Demand-Side Platform (DSP) vs. Supply-Side Platform (SSP)

There are two types of ad exchange platforms: the demand-side platform (DSP) and the supply-side platform (SSP). These two platforms both perform the task of buying or selling media space; however, DSPs are used by advertisers while SSPs are used by publishers.

DSPs are set up to help the advertiser reach their target audience. These platforms rapidly analyze the user’s search history and engagements to match them with a selection of suitable advertisers. Advertisers then take part in real-time bidding with the winner obtaining the impression, or displaying their ad to the user.

Real-Time Bidding (RTB) vs. Programmatic Direct

With real-time bidding, advertisers have the opportunity to advertise to the audience they choose. Prior to bidding for an impression, the publisher provides details about the user – primarily their search history, allowing the advertiser to decide whether or not the user is worth bidding on and how much.

In a programmatic direct advertising arrangement, the advertiser is guaranteed a certain amount of media time but has less say in the users it advertises to.

What’s An Ad Exchange and How Does it Work?

An ad exchange is an online platform that facilitates programmatic advertising. It’s essentially an online marketplace in which buyers, or advertisers, can purchase online advertising space from sellers, or publishers. There are a variety of ad exchange platforms, including Verizon Media, AOL, Smaato and Intex Exchange.

When a transaction takes place, it involves several steps:

User visits a website, views a video or streams music online
The buyer (advertiser) places a bid on that users’ impression
The highest bidding buyer wins the impression
The ad of the winning buyer (advertiser) is shown to the viewer or site visitor
Once these steps are complete, the hope is that the user will click the ad and purchase the product or service being advertised.

Benefits of Programmatic Advertising

There are many benefits to using programmatic advertising instead of purchasing specific ad space. This includes reaching a wider audience and of course, users who are more likely to turn into conversions.

Reach more users at a lower cost

Using ad exchange allows advertisers to reach users across multiple websites and streaming services without purchasing media space in a lump sum. By purchasing media on a user-by-user basis, advertisers can go where the users are without doling out large payments for premium advertising space.

Reaching more members of a targeted audience

Since advertisers have the opportunity to purchase advertising space in smaller amounts on each website and streaming services they advertise on, it gives them more opportunity to chase users who are likely to engage with their ads and potentially purchase their product or service.

Reach engaged users

Users who are actively using a website or streaming service are already engaged with their device, meaning that they’re usually easier to advertise to effectively. This is especially true when compared with mediums such as print and direct mail advertising.

Access to real-time advertising results

Most demand-side platforms (DSPs) offer advertisers access to instant reports. These reports may display a wide array of statistics, including impressions, conversions, and user details such as location, search history and when possible, age and gender. Additionally, reports usually include detailed information about how keywords and individual advertising campaigns are performing.

Growth and the Future of Programmatic Advertising

As mentioned earlier, programmatic advertising has grown exceptionally in recent years. In fact, as recently as 2018, more than 80% of mobile ads were purchased via an ad exchange. While the majority of programmatic ads are displayed to the user on the web or in streaming services, mediums such as television and radio are beginning to adopt this method.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Programmatic Advertising appeared first on Upward Commerce.

While the company continues to gain momentum in the online marketplace, it continues to have major competitors in each category it operates in. Netflix continually tops the charts when it comes to video streaming, while Google Home products outsell Amazon’s Echo products. This gives promise to online retailers hoping to enter a highly competitive online marketplace. Although Amazon continually ranks high in overall sales, there are several major retailers that have continued to thrive in the e-commerce community.

Competing with Amazon in a Cutthroat Marketplace

All bets are off when it comes to online selling. While Amazon’s market share is huge, it’s not unheard of to see small, unknown retailers swoop in and climb the ranks in specific sales categories. Just the same, major retailers still maintain a massive share of the market in other categories.

