Business has one goal: to make money. It’s what differentiates the nonprofit world from the for-profit world. Money, or the lack thereof, is also what separates successful businesses from the millions of businesses that close every year.
It’s not always the business with the best product that wins. Businesses sell crappy stuff all the time but somehow still make a profit. Sometimes what makes the difference is the marketing strategy and the tools you use to implement it.
Here are three tools to consider to help your marketing strategy reach its full potential.
Find a New and Hungry Niche
You can have the best graphics, witty slogans, and clever social media content and still miss your sales goals. Even the most amazing marketing strategies won’t’ work if you’re talking to the wrong group of people. Maybe you just need to focus on a different niche.
Demographics help marketers determine the best niches possible. But none of this is an exact science. Choosing the right niche is only an educated guess based on the available data you have. So make sure you have the best data available.
Uber suggests keyword suggestion tool has a few interesting features that help businesses uncover what “buying” consumers are looking for. You can search by web, image, shopping, Youtube, and news and it shares results including volume and competition. This helps you to delve into categories you never thought of before. The search makeup tutorial shows a few possibilities like Arabic makeup, art deco makeup and even something called dad makeup tutorial.
The idea is to use every tool available to find the best target market. A keyword suggestion tool is a great way to dig into the search behavior of consumers and help you determine the best ways to crack into any niche.
Track Everything Better
Part of a better marketing strategy includes creating a streamlined system. When you’re running an online business, you probably use most of these tools:
Website or e-commerce platform
Multiple social media feeds
Payment processor (like Paypal or Stripe)
Marketing automation software
Email or communication service
It’s incredibly time-consuming the track all your important tools at the same time. That’s why the business dashboard Cyfe helps us to see the big picture. You build your dashboard with the tools you use and that gives you a snapshot of exactly where you are every day. One feature that’s helpful for monitoring sales is their widget goal abilities. You’ll always know if you’re under or over your sales goals and can take immediate action to change marketing tactics.
Stop Giving Up On Lost Sales
You have an interested buyer. He’s spent the last hour filling up his shopping cart. But something happens at the last moment and he chooses not to buy at the last minute.
This happens all the time. In fact, the average abandoned cart rates is almost 70%! Yet, you don’t have to give up on these sales. In fact, this is probably these are the exact people you’re looking for.
The majority of e-commerce platforms, like Shopify and WooCommerce, offer some kind of abandoned cart solution. For example, Shopify has Jilt which can help increase profits by 15% just from following up with consumers who left items in a shopping cart. You can offer an extra discount or maybe free shipping. Sometimes consumers are just comparing prices, but sometimes customers can be gently nudged back to your sales page.
The service your e-commerce platform offers is probably not free. But a 15% increase in profits will probably offset the low monthly cost of abandoned cart solutions.
Tweak Your Marketing Strategy Anytime
You have a million options when it comes to marketing tools for your online business. Most are great at what they do, but it always comes down to the user. You can have the best features but they won’t help you improve sales unless you know how to use each tool to implement your strategy.
The idea is to use each tool to help you achieve your goals. For example, the keyword suggestion tool could easily be overlooked as just an SEO tool. But why not use it to uncover a new niche?
Stop thinking about marketing tools as the solution to your sales problems. There are no secret marketing bullets no matter what the marketers say. Instead, start thinking about your marketing vision and creating the best possible plan that you can afford.