Design

Whether you’re selling a product or a service, the end goal with your marketing strategy is the same: to get leads and turn them into paying customers.

With that said, there are plenty of different digital marketing strategies you can employ, some of which work better than others.

If you’re looking for the best marketing strategies to get more leads and paying customers, here’s a list of the top 8 marketing tactics that are sure to generate results.

1. Know your customer

Knowing your customer is the primary psychological foundation all other marketing tactics are derived from. When you know your customer, you know how to reach them with words and visuals. When you don’t know your customer, your marketing efforts can fall flat.

What does it mean to know your customer?

To know your customer means knowing what they want, why they would want or need your product, the problems they’re hoping to solve, and also their demographics.

For example, if you’re selling packaged lunches for kids, your customer is both the parent and the child. To sell your packaged lunches, your product needs to appeal to all of your market’s needs. In this case, kids want a tasty lunch and parents want an affordable, nutritional meal for their kids. You can get parents to buy your lunches, but if their children won’t eat them, you won’t get repeat sales.

In addition to meeting your market’s needs, you’ll also want to know their demographics because that will help you reach more buyers. Usually, mothers make the purchase decisions, so your target demographic will likely be females between the ages of 25-45 who have young children in the household.

You’ll also want to know where your target customers hang out online. Are they on one social media platform more than others? Wherever they go, you’ll want to know so you can run pay-per-click (PPC) ads on those platforms. If they don’t hang out on social media, you can always run PPC ads on Google to capture traffic from searches.

Knowing your customer means knowing where to find them and how to reach them to inspire them into action to become a paying customer.

2. Reach your market at different stages in the buyer’s journey

Reach your market at different stages in the buyer’s journey

Although your target market will share similar wants, needs, and pain points, they’re not all going to be in the same stage in the buyer’s journey. This means you’ll need a strong marketing strategy to reach your target market by appealing to them differently, according to the different stages.

There are five main stages in the buying journey taken by customers:

  • The customer recognizes they have a need
  • The customer searches for information
  • The customer tests out all of their options
  • The customer decides to buy
  • The customer evaluates their purchase

Your potential customers will be in one of these five stages, and that means you’ll need to reach them in different ways. For example, the way you’d reach someone in stage 2 – where they’re searching for information – will be different than how you’d reach someone who is ready to buy.

For instance, someone ready to buy can be easily swayed by directly asking for the sale. However, someone still searching for information needs to be gently persuaded by providing them with more information.

Each of these stages requires a different marketing approach, and that is a specialized strategy best performed by a marketing agency with experience in your industry.

3. Use the foot-in-the-door technique

Known as the “foot-in-the-door” phenomenon in psychology, this is a powerful persuasion tactic used in marketing and sales. The idea is that if you can get a lead to comply with a simple request early on, they’ll be more likely to agree to additional, larger requests at a later time.

The simplest example of this is the art of sampling food products. You’ve seen people set up tables in front of stores at the mall and offer free samples. Well, when someone accepts a free sample in front of a store, they’re more likely to come in and browse around. When the free samples are offered inside of the store, people are more likely to buy the product being sampled.

Foot-in-the-door and online marketing

This tactic works with online marketing in a similar way. First, you get leads to agree to give you their email address in exchange for a free download, coupon, or other deal. Then, you nurture those leads until they make a larger purchase.

Another form of the foot-in-the-door tactic is offering upsells. Once a lead makes a purchase, you want your automated system to offer them additional purchases. These upsells are usually heavily discounted and made to be a really sweet deal. For instance, you might offer a second item at 50% off, or an additional item at an incredible discount.

This is where you’ll need to use specific marketing messages to reach your target market at various stages in the buyer’s journey. You’ll need to segment your leads as they come in and email them personalized messages according to where they are in the journey.

4. Use PPC ads to generate impulse purchases

Use PPC ads to generate impulse purchases

You can use PPC ads to generate impulse sales, but you’ll need some finesse and strategy. Accomplishing this requires your sale item to have a relatively low price point, since most people aren’t likely to buy something expensive on impulse.

According to marketing data gathered by Maryville.edu, 84% of people have made an impulse purchase, but only 54% spent $100 or more. A mere 20% say they’ve spent at least $1,000 on an impulse purchase.

The takeaway here is that when your price point is under $100, you’re more likely to generate impulse sales. With that said, you’ll also need a few more things than an item priced under $100.

Generating impulse sales from PPC ads also requires highly persuasive copy on your landing pages. Your copy will need to create a sense of urgency for visitors and will need to be highly convincing in a short amount of time. This is a job for a professional copywriter, and you can get access to copywriting services through a professional marketing agency.

5. Use exclusivity to sell more

Use exclusivity to sell more

Exclusive deals sell more and for higher price points. That’s because people love feeling like they’re getting something special, and they don’t want to miss out on good deals.

Making your customers feel important will help you build rapport with them. Boost their self-esteem by offering exclusive deals like limited time offers, wait lists, and limited-spot membership programs. You’re more likely to generate sales when your market feels like your deals won’t be around forever, and if they don’t buy now, they’ll miss out entirely.

6. Use powerful imagery

Visuals will make a massive impact on your leads and strong, powerful visuals can help you generate more conversions. There’s a reason social media posts with images are shared more frequently than plain text – images capture and hold attention, which increases engagement. Since humans are predominantly visual, this makes sense.

To capture attention from your leads, create visually engaging designs for your website, your graphic images, banners, logos, and other page elements. They don’t need to be overly fancy, but they do need to be noticeable and engaging.

7. Use color to your advantage

Changing your company colors

You’ve probably heard of “color psychology,” and this is something expert marketers use to their advantage on a daily basis. Color is one of the most influential elements involved in website design, which includes all of your online marketing efforts. Anytime you’re publishing material online, color matters.

Different colors elicit different emotions from visitors, although this does vary between cultures. However, in the Western world, colors elicit the following general feelings:

  • Blue – calmness, peace, and trust
  • Brown – resilience, safety, and security
  • Green – harmony, tranquility, and peace
  • Gray – mystery, safety, and modesty
  • Purple – luxury, power, nobility
  • Pink – femininity, love, innocence
  • Red – love, power, and passion
  • Yellow – happiness, hope, and intellectualism
  • Orange – rejuvenation, positivity, and encouragement
  • White – calmness, comfort, hope
  • Black – strength, sophistication, protection

Of course, you’ll need to choose your color schemes based on the various tones and shades of your main color(s) and use them appropriately with other colors. A professional marketing agency can help you achieve this effectively.

In addition to using colors, you’ll also want to use plenty of white space. Expert web designers agree that less is more.

Although white is listed as a color with specific effects, it’s also used as the absence of web elements and colors. Websites with plenty of white space are easier to read, which makes that content more likely to be read. You want your leads to read your sales copy or you’ll struggle to generate conversions.

8. Use trustworthy language

Language is powerful and the words you use matter. Using certain words can help you develop trust with your visitors even in a short period of time. For example, words like “certified,” “loyal,” “guarantee,” and “official” evoke feelings of trust. However, make sure you only use these words in an authentic manner. For instance, if you offer a guarantee, make sure you follow through with that guarantee.

Need a website that gets results? We can help!

Are you struggling to get results with your digital marketing efforts? Do you have a website that just doesn’t generate as many conversions as you hoped to get when you first launched? Whether you’re just starting out or you’re stuck in a rut, we can help.

Our professional website development team can review your website to see where improvements can be made to generate more sales. Whether you need stronger copy or a new design, we can do it all. If you need help with your digital marketing, contact us today for more information.

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