Online retail is one precious asset; it significantly contributes to the overall business strategy of a company. Working in online marketing for The Genuine Gemstone Company I know a little about being established on TV, our brands GemsTV and Rocks TV are strong in the UK and USA respectively. Our current fan base, the shopping savvy, fashion conscious society seek online retail as well as TV.
"The company’s No.1 appearance in the Fast Track 100, is testimony to their skill and determination to succeed" – says Sir Richard Branson in The Sunday Times.
Without being connected to our audience through brand websites, social media, emails and other forms of online marketing, we wouldn’t have achieved our sales growth of 245.36% per annum. Being a Sunday Times Fast Track 100 winner is proof that there is success in online retail. Determination and proven ability to deliver sales and grow as a company only underlines expertise in creating a solid and sustainable business model.
Here are some tips in working in online marketing.
Organic SEO
Paying attention to the mark-up information within the development aspect of a digital retail platform enables users to create search engine friendly websites. SEO is going to enable all of the below.
- Enable websites to be crawled and rated as healthy
- Position for credible Author Rank to emerge with the provision of consistent blogging
- Your products to be featured in the Google products shop window
- Google map to be permitted and vindicated, Google real estate like this is an asset
- Permit all white hat organic SEO organic keywords to improve your overall rankings
- Hire a team of in-house specialists or digital marketing agency to build rankings
PPC SEO
PPC is advertising like you never seen it before. Knowing your return of investment or ROI via a Google profile enables quick access to all you need. The definitive are a higher spike of onsite visits. You do not even need a very prolific organic campaign.
- Select keywords to target and bid on the best viable assets
- Investments in singular popular words lead to wins but stakes are high
- Long tail keywords yield less visits but create a list of them
Email Marketing
Capture your customers email and construct a directory. It is that simple, quick to program and if you haven’t already done it, get started and right away! Easy, and simple, email marketing improves clicks, visits and a structured presence in the customers mind. It puts you into the control of your guests, pointing them into and through the sales funnel every time you email.
- Email seasonal, weekly and for national events to put a spin on your marketing projects
- Create new promotions every week, promote, sell, convert
- Use email software such as Mail Chimp, connected to analytics for all reporting on email
- Develop an email strategy, then refine it week by week, use your results data to good use
Social Media
Interactions through social media are more effective then you may think. Creating a fan base on Facebook, Twitter etc. assists in building SEO, whilst the marketing ability is limitless. Used correctly and a full time task for your company, this is a very effective tool for marketing, sales, technical support and customer support.
- Ensure you use a logo as your profile picture, and create a header banner
- Use your brand name as your Facebook username and handle if you are on Twitter
- Use your brand name in your Twitter bio, and add a link to a white paper in your bio
- Create competitions and get fans to post pictures of pets, cars, products etc. for prizes
- Get fans to like your social media profile to improve Google authority
- Promote events, shows, launches for new products and other press releases
- Add your website's URL to your profile
- Use your brand name as your hashtag and include it in all Tweets
- Encourage cross promotion across similar brands from social partnerships
