates and business related posts in these channels to your followers. This will help in keeping current customers entertained, gaining new followers and engaging with followers.
3) Build a quality SEO (Search engine optimisation) for your website. It takes at least few months for a quality SEO to send real traffic and visitors, and to get rankings and produce results. Please do not go in for fake agencies who promise traffic and results within a few days or a month for reduced prices. I recommend that you go in for an established agency who have been in the field of digital marketing at least for 5 years. Of course there are lots of marketing agencies today run by women themselves where you will find communicating and negotiating deals much easier as there is a native understanding on running a business and multitasking when having to run a family.
4) Create or add a blog for your business that features updates like offers, announcements, and useful articles related to your business area, market trends i.e. articles on current dressing and beauty trends if you own a fashion related business like boutique. Make sure that you post it in social media channels as it should reach the list that your business focuses on. Blogs are a wonderful way to attract more crowd to your website.
5) Video marketing is slowly becoming a strong way of marketing your business, services. There are a few free as well as cost effective video making websites and softwares available with attractive templates. A google search will help you find the suitable video making provider for your business. These videos can be promoted by embedding and uploading them into your website using YouTube, Vimeo etc.
6) Join in your business related groups and engage your business in discussions on LinkedIn groups, women oriented forums at your preferred business area.
7) Take advantage of free local business directories. Take some time to submit your business details in each of them as they will help you in getting amazing rankings in google. https://moz.com/local is an amazing source for nice local business directories. Do give it a try.
8) Email marketing- Try to build a good email list and update your subscribers with latest company news and offers. Get new visitors to signup for your newsletters. Email newsletters bring more relevant customers. Avail use of free email marketing tools like mail chimp, Aweber etc.
9) Opt for Paid Advertising which ensures guaranteed results instantly at various platforms like Google adwords, Facebook ads, Twitter ads, Linked In ads etc if your marketing budget is flexible.
10) If you want to advance your business further, Opt for a mobile application. Developing Mobile Applications for businesses is a growing trend nowadays in the digital world. Launch a mobile application for iPhone and Android phones if your business is suitable for mobile transactions and mobile engagements. This will get you a huge audience of people using mobile phones. For example Snapdeal, Flipkart enables mobile purchase of products through their mobile applications. Make them available at App store and Google Play.
Try allocating more effort, time and money to digital marketing apart from normal marketing strategies.
Being a women Entrepreneur and finding success in today’s competitive world, in whatever field is a huge challenge. What works and what doesn’t is determined by the right combination of form and relevance according to the customer experience. In the modern marketing landscape, the internet with social media, blogs,and seo allows you to reach almost anyone, no matter what industry your business is. 2015 can be a pivotal year, depending on how you posture yourself through marketing. There’s huge opportunity, but equally large risks too.
Guest Author Manica Chetty, is the founder of Addie Mall, a Digital marketing services for women which makes complex online and mobile advertising now very simple and understandable. Manica has a Masters degree in Business Information Technology from Middlesex University, London.