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17 Best Digital Tips to Improve Reach

Which brand wouldn’t want to improve reach and expand its presence? To connect with more customers, partners, more leads and more potential sales, revenue?

To do the above, at present digital marketing is your secret weapon. For almost all brands, it’s one of the most effective ways to get company’s products or services in front of a qualified and targeted user. If you’re following the digital marketing guidelines, you will definitely get the results and improve reach of your brand.

At Moisaka Solutions we truly believe that web is the perfect place to start with.

Thanks to social media, search engines and other digital platforms, to improve reach and presence is now easier than ever. In fact, here are 17 best digital tips to improve reach and presence in digital world:

1. Focus on branding, not conversions

If you ask us it is extremely easy to track the exact response rate and profitability of an advertisement, right down to the top-performing placements and demographics. Due to this it’s tempting to focus on conversion rate and short-term ROI – Return on Investment as barometer of a campaign’s effectiveness.

The end result of this is that many digital marketers launch social, search and display campaigns with branding in mind, only to compromise them by optimizing for direct response metrics like ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) and conversion rate.

This is no brainer that branding works best when there’s no pushiness or sense of urgency. The world’s most effective branding campaigns don’t push you to buy a certain product or take action — instead, they focus entirely on associating a specific feeling with a certain brand.

Nike’s famous Just Do It commercials don’t end with a call to action — they end with a flash of the Nike logo. Old Spice’s brilliant The Man Your Man Could Smell Like campaign didn’t encourage people to buy anything – instead, it made a boring and outdated brand into something fun.

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Since the goals of a branding campaign are somewhat opposite to those of direct response, it’s best to keep branding and direct response separate. View conversions from branding as a lucky free extra, as the real value of branding is only visible over the long term.

2. Content Marketing

One of the most effective way to establish and strengthen your brand is through content marketing. Now the question is how to become a content authority in your industry? To give a reference whether it’s blog or video content, the most well-known brands tend to be the ones with lots of engaging and authoritative content.

Content marketing is a great way to define your brand as one that’s interested in helping and teaching people at no cost. This is the same effort Moisaka Solutions is putting in here to help you reach your business goal.

In B2B, brands like Moz have defined themselves as authoritative sources of information using blog content. Moz’s blog reaches hundreds of thousands of readers every month, increasing its presence and reach.

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In B2C, brands like Red Bull use video content to generate millions of impressions, all of which have a positive effect on brand recognition. Red Bull’s top YouTube videos have reached tens of millions of people — reach that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars using paid media.

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Since 2006, Red Bull has used video content to generate almost 1.5 billion impressions across its total library of videos.

Each of these impressions is an advertisement for Red Bull’s brand — one that viewers are very unlikely to forget. Whenever someone reads your blog post, views your video, or listens to you on a podcast, they’ll develop a stronger impression of your company.

While Red Bull’s videos are spectacular, content doesn’t necessarily need to be expensive to be effective. An engaging, interesting blog post can generate tens of thousands of impressions, all at a very low cost.

Content also has a complementary effect on SEO, with engaging content attracting links as well as pageviews. This makes it a great long-term strategy for brand strengthening while also improving your website’s search visibility.

Blogging is crucial if you want to reach more customers on the web. For one, it establishes you as an authority in your space – one that people can go to when they have questions, want information or just need guidance. It also helps with your SEO efforts, too. And the higher you rank in search engines, the more people will see your site.

3. Guest Blogger

For brands with a clearly defined audience, guest blogging is one of the best ways to put your content (and company) in front of responsive, interested readers.

Digital marketing guru Neil Patel has one of the strongest brands in the online marketing world, largely because he has guest posted on hundreds of authoritative marketing blogs over the last few years, from Entrepreneur and Search Engine Land to Social Media Examiner and Hubspot.

Prosumer” brand WP Curve, which has a target audience of entrepreneurs and freelancers in need of WordPress help, built its brand by guest blogging on entrepreneurship blogs and digital strategy websites.

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If you have a clearly defined target customer audience, guest posting is one of the most efficient and cost-effective ways to strengthen your brand. It’s 100% free, and the only real cost involved is the time required to think up content ideas and write posts.

Since people are more likely to respond to content than a banner ad, you’ll have an advantage over your competitors that rely on paid media. Through guest blogging, you’ll likely generate a large amount of conversions and new customers while you establish your brand.

Arguably the biggest advantage of guest blogging is that it lets you tap into the authority of an existing website. Reach the right audience through the right blog and you could win over tens of thousands of readers with a single blog post.

4. Consistency in Content and Images

Great branding relies on your message being consistent with your brand image. Red Bull uses video so effectively because the subject matter it focuses on — extreme sports and pushing the limits of adventure — match its brand image.

If a brand like Xerox created a YouTube channel and started releasing extreme sports videos, would it get the same results as Red Bull? Unlikely.

It’s important that your content matches your brand image in tone, feel and subject matter. If it doesn’t, it’s unlikely to create any type of meaningful connection with your audience.

An example of a branding campaign that failed because of inconsistency is Microsoft’s 2008 ad campaign featuring Jerry Seinfeld.