Here are some of the top competition Amazon is facing today:

Online Stores with Niche Products
There are millions of e-commerce sites conducting sales transactions every day. The successful shops tend to focus on a unique product catalog, a particular consumer segment, or offering a better version of an existing product.  Individualized service, a greater range of product knowledge, and an overall quality user experience can increase consumer confidence and loyalty, bringing your business ahead of the competition.

AliExpress and Alibaba
AliExpress and Alibaba are Asian companies that provide wholesale, low-cost goods in a broad range of product categories. While AliExpress is available to all consumers, Alibaba’s business is focused on providing wholesale goods to businesses across the globe. The company had 755 million active users as of June 2019 and continues to grow. On November 13, 2018, which is known as Singles Day in China, the company sold more than $30 billion in product.

Walmart
Walmart is king when it comes to brick and mortar retail stores, and its online presence isn’t far behind. The company ranks second in the U.S. when it comes to online stores and sees an estimated 40% in sales growth each year.

Otto
Otto is a European-based online marketplace with a product range that’s similar to Amazon and Walmart. The company deals in brand-name merchandise in categories such as fashion, housewares, and electronics. While the company’s sales don’t come close to Amazon’s yearly revenue, in 2019 it generated an estimated $3.8 billion in sales.

Newegg
Newegg is a successful online retailer that focuses on providing electronics, such as laptops, TVs, and cameras, at an affordable price. The company generates an estimated $2.7 billion in revenue each year, which shows its ability to compete with Amazon in the electronics space.

Flipkart
Flipkart was founded in 2007 and in 2018, the majority of its shares were acquired by Walmart. While the company is still young, it boasts more than 100 million users and was valued at an estimated $22 billion.

Rakuten
Rakuten is a Japanese company that continues to acquire e-commerce companies at the speed of light. The company has recently added Ebates to its roster, which connects consumers with discounts and cashback for shopping at retailers directly through its app or website. The company has also taken over e-commerce sites such as Play.com, PriceMinister, and Kobo.

eBay
eBay is the original online consumer-to-consumer marketplace. The company has long been a place where consumers sell their unwanted goods to others, but in recent years its evolved to allow business-to-consumer transactions and in terms of site visits, the company now ranks second in the U.S.

How to Compete with Amazon

Considering the examples above, it’s easy to see how many companies can compete with Amazon when it comes to specific categories, and in some cases, even overall sales. Many small businesses and start-ups have successfully built recognizable brands that compete with the biggest players in the online market. Here are a few tips to get your business on the path to success:

• Create a consistent, recognizable brand
• Retain your customers with customer loyalty programs and follow-ups with previous buyers
• Build a database of customer emails and engage in email marketing
• Use techniques such as keyword research, link building and category descriptions to build an SEO-rich site
• Make sure that your website is user-friendly and promotes a positive online experience to visitors
• Don’t be afraid to offer deep discounts occasionally, but make sure your profit margin is reasonable
• Prioritize conversions over traffic
• Make it easy for your customers to return items they’re not satisfied with
• Offer free, two-day shipping
• Promote and sell your products across multiple online marketplaces

There are a lot of things Amazon is doing, but there are marketing & acquisition channels that Amazon does not do well at such as email & content marketing. This is an area where you can shine and set your business apart.

The post How to Compete with Amazon Online appeared first on Upward Commerce.

What is Buyer Intent?

Buyer intent is a broad term that describes a collection of analytics that pertain to the way a buyer shops online. Essentially, it helps marketers identify which prospects are more likely to buy. The buyer in this case, may be a business or a consumer, depending on the industry, and buyer intent data provides metrics including demographics, email open rates, engagement rates, behavioral data and keyword searches that can be used to determine how this person or business is shopping and using the internet.

How Can Buyer Intent Data Be Used to Drive Sales?

With the right information, such as buyer intent data, marketers have the ability to create customer-focused campaigns that create desire and urgency for consumers. Using this information takes the guesswork out of advertising and provides marketers with detailed information about their target audience and allows them to discover unknown sales leads.

