9 Marketing Ideas for Online Businesses That Sell Outdoor Gears By James Tredwell on July 31, 2020 Marketing ideas for outdoor brands and gears have evolved over the last couple of years. In case you are wondering what makes an outdoor brand successful, it is because of the following: Loyal following Solid brand identity Dependable customer service But more than that, successful brands use marketing tactics. If you are curious about what those tactics are, here are nine of them: #1. Unique Logo A company without a unique brand logo will fail to create an identity and customer base for its niche market. When purchasing a product, the first thing that people will see is your brand logo to know whether the product is genuine. This is how powerful a logo is. In fact, a lot of global brands have gone a step further. They use logos to help create their brand identity, strengthening their customer’s faith and loyalty in them. Your business can benefit a lot from a unique, high-quality logo. It is crucial to have a unique logo design for your business. Moreover, the design concept will depend on what you want to project and aspire as a business. #2. Leverage Videos and Stories Engaging and high-quality videos are among the best ways to nurture your customers. That’s because it is an excellent way to provide context to the outdoor gear/products you sell. This tactic is especially useful during off-peak seasons. Producing high-quality videos can help you achieve two things: Promoting a lifestyle that is relevant to your brand. Keep your brand a top-of-mind choice for outdoor apparel. Here’s the thing: Promoting a relevant lifestyle is a great way to build a community around your brand. And people nowadays prefer to be part of a community. Over time, this leads to a devoted following and more repeat purchases in the future. When creating high-quality videos for your brand, consider how people will use your products. Build stories based on experiences and how your product can change the lives of your customers. Why did this person choose this specific outdoor activity? How will this affect their everyday life? How did this hobby turn into a passion? Asking questions like these lets you come up with an engaging story that allows you to connect with your audience. Think of how your messaging can connect with different types of shoppers. #3. User-generated Content Outdoor products always come with a purpose. That’s why your customers need to know whether they can rely on the product during times where they need it the most. That’s why user-generated content (UGC) is essential. That includes visual content, to have a prominent place on product detail pages. UGC is one of the most crucial psychological triggers in enticing new customers. For instance, you sell a specific brand of rain jacket online. Your potential customers will look at reviews first before deciding to buy it. UGC, such as customer reviews, help confirm the quality and value of your product. It also provides insight into other shoppers who are less familiar with your brand. That way, they have a more holistic view of how others use it. And the cool thing about UGC is that you can always repurpose it. You can use a customer review and turn it into a social media post. Or you can opt to do a video interview with the customer. You can then upload the video on YouTube or turn it into an IG story. UGC creates authenticity, as well as a sense of community around your brand. But make sure that your UGC showcases the quality and importance of your product. #4. Inbound Selling Inbound marketing is an approach that you can use to attract prospective customers. You can do this by creating helpful and relevant content that encourages interaction. It’s easy for people to look you up on blogs, search engines, and social media. Unlike outbound marketing, you don’t have to fight to get your customer’s attention. When you create content that resonates with your customers, it allows you to build your brand’s authority. Thus, it will be easier for you to drive quality lead and turn them into customers. #5. Loyalty Program Having a loyalty program will quickly turn your happy customers into loyal brand evangelists. Loyal customers are more likely to covert, spend more on a product they like, and spread the word about you. In relation to this, 40% of a business’ online revenue will come from repeat customers. So how do you convince customers to opt-in your loyalty program? You can present them with a list of benefits that they get when they do sign up. This can be in the form of members-only offers, exclusive access to sales, members-only offers, and a lot more. The great thing about loyalty programs is that it isn’t a one-way street. For every customer who signs up for a program, you’ll get essential data. Aside from information like their name, email, gender, and so on, you can also ask them questions. It can be about their favorite sport, outdoor activities, or what matters to them when shopping online. Note that when asking non-essential questions like these, explain to them the reason for asking these questions. That way, you can provide them with a more personalized experience. #6. Regular Deals A lot of online marketplaces will allow you to hold sales or use promo codes to attract prospective shoppers. Make sure that you offer these deals regularly. For instance, you can hold sales during holidays (10 percent off on Father’s Day, 30 percent off on Black Friday, etc.) You can also offer deals for no reason at all. This makes sure that you’ll gain a