While the ad is funny, it doesn’t have any real connection with the brand or product that’s being promoted. People enjoyed the ad, but at the end of the day it didn’t produce a meaningful boost to Microsoft’s brand recognition or trust.

Branding works best when it’s authentic. Instead of appealing to the widest possible audience with a generic, broad message, focus on reaching the audience that’s most valuable using an engaging and genuine message.

5. It’s time to go Social.

Based on your industry and target audience, strategically place your brand on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram – or any other platform that your customers are using – and start participating in the conversation. Make them laugh, give them great, useful info, or just answer their questions. Be sure to use #hashtags, too. Those will improve your reach even further.

6. Social Media Advertisement

Creating great content is a great way to strengthen and expand your brand presence, but it will produce few results if no-one can find it. You can use Facebook, Instagram and Twitter ads to promote content based on your product and services.

Platforms like Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads and Twitter Ads are invaluable tools for content promotion. They allow you to reach a large, highly targeted audience of people likely to respond positively to your brand.

Using Facebook and Instagram Ads, you can target people who like similar products and companies to your own, helping you reach a highly responsive audience. Twitter’s ad platform even lets you target the audiences of specific brands and people.

This means that you can promote your content to an extremely specific audience, limiting your reach to the people most likely to read and respond to your content. In effect, you can add to your brand without ever reaching people who are unlikely to become customers.

While Facebook/Instagram Ads and Twitter require some testing, both can be extremely cost-effective brand development channels once your campaign is “dialed in.”

7. Google AdWords Advertising

Over the last five years, rising CPM rates for display advertising have made it a less appealing channel for branding. Despite this, display (or banner) advertising can still be a highly effective way to expand your reach and improve your presence.

The key to effective branding through display advertising is to find websites that attract a highly relevant, interested audience. If the people viewing your ads are likely to become customers or evangelists for your brand, they’re a fantastic audience for a display campaign.

A great example of this is by the performance advertising platform Marin Software which advertised its 2016 report (presenting the brand as digital advertising authority) on Search Engine Journal, a website read by digital marketers.

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In addition, platforms like Google AdWords let you access most large websites as an advertiser. Many of the world’s largest publishers also sell their remnant inventory at a discount through real-time bidding marketplaces like SiteScout and platforms like BuySellAds.

Organic SEO is nice, but using PPC also has its advantages, too. Join up on Google AdWords and Bing Ads, and start ensuring you get noticed for those big, high-level keywords you’re going for. Be sure to target by geographic area, too, so you can make sure to get the best keywords possible.

8. Improve search rankings

If you really want to up your exposure, start ranking higher in Google, Yahoo and Bing. Choose thoughtful keywords, optimize your pages and content, and make sure your site is easily crawlable by search engine spiders.

9. Go mobile

There’s no excuse anymore. Now that Google considers mobile friendliness a major factor in its algorithms, your site absolutely needs to be responsive. If it’s not, your rankings will plummet and you’ll actually lower your reach instead.

10. Create Infographics

Infographics are hugely popular nowadays. They’re quick and easy to understand, they don’t require a lot of time to digest, and best of all, they’re super shareable. This makes your chances of getting a retweet or share (and added exposure) even higher!

11. Give away free things

Everyone likes free stuff, so if you want to draw in more customers, start offering some. Give away free tools, planners and templates, or just offer downloadable PDFs or ebooks. Just make sure it’s something customers will find valuable. If they like it, they’ll be coming back for more in no time.

Want to reach more customers on the web? Let Moisaka Solutions help. Our digital marketing experts and SEO pros can help get your brand noticed. Contact us today for a free consultation.

12. Clear Calls-To-Action

Buy Now, Book A Flight, Request A Quote–Whatever next step you want the user to take (which is typically the objective of your campaign) should be vibrantly displayed in your content.

Every successful advertising campaign contains a clear and compelling call-to-action (CTA). This “button” tells the user what the next step is and is how they get from the advertisement back to your site, moving them further down the funnel and closer to the point of conversion.

When it comes to selecting a CTA, you want to focus on language that is relevant to your brand, service or products, and completely obvious to the user. Anything ambiguous can confuse the user, and even if they click on the CTA, arriving at an onsite page that doesn’t meet their expectations won’t result in a conversion. That being said, you want to avoid generic language like “learn more” or “read more”—while this can be relevant to what you’re promoting, it isn’t unique to your brand, or even your industry.

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JetBlue uses language tailored to their industry and brand in their digital ads, as seen above.

In the example below, Sotheby’s has a beautiful digital ad campaign that promotes different destinations. The imagery is striking (another must-have for successful digital advertising), the text is readable, and it’s ultimately a clean design. However, there is no real CTA. As a user, I could of course click on the ad and be directed to their site, but there is no real incentive to do so and no real button showing me what step to take next. Simply adding a CTA button to this ad would likely improve the performance of these campaigns and result in higher conversions.

13. Compelling Messaging

It should come as no surprise that messaging is important. With any digital platform, messaging is critical as it’s the core communication with a potential customer. In terms of digital advertising, when you don’t have a ton of copy space or even time to capture user attention it’s important that messaging be compelling and, most importantly, succinct.