Companies such as Marketo and Eloqua provide first-party intent data, which is data that specifically tracks your own website, while third-party intent data, provided by companies such as Bluekai and Bombara, provide detailed information about user behavior throughout the entire internet. Using a combination of first and third-party intent data, marketers have the information required to create new and innovative marketing tools that can increase sales when used correctly. Using this information, marketers have the opportunity to:

• Create personalized and targeted advertising campaigns
• Utilize account-based marketing strategies
• Build targeted account lists

In addition to the marketing strategies listed above, which are proven to be among the most successful, marketers can use buyer intent data to make an impression on new customers early and leave a lasting impression which, according to Forrester, a market research firm, is a significant advantage. A recent study conducted by the firm determined the first vendor to make contact with an interested consumer will get the sale 85 percent of the time.

Simply put, using buyer intent data gives companies a competitive edge that hasn’t previously existed in any marketplace. Using these statistics, companies can drive revenue using extensive customer insight and behavioral analytics to market their advertising campaigns to appeal to the specific needs and wants of their ideal customer at the right moment in the sales funnel.

The post How Marketers Can Use First-Party Intent Data to Drive Revenue appeared first on Upward Commerce.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) supports these expectations with its prediction of a 4.3 to 4.8 percent increase in overall retail sales throughout November and December of 2018. This equates to between $717.45 billion and $720.89 billion in retail sales for the 2018 holiday season.

Internet Retailer has also projected a 15.5 percent increase in e-commerce sales throughout the holidays this year. This increase in traffic and sales gives digital marketers the chance to drive sales throughout the entire year by diligently serving their customers’ needs. The best way to do this is by analyzing and integrating current market trends and efficiently handling any conflict or challenges and ensuring the satisfaction of each customer that makes a purchase.

The guide that follows offers advice for meeting the needs of your customers this holiday season by meeting each challenge with confidence. With this guide, you’ll also gain an understanding of shopping trends for the 2018 holiday season and learn how to effectively execute marketing strategies that appeal to the masses.

Retail Trends in 2018

2018 has been a revolutionary year in online shopping. With record-breaking sales throughout the country and highly effective marketing techniques, 2018 has been wildly successful for many online retailers. Here are some of the biggest shopping trends we’ve seen in 2018, and some of the best methods that you can use to increase your sales this holiday season.

Wishlists and Gift Guides

According to the NRF, 63 percent of consumers would like access to online wishlists. The process of creating a wishlist is similar to the creation of a wedding or baby registry — while browsing online, shoppers can add an item to their online wishlist with one simple click and provide the link to their wishlist to anyone who desires access.

For online marketers, the integration of a wishlist on their website is an effective way to attract holiday shoppers. The addition of a gift guide with the option to add the items listed to a wishlist can make shopping simple for customers, but it’s also useful for increasing sales. By adding trending items, holiday favorites, or bestsellers to gift guides, the likelihood that site visitors will result in conversions increases vastly.

Product Recommendations

Ingraining simple algorithms into your website that provide shoppers with recommendations of similar and popular products may be one of the most important marketing tactics for e-commerce businesses. Product recommendations provide online shoppers with a simple way to navigate your website without browsing through thousands of product pages to find what they’re looking for.

Marketing Promotions Across Multiple Channels

While e-mail marketing is an effective strategy throughout most of the year, most customer’s seen a massive increase in marketing e-mails starting on Black Friday that doesn’t let up until after the holiday season is through. During the holiday season, in particular, it’s important to consider marketing and offering promotions via other channels. Instagram and Facebook offer simple to use advertising tools that can be targeted to a customizable audience. Combining social media marketing with mobile marketing and a positive in-store experience for those with traditional retail stores can be the key to driving sales over the holidays.