steady amount of traffic on your site, and boost your sales. #7. Be Aware of Shipping Rules One of the pitfalls of outdoor selling is that they’re hefty, and can sometimes be challenging to deliver. Having an in-store pick up provides you with a more accessible option to sell your items. This also gives your customers peace of mind knowing that you can deliver their orders safely and sound. Apart from that, this allows you to unpack the item with the customer, giving them instructions on how to wear or use it. Apart from that, you have to know of specific rules and regulations when shipping particular outdoor items. #8. Social Media Marketing There is a reason why a lot of known businesses are on social media, and this includes brands that sell outdoor gears. However, it is more than just posting about your products. It is also about publishing content that resonates with your audience. So, tap into the power of social media to effectively drive sales, connect with your customers, and stand out from your competitors. #9. Blogger Partnerships Do online research in the outdoor niche. If you’re selling hiking gears, you can partner with bloggers who write and share about their hiking experiences. Ideally, you should reach out to the ones who have the most following. Over to You Whether you’re selling rain jackets or hiking gears online, it’s always best to know the best practices (as well as the rules) before venturing off. The same thing goes when you sell outdoor gear online. Sure, outdoor gears and apparel can be a competitive niche. But the tips we shared on this post can help you build a successful marketing campaign.
Five Essential Principles to Build a Strong Brand By James Tredwell on July 27, 2020 “Determine who you are and what your brand is and what you’re not. The rest of it is just a lot of noise.” – Geoffrey Zakarian What comes to your mind when you think of Starbucks? What do you imagine when you think of Disneyland? What is the difference between a Mac and an Android for you? Other than the fact that they are leaders in their respective business niche, they always win when it comes to marketing themselves as a brand. In simple terms, a brand is something that embeds a company’s services or products in customers’ mind. We signify cold drinks with Coca Cola and Pepsi, and energy drinks with Red Bull. Why is it that we readily remember them, but other brands rarely come to our mind? It is because we have merged the brand and the product. This is what successful marketing does. It changes the narrative. People don’t crave for products or services; they crave for brands. By branding, we mean getting the same service or delivering the same product everywhere in the world. This blog will discuss the essential principles that lead to strong brand value. Do a Complete Audit of Your Market Today, business is dictated by competition. You have to provide something unique, something of value to your customers. If you don’t, they won’t visit your website/store. If you are selling the same products as other stores, then what competitive edge does your brand has? The Choice Test A choice test is a perfect way to figure out if a person will choose your product over another brand. If a customer says that they will choose your product over the competition, it means you have succeeded in helping the customer make an informed decision. Similarly, if the customer says that they will choose another brand, you have to ask what strengths do the other brand has over you? Ask yourself these questions: Are you providing better discounts than others? Are you offering better quality products? Do you have multiple sellers available selling through your platform? Gett’s anti-Uber campaign is a prime example of how they took on their biggest rival and put them out of the competition to become the number one carpooling app. It was made possible because they found a weakness with Uber – its surge pricing. Create Processes Not Word “When people use your brand name as a verb, that is remarkable.” – Meg Whitman Do you know why Mc Donald’s became so successful? It is because they have created a process where the person won’t have to wait for long to get their orders. They have a process that ensures quick delivery, and they replicate the same process everywhere in the world. This process has been the hallmark of their success. At Mc Donald’s, the kitchen is based on modules, and each module has a separate process. When a person orders something, the kitchen process starts all at once. And the person gets the order in less than a few minutes. This same philosophy is applied in software development where one developer works on the front end, another on the backend, another creates the marketing strategy, and one works on the graphics. When all these are combined, the result is delivered to the end-user in 4X less time. Questions You Should Ask Yourself Turning a company into a brand is not easy. It requires dedication, consistency, and completeness. You have to push the same banner to the audience multiple times to make it stick. But what will your banner signify? Here are a few questions that can help you in such a scenario: What problem are you solving? What is the unique trait of your service or product? If your company was a person, what type of person would it be? When customers say ‘no thanks’ to your product or service, what is the general reason? Are they going for a competitor’s product? Focus on Your Brand Positioning Your logo, website theme, banners, social media posts, and anything else that reflects your