How to attract new, relevant consumers to your business online

Having your own business is like having a baby. It’s the best out there, the most beautiful and interesting and you wish everybody would see it and picture it in their minds as you do. But how do you actually get to that point? The first and most important step would be investing in increasing your company’s online visibility, through its website and social media accounts. You must take into account that the competition out there is very strong and it’s only getting stronger, so make sure you are always a step ahead of your competition. Easy to say, but hard to accomplish it, isn’t it?

Well, here are some elements that you should most definitely must keep an eye on and work on every day:

The traffic. While it’s not the only attribute that will help you see your profits increase, is very important for turning curious visitors into paying customers. If you cannot keep a steady stream of visitors coming to your website on a daily basis, the chances that your company and its products will remain successful becomes much less likely. An absence of new visitors can lead to little or no growth in sales and, ultimately, a decline in profits.

source: colourbox

Unique visitors, new customers and people who visit your site regularly are all of equal importance. Each one of these groups is responsible for supporting your business and keeping it afloat. The more consumer groups you can bring in, the more likely word of your company and its products will seep into various social groups, extending your influence in your industry further.

Always keep in mind you have a brand reputation to sustain, one that will be kept while having good products and a smooth client service operation. When people associate your company’s name and image with an industry or product as a whole, you know that your reputation and reception in the marketplace is in a healthy state. Additionally, a strong brand reputation helps a company’s website stand apart from competitors in the same industry.

Make sure that your content has its right place in the search engines. Invest in good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that will take your products and brand to the right target. “Digging through search engine result pages and on-site links to find an appropriate company can be frustrating and time-consuming for the average person. Thankfully, SEO provides the perfect tool for helping to ensure your future customers never search in vain for your product,” said the Ballantine specialists. More pieces of advice from them you can read here.

Build long term continuous connections with your consumer base through social media marketing, testimonials, recommendations, guest posting and online PR.

Create relevant content that provides valuable information to the consumers, while inviting them to visit your website for your valuable services. Content helps businesses generate more search engine results, offers a connection between consumers and brands, delivers valuable information that may not otherwise have the opportunity to be shared and strengthens overall brand awareness. Additionally, content helps to keep brands and businesses relevant. All of these efforts, especially when they are combined, will help generate customer attention while also leading more clicks to your website.

Share the content as much as you can on relevant platforms. It’s not enough to create and have a great content on your website. You must be able to share it and help it reach the right people.

Partner up with other businesses that think like you, from other categories. “The key is to identify the right partners for your unique business that cater to the same target market you do, then work together to support each other in gaining visibility and sales among each other’s customers. To maximize your efforts, aim to create more long-term partnerships versus one time experiences. This can help both sides of the partnership in gaining customer attention, sales and overall success,” explains Nicole Leinbach-Reyhle for Forbes.

Connect on LinkedIn groups. They are a great way for quickly connecting with others in your industry or niche to help spread your message, you can add value to a conversation or discussion before trying to drop your links. LinkedIn groups are also a great way of contacting people who you might not have mutual connections with. You can message any other member in the group without being connected, which can become a huge asset depending on the particular circumstances. Share updates often in the group, and be sure to stay in the spotlight without oversharing.

Offer a free product or service to customers. According to entrepreneur.com, studies have confirmed that people are more likely to accept something for free than they are to pay a nominal price for it. So, why not providing a free service or product to your customers? “Maybe you offer a free 15-minute consultation or an entry-level product that you want to give away. Whatever you offer, be sure to secure the customer’s contact details so you can get in touch with them later. If you’re giving away a service for free, you have an opportunity right then to upsell those customers to your paid services. People are more likely to feel like they owe you when they accept something for free as well,” shows entrepreneur.com.

Use business listing sites like Yahoo Local and Google Local. If you’re running a local business and looking to attract nearby customers to a brick-and-mortar location or offering some professional service that’s geographically-specific, you should list your business on local business listing sites such as  Yahoo Local and  Google Local. Google Local is an especially powerful way to list and verify your business information, providing public details such as your company’s address for Google Maps appearances, store hours and other information related to your business. Ensure that you keep this information accurate and up-to-date. More ideas from them you can find here.

Moreover, in order to make sure you actually have the right new people coming to your place, you must identify your buyer personas, develop a persona-driven keyword strategy and then appeal to social media tools and services.

Music, a huge marketing tool

It has the power to connect us and therefore it’s inestimable for brands. It can also take us away and move us into an Universe where we are hard to be reached, where we connect with our emotions and feelings better than with anything else.

Music triggers memories of messages, experiences, and other moments. Scientists at UC Davis,  Live Science reported, used brain scans to show how music and recall are intrinsically linked. When we think about key moments in our lives, there’s a high likelihood we’ll remember a song along with the memory or the song will trigger memories of an event.

Identifying the right audio space is critical — a long-term, consistent audio relationship can build tons of affinity for your brand. Why? As  demonstrated in an April article in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, people process repetitive song lyrics more fluently and adopt them faster than they do other types of song lyrics. If your brand is strongly associated with a particular musician, a style of music or song, it may get a boost when that tune is heard outside of your content. The number of people who’ve viewed  Justin Bieber’s playlists on Vevo is larger than the combined population of the world’s two most populous countries, China and India.

Moreover, music is powerful because it is pure content and it stimulates social interaction and drives loyalty. Disruptive streaming technologies and the onset of  multi-screen user behavior have forced drastic shifts in the use of music as a marketing tool by music labels, entertainment companies and brands across multiple consumer categories. Music is an emotional touchpoint being “used in advertising and marketing to help ensure these connections, whether it’s through the use of a particular artist, a set of lyrics, or a specific song structure that makes you actually feel something,” sayd Lori Feldman, EVP Brand Partnerships and Creative Synch Licensing at  Warner Brother Records, quated by mashable.com.

At its core, music creates emotional connections. It triggers dopamine production in our brains, which makes us happy. Music is the universal language that connects people across generations and geographies. For marketers, developing a strong music strategy can reap huge dividends. Partnering with the right artist, song, or music experience can generate buzz, excitement, and passion around a brand, and help connect with consumers on an emotional level like few other cultural industries can.

Russell Wallach, President of  Live Nation, believes it makes sense for brands to tie music into their  marketing strategies. Wallach says, “You’re seeing it today from many brands, whether it’s in their advertising or through supporting a concert or given artist. It can also be great for the artist, as the partnership can help provide extended exposure to a wider audience.”

Live music and festivals are creating long lasting friendships and connections

photo source: craveonline

Coachella,  SXSW and  Bonnaroo or local festivals such as Summer Well, Electric Castle, Untold, have become lifestyle experiences where Millennials blog, take selfies and create videos and other content to broadcast on their digital channels. If we take a look at Coachella’s demographic, the average festival-goer is between the ages of 18-34 years old, is willing to pay USD 300+ for a festival pass and has a dedicated interest in what’s new and next. For marketers, it makes Indio, Calif., the perfect place to achieve quality and quantity in terms of reach and possible engagement. And of people buying branded products. Moreover, for the past several years, retail brand  Lacoste spotted the opportunity and has hosted the Lacoste Live! Pool Party at Coachella. The event encouraged attendees to socialize with one another while discovering fresh, brand-aligned music. Also on a plus side, as shown in a study conducted by  Momentum Worldwide, a customer attending a branded live experience drives 65% of people to recommend the brand and 59% to buy it at retail afterward.

Several brands worldwide are famous for making music part of their marketing DNA, as adage.com shows in an article or imediaconnection.com here.