No-Hassle Returns

According to the NRF, 75 percent of shoppers research a company’s return policy before checking out their cart and 22 percent abandon their cart due to a bad return process. Offering your customers a simple and hassle-free return process is a crucial step to take when building customer loyalty.

Free Shipping

64 percent of customers cite free shipping as one of the driving factors that influence their decision to make a purchase online. It’s also worth noting that shipping costs are the number one reason online shoppers abandon their carts. Offering free shipping to your customers can be a major game-changer for online retailers when it comes to increasing sales.

Key Marketing Strategies

Increasing sales throughout the holiday season relies heavily on marketing, and there are several key strategies that should be deployed by digital marketers in order to increase sales to their full potential and to build and maintain positive, long-term customer relationships.

Re-Vamp Your Personalization Strategies

Throughout the holiday season, personalization gets tricky. Shoppers are often new to your site and have only visited to purchase for a loved one, and often your frequent shoppers are buying for someone else and unfortunately, personalized recommendations are meant for the individual shopper.

Personalizing e-mail send times is a helpful way to ensure that your e-mail marketing strategy has a better chance at reaching your customer, and providing personalized recommendations via e-mail is the best way to increase conversions from your e-mail marketing strategies.

When it comes to personalizing product recommendations on your website, it’s best to provide a variety of recommendations that suit the tastes of different shoppers. Highlighting bestsellers, trending products, holiday product trends, and new products instead of tailoring recommendations to the shopper’s buying habits.

Make use of other techniques such as abandoned cart follow-up e-mails, transactional cross-selling (offering product recommendations with transaction and shipping confirmations), and incorporating a holiday gift guide into your product recommendations.

Mobile Optimization

Many holiday shoppers prefer to enjoy their shopping experience on their mobile device. In fact, eMarketer research predicts that mobile shopping will contribute 34 percent to sales growth this holiday season. This is why it’s absolutely crucial to invest in a website that’s fully optimized and responsive. Make use of push notifications that notify your subscribers of flash sales, VIP events, and holiday promotions and use personalized send times to increase the chances that your customer will engage with the notification.

Follow Up on Abandoned Carts

An estimated 70 percent of shopping cart contents remain unsold. Shoppers abandoning their purchases is the top problem online retailers face, and it’s a difficult one to solve. While no retailer can save every shopping cart, following up on abandoned carts has shown to be effective in saving many sales.

Creating urgency is one of the easiest ways to prevent carts from becoming abandoned. By using language for promotions and items such as “2 days left” or “almost sold out”, customers are more inclined to complete their purchase to avoid missing out on the items they want. Following up on abandoned carts with similar language either by e-mail or push notification is a reliable way to bring many customers back to complete their purchase.

Create a Simple, Fast Checkout Process

The checkout process is one of the most important parts of the online shopping experience. Making the process simple for the customer is important. Using social logins, such as a login/sign up with Facebook button is a good way of doing this. If your site uses promo codes, make sure that your customer can easily see where to enter the code and show them clearly what they’re saving. Lastly, make your shipping options clear and free or inexpensive. High shipping fees are the number one reason customers abandon their carts and is a sure way to guarantee they won’t return to shop with you again.

It’s incredibly important to begin the checkout process to first ask for the customer’s e-mail address. This is the best way to ensure that you’re able to follow up if the customer abandons their cart or experiences any problems during checkout.

Vary Your Discount Offerings

Discounts are one of the most effective ways to draw customers into your store, however, if you offer the same promotions on a regular basis, you’re actually sabotaging your sales throughout the rest of the year. During the holiday season, it’s best to offer a variety of promotions and discounts that keep customers guessing, otherwise, they may wait to purchase items on sale if they’re aware of the discount you’ll be offering.

Make the Best of the Holiday Season

Using the strategies above along with marketing strategies that have worked well for you in the past, you can increase your sales exponentially during the holiday season. Being the busiest time of year, the holidays are a great time to build loyal customer relationships and promote your brand to the masses in order to increase your sales during the holidays, as well as throughout the remainder of the year.