brand imagery should be consistent on every platform. How you want to portray your brand to your customers would depend on the values you uphold. Remember, clients, take only a single look at a website before they make their decision. So, make sure that your branding does the following: Attracts the attention of the client Depicts your services Is easy to remember Includes your contact information Have a distinct appeal to it. For a distinct identity, your brand must have an impactful logo that is a reflection of your brand values. You can hire a logo design company to create a professional logo for your brand. To design an impactful logo, you would have to brief your logo design company about your brand values and how you envisage your brand’s logo to be. You can brief them about: What brand image you want your logo to reflect? What color scheme would you like to use? Would your logo design be minimalist or not? All these elements combine to make your branding efforts more effective and helps the clients to form a connection with your brand. Get an External Perspective Your company is what you perceive it to be. However, your clients look at it from a different viewpoint. Your competitors look at it from another angle, and strangers look at it from a different angle. So, what exactly is the perception of your company? The best way to find that out is to get external help. It can be anyone you think will be appropriate to guide you in the right direction. It can be one of your old customers, a branding consultant, an agency, or someone you know. When meeting with that person, take your marketing, product, and functional departments onboard because the input of that person will impact every department and not just you. It would give you an honest evaluation of the good and bad of your brand, and with a third-person perspective on board, you would have an idea of how others perceive your brand. In the light of this evaluation, you can improve the negative aspects of your brand to enhance your reputation further. Keep Improving Your Product You can’t win a war without improving having a solid arsenal. Similarly, you can’t thrive in business if you have the same old products. Start an R&D department that provides relevant insights into your products and services. These will help your product teams to upgrade existing products and introduce new ones as well. Customers always love new features and products. It shows that the brand values their suggestions and is incorporating them to introduce better and more reliable products. Bottom-line The key to successful branding lies in establishing some core values and then propagating them with consistency to create a brand image. It is done by crafting an impactful logo, design effective campaigns, and use customers’ perspective to improve your products. Moreover, always introspect on your branding effort to see what’s working and what needed to be revamped. Through constant evaluation, you will move forward and grow as a brand. This article is contributed by Mary Warner, enthusiast blogger of Logo design valley.
How AI Helps Redefine Digital Marketing for Companies By James Tredwell on July 24, 2020 Artificial intelligence (AI) is starting to find applications in most industries. It’s revolutionizing the way we get work done. With the ability to collect, analyze, and apply the insights gathered from data, it can help marketers improve their strategies with ease. This is why it’s extremely important for digital marketing companies as it can provide valuable insights into their customers and campaigns. As a result, you’ll be better equipped to reach your audience and convert them. The best part about AI is that it can be used in various facets of digital marketing and its use isn’t restricted to just one or two tools. But that begs the question, “How does AI redefine digital marketing?” Let’s take a look at how and where you can use it. How Is AI Redefining Digital Marketing? Let’s take a closer look at eleven of the biggest ways AI is helping redefine digital marketing. 1. Through Chatbots Chatbots are changing the way companies are delivering customer service. They can communicate with customers and resolve their issues through pre-defined flows. However, AI chatbots take this one step forward. Armed with natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML), these chatbots are able to figure out how to communicate with consumers without any human interference. Additionally, they’re much more effective than customer service agents as they’re available 24×7. What’s more, you ask? They can communicate with hundreds of customers simultaneously unlike agents who can’t handle more than a handful of customers. This means that you can cut your customer service costs and also de-stress your agents. The chatbots can direct any special or difficult questions to human agents and handle the regular ones themselves. But chatbots find applications in marketing too. You can also use the chatbots to collect customer information to add to your CRM or email list. When your audience or customers begin their chat, the chatbot can conversationally acquire this information. Additionally, you can leverage chatbots to send out marketing messages to your customers. The chatbots can send out promotional messages about your latest products and services to them. This can help you generate more sales too. 2. Influencer Marketing Artificial intelligence can also help you improve your influencer marketing campaigns. AI-powered influencer marketing tools can help you identify