You lose the attention of most digital users in just a few seconds. That limited period of time is all that you have to capture interest. Stick to messaging that evokes emotion or encourages users to click through the ad, and keep it to just a short phrase. For many brands, this means highlighting their value proposition, showcasing their core values, or defining an incentive for the user.

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In the example above, Biotherm incentivizes the experience for the potential customer. Their core message “Sign up and receive 15% off on your first order” captures the user’s attention and for someone already interested in their products, it’s likely to be that last added touch to convert. For all brands, this is an incredibly well done ad to take notes from. If you’re running a retargeting campaign where the user has already visited your site, for example, this type of incentivization could not only help you stay top of mind as the potential customer navigates other sites, but can serve as the final touchpoint before the user finally makes the purchase.

14. Designated Landing Pages

Whatever the content you’re advertising is related to, you should always drive users to a page that is relevant to that content. This simple step will help to keep users on your site, offer a better user experience, and ultimately improve conversion rate.

If you’re an athletics brand and you’re advertising women’s running shoes in an AdWords campaign, sending users to your women’s running shoes page will help facilitate the conversion process. The more relevant the page is that you drive clicks to, the greater likelihood that the user will follow though and convert. After all, your advertisement has captured that user’s attention enough that they clicked on the ad, so the likelihood is they want more information pertaining to that specific subject – not general information you’d find about your brand and entire line of athletic attire on your homepage.

Sending users to your homepage instead of a designated landing page that is correlated to the particular campaign can be a costly mistake. Users generally won’t search your site for the item they’re looking for. As a brand, bringing the potential customer as close as possible to their unique needs and the point of conversion is not only the best approach, but also the best user experience.

15. Imagery Matters

For each of your digital campaigns, it’s essential that you think about where you’re serving users with these ads. The likelihood is that the ad will appear while the user is absorbing other content somewhere else online, so the way your ad appears visually is important.

Using high-quality imagery that is telling as to what the ad promotes is one of the most important features for all successful digital advertising campaigns. Failure to use imagery that is captivating or visually appealing doesn’t help capture the user’s attention. In the example below, Waldorf Astoria uses beautiful photos of their resorts to advertise to a targeted set of users. Not only does this stand out as the user scrolls through the page, it truly sparks interest.

For brands in the B2B space, or in industries where imagery may not be as “naturally” beautiful as a beachfront resort, there are still options. Focus on imagery that is bold, clean, and compelling. In a lot of ways, imagery should tell the story your brand is trying to convey and give the user a solid expectation of what you have to offer. This is especially important for new or potential customers who may not be familiar with your brand. If the imagery in your ads doesn’t stand out, they may not even recognize your brand or your products if they see them later on a different platform.

16. Test, Monitor, And Test Again

You’ve probably heard it said many times, that for any marketing channel, testing the effectiveness of your efforts is important. When you’re running digital advertising campaigns, this is no exception. Without monitoring your campaigns, how are you able to identify areas to continue focusing on versus areas for improvement?

Sometimes, seemingly arbitrary factors like time of day, language choice, audience segment, or image selection can really play a role in the success of your campaigns. For that reason, it’s critical that you pay attention to these factors and monitor which campaigns have which varying elements. If you’re finding success with one campaign, or finding an alternate campaign to be less effective, don’t be afraid to change it. A/B testing with digital ads, where you test ads with varying content, can be incredibly valuable when determining which messaging or content resonates best with your audience—and often for reasons you can’t foresee.

Also, testing your ads before you implement them is critical. More times than I’d like, I’ve seen brands with fantastic ads pointing to the wrong pages, 404 pages, or with messaging targeted to an audience that I’m mistakenly segmented in. Take the time to make sure your ads appear as they should and direct users to the right pages. When little mistakes like this happen, not only have you wasted the resources spent for this particular campaign, you’ve also adversely impacted the user-experience. This extra moment of testing can save your company a lot of money in the long run.

17. Think long-term, branding results are never immediate

Branding is like a wave – what begins as a small ripple grows into something much larger and more powerful as it picks up momentum. Pull the plug on your branding efforts too early and it will never reach its full potential.

Most branding campaigns produce very few results in their early stages, but grow into valuable marketing assets over time. It’s important to think long-term when you start developing a brand for your business, as results are never immediate.

Start small and grow your branding efforts over time, publishing new content and releasing new ads, videos and marketing messages on a steady schedule. As your target audience becomes more familiar with your brand, you’ll start to see results in direct website traffic and conversions.

Branding requires constant upkeep and attention in order to be effective. Treat branding like a short-term campaign and you’ll fail to make measurable progress. View it as a steady, ongoing process and you’ll eventually develop an extremely valuable marketing asset.

18. Create Responsive Website

Many companies try to create a great experience for customers. But few are willing to make the changes required to deliver on that promise. In fact most don’t even realize just how bad their experience can be. This is why we lay special emphasis on User Experience Revolution through responsive websites.

Responsive Web design is the approach that recommends that design and development should respond to the user’s behaviour and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation.

To learn more about digital marketing, creativity and technology and how to implement simple fixes that drive results, contact us today and we will put our best foot forward to help you achieve your desired objective.

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