the right influencers for your campaigns. By analyzing the profiles of influencers, these tools are able to ascertain if they have fake followers or not. And that’s not all. These tools can even help you figure out their brand affinity. They can even analyze the content created by the influencers to help you figure out if it’s similar to that of your brand. You can then reach out to these influencers and partner with them for your campaigns. What’s more? AI-powered platforms for influencer marketing can also help you figure out which levels and types of incentives work best for the influencers. You can use this information to your advantage to convince the influencers to work with you. Lastly, once you’ve partnered with the influencer, you can even use AI to figure out if their posts follow FTC guidelines. This can help you ensure that you don’t land in legal trouble. 3. Email Marketing By harnessing the power of AI, you can personalize your email marketing campaigns and drive better results. But how can you do so? You can send out emails based on certain actions taken by your users. This way, you’ll be able to deliver relevant emails at the right times to your users. These emails will also have the right subject lines and product recommendations that can help you push them to take the action you want them to. Sephora, for instance, uses predictive analytics to figure out how long their products might last. Accordingly, they send out emails to their customers just before the products are about to get used. These emails ask customers to restock the products. The emails also contain a call to action (CTA) that drives the customers to the product page from where they can purchase the product. Image via LiveChat 4. Copywriting AI can also help you improve your content so that it can have a greater impact on your target audience. As AI can collect and assess data about what your audience likes or dislikes, you can figure out how to catch their attention. This can help you get more click-throughs, better conversions, and ultimately, more revenue. Using AI-powered tools like Phrasee, you can skip the A/B testing cycles that can take a long time to bear any fruit and instead, leverage AI to get the results you want. What’s more, you ask? These tools can also ensure that the language remains consistent with your brand voice to make it appear natural too. 5. Social Media Marketing Social media is one of the best places to reach your target audience. With over 3.8 billion users across social media platforms, you can be sure to find your target audience on it. However, to reach your audience and engage it, you need to craft content that’ll appeal to them. While your copywriting skills may come in handy, social media platforms are visual platforms. Hence, you need to create visual content that will attract your audience. This is where AI can help you out too. AI-powered social media tools can help you figure out which visuals can resonate best with your audience. Based on these insights, they can even suggest visuals that you can use for your social media posts. Alternatively, they can help you figure out which colors, themes, and messages can work well for you. You can then accordingly create posts with these features and reap the benefits of better growth. What’s more? Some tools for social media can take this one step forward and give you even more granular insights. These include things like cropping and color correction to the shot construction. 6. Searches AI is also changing the way we search online. Earlier, all searches were text-based. However, with the advent of AI-powered voice assistants like Google Home, Amazon Echo, Siri, and others, this has changed. About 43% of users between the ages of 16 and 64 have used voice searches today and this figure is growing as the access to high-speed internet spreads. Image via We Are Social But that’s not the only application of AI when it comes to searches. Search engines like Google have already started using AI to improve the quality of their search results. In fact, Google’s RankBrain is used to understand search queries and sort the results. That’s why improving the readability of your content has become a big part of search engine optimization (SEO). This algorithm understands the user’s conversational search query and accordingly brings up relevant results using the power of AI. To optimize for voice searches, marketers need to change the way they create content as well. The content needs to be more conversational so that the search engine presents your website as the authoritative source of the information. This is why long-tail keywords have become a more important part of SEO. 7. Marketing Videos As mentioned above, AI can help you figure out what sort of content works best for you. However, this isn’t restricted to just images or text. AI can also help with your marketing videos. Considering the fact that videos are one of the most engaging forms of content, it makes sense for brands to optimize them to get the most out of them. But what if you lack technical skills or the resources to hire a video designer? In this situation, AI-powered video creation tools can be of great help to you. These tools make it extremely easy to create high impact videos without the need to know design or videography. All you have to do is select video templates and customize them based on your requirements. These tools also provide loads of royalty-free media resources that you can use to enrich your videos even further. This way, you’ll be able to create professional-looking videos in minutes without any technical know-how. And that’s not all. You can also use AI to figure out what your audience likes, and accordingly, you can suggest other related videos that they may like to see. This can help you increase your view time, and subsequently, their time on site. Which, in turn, can positively impact your SEO. 8. Web Design Creating a stellar website can take quite some effort and time if you start from scratch. However, with numerous templates available out there, this process has been simplified to a great extent. But even then, you need to dedicate enough time and resources to customize it. Thanks to AI, this problem can be solved with ease. AI-powered tools such as Wix can help you design stunning websites based on information you provide. All you have to do is provide some information about your images, calls-to-action (CTAs), and more. After you provide this information to the tool, it’ll design the website for you quickly without any additional effort from your end. 9. Website User Experience The use of AI doesn’t stop at just designing a stunning website. It can also help you figure out how to improve the user experience your website delivers. Through machine learning, you can figure out the likes and dislikes of your visitors and accordingly personalize your website layout for them. This customization can be done based on their demographics, devices, interaction with your website, and more. When you provide a personalized experience, it not only helps keep the users satisfied but can also increase the time that they spend on your website. What’s more? Personalization is not just a choice anymore. About 85% of marketers say that their customers expect personalized experiences from them. Image via Evergage This is perhaps the reason why nearly 58% of marketers said that they personalize their websites to deliver better customer experiences. If you own an ecommerce business, then this personalization is even more important for you. By suggesting products or services that are the most relevant to your customers, you’ll be better placed to convert them. Additionally, you can show related products to boost the cart value even further and increase your sales. Brands such as Amazon already use this method to customize their offerings to their users. They even send emails with personalized product recommendations to get their users to purchase products from them. 10. Digital Advertising When you launch paid advertising campaigns, you’re already leveraging AI to boost your reach, engagement, and sales. Facebook and Google Ads use AI and machine learning to find people who’ll be more likely to engage with your posts and show the ads to them. They also optimize the performance of your ads based on the responses that a certain audience gives to them. What’s more? These platforms have an auction-based advertising system where you pay the least amount for each engagement, lead, or conversion. 11. Content Curation Lastly, AI can also help you curate high-quality content from the web. Based on the parameters defined by you, it can help you find content that’ll resonate well with your audience. You can then publish this content on your social media accounts and get the attention of your target audience and engage them. As this content will be relevant to their interests, there are good chances that they may engage with it. Final Thoughts AI is changing the way we market brands online. It simplifies web design and content creation so that you don’t need to spend big bucks on development costs. Additionally, you can leverage chatbots to serve your customers better and market to them as well. AI also finds applications in influencer marketing, social media marketing, and even email marketing. Using it, you can personalize your offerings and boost your engagement and conversion rates with ease. Do you have any questions about the ways in which AI is helping to redefine digital marketing? If so, let us know in the comments.
How Augmented Reality (AR) will Influence Digital Marketing? By James Tredwell on July 24, 2020 Presently, Augmented Reality (AR) is the most favourite subject in the web world. Social media platforms are being applauded with the overwhelming audience reaction of AR usage. Since social media platforms have evolved as the popular marketplace of this era, they have occupied a major portion of our lives in a day. Likewise, meeting customer expectation has become challenging for marketers. Credit goes to the technical advancement customers these days crave for ‘newness’ every day on digital podiums. Thus, pleasing customers is no longer a picnic. Since AR is the latest tool in the block, businesses are increasingly using for an enhanced sales conversion that too within a short period. AR makes people glued to their smartphone and explore what marketers have to offer them in the best possible customized way. Before we dig deeper about Augmented Reality, we need to understand what AR is and how it works for further business development. In most of the cases, we have found that people between VR and AR. Let us disclose it in the first place that both of these terms signifies two completely different subjects. However, they have some common set of features and functionalities. VR is the technique used to design an artificial environment thereby driving people towards a fictional world. This is more like a time travel powered by an enhanced visual experience where you can experience either forward or backward time. VR presents a whole new world before you. AR allows you to view the real world virtually which is projected using computer technologies for an augmented real-time experience. AR projections are meant to let viewers have an all-in-one experience. Here are some key reasons why businesses should include AR in their marketing strategies? Client Satisfaction For any business there was, there is and there will be nothing beyond customer acquisition and customer satisfaction. However, customers’ requisites and their purchase behaviour have evolved a lot over the years. Presently, there are multiple aspects in a product that grabs peoples’ attention in the first place such as product potential, product promotion, online reviews and after-sales service. Alongside the sales, strategies are designed to attest maximum client satisfaction such as offering test drive, samples of mobile device, dress changing trial rooms, virtual property tour etc. An augmented shopping experience offering has become a modern trend. From trying a dress to applying make-up AR has enhanced the entire shopping experience to a different level. It’s no longer required to be physically present while you shop. You can try out many things online with the help of the latest AR technology. Let us have a glance at how AR implementation have been performing various business sectors like beauty & cosmetics, real estate, investment, clothing and other myriads of business sectors. Social media platforms are no behind. Many big brands are using Facebook’s and Apple’s AR apps for their brand promotion. Myntra, Lenskart, Asian Paints and other big brands have been experimenting with AR technology to initiate next-level shopping experience. Virtual shopping has transformed the marketing game in a big way. Social Media Social media has emerged as one of the most popular market places for both the sellers and buyers. Utilizing AR shopping application has taken the shopping experience to a new height. With the presence of multiple e-commerce sites, people largely shop online rather than visiting malls. Trying multiple products online and placing an order online has become fun. Event participation Attending live events from home is the new cool. No one would decide or judge your dress code anyway. This is one technology that many brands are using to reach and grab their customers. Download the respective AR application to zoom on your target group. Videos Event participation has a close association with videos. AR videos are a great means of targeting potential customers. Mainly these videos are used as a step-by-step demo guide for product manual. In some cases, they are used to demonstrate product usage experience. AR impacts the target pattern For advanced SEO purpose, experts use different marketing tools to rank pages higher as soon as possible. However, bidding for the keywords play a crucial role in page ranking and traffic acquisition which indicates you have to maintain a clear strategy for keyword selection and bidding. After AR inclusion searches will have to be more on image-centric than just being keyword based. Accordingly, search engines have to work on the same line. Change in web design Thanks to stunning designing effort these days’ websites too can arrest a viewer with its rich visual content. We have already seen many 2D and 3D websites. But the future has some of the biggest surprises in its store where we might get to witness AR and VR tech-driven web designs in the scene. Certainly, there will be a revolutionary shift in content in future based on the AR and VR changes. Customers will be introduced with a whole-new web world. Marketers’ job is going to be more challenging in the coming days. Lastly Since marketers are exploring many strategies, developers too have to embrace AR and implement it for advanced sales strategies and targets in the coming days. Author Bio:- Navdeep Singh is a SEO Analyst at Internet Marketing School, one of the finest Digital Marketing Training Institute providing professional Digital Marketing Courses to freshers, working professionals, and business owners.
9 Digital Marketing Ideas To Boost Your Cleaning Business By James Tredwell on July 22, 2020 Starting your own cleaning business is an excellent idea. It doesn’t cost you a lot to get all the resources and equipment that you need. You can also provide your cleaning services to both homes and businesses. As long as you’re doing a great job at what you do, you can gain loyal followers and profit from it. One of the primary challenges that you need to face is building a strong client base. That’s why we’ve put together nine digital marketing ideas that help boost your cleaning business: 1. Correct online information Before you can start marketing your cleaning business, you need to make sure that your prospective clients can easily find it. Moreover, if your online information is inaccurate, it can hurt your search rankings, and it isn’t easy standing out from your competitors. So, how can you avoid that? You need to verify if the following data is correct: Business name: Business address: Phone number: URL of your website: Also known as your NAPU, this is essential that this information stays consistent in all online directories. That way, you could be easily found by clients who are looking for a business. Make sure that your store hours are accurate as well. Just like your physical location, this is one thing to look for when searching for a particular business online. 2. Optimize your website Setting up and optimizing your site makes it easier to look for prospects. In your site, you can explain to prospects what you do and why people should use your service. Your website is also am an excellent tool that you can use to reach out to people who are otherwise unaware of the services you offer. That’s precisely why you need a website that’s easy to use and navigate. Ideally, your site should be usable in all browsers, from desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Working with a professional web designer can help you achieve this. You can also tap into digital marketing methods that entice more people to check out your site. You might want to delve deeper into SEO and content marketing as well. 3. Local SEO As we mentioned previously, SEO is vital for your cleaning business’ success. To boost your impact, you should focus mainly on local SEO. For instance, you can use location-specific phrases in your current digital marketing strategy. You should also update your profile on Facebook, Google+, Angie’s List, and Yelp. Focus on your services, keywords, areas, contact information, etc. Over time, local SEO will help drive traffic and leads back to your site. 4. Google My Business page If you want your cleaning service to show up on Google maps, you need to optimize your Google My Business page to rank higher on search engines. But setting up your Google Business page is just part of the process. It will help if you optimize it as well. Make sure that you fill out your business hours, your services, and your geo-targeted pictures. You also have the option to “post” on your Google My Business page the same way you would in other social media platforms. By optimizing your Google My Business page, you can dramatically enhance your organic traffic and increase your business leads. 5. Leverage the use of social media Utilize social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to reach out to your prospects and market your cleaning business. You can use these platforms to keep them up to date with the latest happenings, and as a tool to attract new customers. It also helps that you keep your message short and relevant to your audience as well. When marketing your cleaning business, before and after photos have a significant impact on your client’s decisions. So, make sure that you include these in your social media portfolio. 6. Know your target audience Another thing that you need to understand when setting up a cleaning business is knowing your ideal customer and target market. If you don’t have any idea about your niche, and your ideal customers’ area, your business may fall flat. Let’s say you’re a commercial cleaning business, and then your target market will be catering to building owners and managers of facilities. Meanwhile, if you’re a residential cleaning business, your ideal clients will be homeowners who have a disposable income source who wants to save time. Knowing these things helps you create better messaging to your customers. That’s because you’re speaking to them based on their needs, problems, and interests. Your messaging can play a significant role in the success or failure of your business. Take your time trying to understand your ideal customer’s needs, problems, and interests. Doing so will help you create an effective business plan as you improve your marketing efforts. 7. Use automated chatbot Although you might not be there to personally cater to every customer in with whatever their queries are, an automated chatbot will. By incorporating an automated messaging or a chatbot in your site, you can quickly provide an instant fix to the queries of users, secure cleaning service bookings, give prices on quotes, and so much more. To do this, you can either incorporate an automated chatbot or work with a chat development provider. 8. Ask for referrals Word of mouth is a great way to secure long-term clients. Referrals are useful, as they help get through the trust barrier of new clients. For some businesses, asking for referrals might be a hard, even scary prospect. But if you don’t ask for it, the answer is always going to be a no. Here are some tips to make successful referrals: Choose the right clients- Among your clients, who do you think is the most loyal to you? Who are your longest clients, and who are interested in your services? Ask at the right time- The best time to ask for referrals are when clients are most excited about the products and services that you offer. Offer an incentive- In exchange for a referral, offer an incentive. 9. Consider paid ads There are two ways in which you can land on the top spot on Google. The first is to focus on search engine optimization (SEO) to drive organic traffic. SEO will usually depend on several factors: the quality of traffic you’re getting if your content is relevant, the quality of sites that link to yours, etc. SEO takes time to build, and you should have a high domain authority to rank high on search results. Then, there’s Google AdWords, where you can land on the top spot in just a day, provided that you used the right keywords and have sufficient budget to bit for the top placement. Although not cheap, AdWords delivers instantly, and you can easily track your efforts. Over to You So there you have it. Hopefully, you follow these tips and marketing ideas to market your cleaning business online effectively. It’s vital to be strategic to increase your leads, enhance your revenues, and grow your business over time! According to Maid Sailors, (Hoboken cleaning service) “Make sure to deliver quality cleaning services to maintain a loyal client base in the long run.”