The post Holiday Marketing Guide for Brands & Online Retailers appeared first on Upward Commerce.

As per a survey based on 3000 online customers across 10 different countries, it was found that 72.4% of consumers preferred to use their native language when shopping online.

Moreover, 56.2% of customers confessed that having information in their native language is even more important than the price.

Considering the above data, there is no doubt that you must localize your website depending on your target countries in order to improve your sales across the globe.

Building Multilingual and Multi-Currency Websites

Adding multilingual and multi-currency support to your existing website can be challenging especially if you don’t know the basics. I recommend opting for a platform like WordPress to create your website having both multilingual and multi-currency support because it’s easy, fast and secure. Here are the steps that you need to follow:

• • Choose a suitable host and install WordPress.
  • Select an ecommerce theme of your choice depending on your products and niche.
  • Choose a plugin like WooCommerce to turn your website into an online store where you can sell anything seamlessly
  • Now, install 2 more plugins namely, WPML and Currency Converter Widget. WPML will translate pages, posts, custom types, taxonomy, menus and even the theme’s texts. Moreover, with the help of the Currency Converter Widget, you have the option to set common currency pairs such as USD/EUR and conversion is automatically made as you type without the need to hit ‘Enter’.

Use Hreflang To Tell Google About Localized Versions of Your Page

When you are offering multiple local versions of your webpage for users then you need to tell Google about these variations. The Hreflang tag is the preferred way to explicitly indicate your language or region-specific URL.

Here is the syntax of the link element that you need to add in the header section of each page:

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”lang_code” href=”url_of_page” />

Here is an example of a sample code that needs to be added into each page to enable Google to correctly understand the localized versions of the webpages.

<head>

<title>This is my multilingual website</title>

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-gb”

href=”http://en-gb.mysite.com/page.html” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en-us”

href=”http://en-us.mysite.com/page.html” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”en”

href=”http://en.mysite.com/page.html” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”de”

href=”http://de.mysite.com/page.html” />

<link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”x-default”

href=”http://www.mysite.com/” />

</head>

Make sure to add the above code under the head section of each of the localized pages depending on your target countries and regions.

You can use the International Targeting Report in the Search Console to monitor your hreflang errors, or to choose a country that should be prioritized for your search results.

Benefits of Multilingual and Multi-Currency Website

1- Better User Experience

Do you wonder why Google is available in most of the regional languages across the world? Because it helps to improve the user experience. If you present users with the option to browse your website in one’s own language then they would be more comfortable viewing your website.

2- Improved Organic Visibility

Offering your website in different languages improves its organic visibility. Search engines will index content in different languages for German audiences, Chinese, Indian, USA, etc. and it will rank the content higher up in the local search results leading to a massive organic boost in SERPs.

3- Increased Conversions

When you allow users to browse the products or services in their own language, they are able to understand the content better, leading to improved conversions. Moreover, when customers have the option to make a payment in their preferred currency, then they can easily commit making a purchase.

4- Helps to Build Credibility

When you translate your website in different languages, it shows that you care for your audience. Your customers will start loving your brand and this will increase your word of mouth referrals resulting in improved brand credibility.

5- More International Sales

When you offer the option of multi-currency payments, chances are it will lead to higher international sales. This will make your business internationally more popular and help you establish your brand worldwide.

6- Ease in Preparing Financial Statements

If you have different websites for different countries then you will have a hard time preparing financial statements at the end of every financial year because you will need to prepare separate profit and loss accounts for every country. However, when you have a single website offering multi-currency options then you can easily prepare financial statements based on the base currency value as selected by you.

Final Thoughts

Opting for a multilingual and multi-currency website is one of the best ways to improve user experience, increase sales and establish your brand internationally.

The post Improve User Experience By Having a Multilingual and Multi-Currency Website appeared first on Upward Commerce.

Nowadays, most businesses have understood the importance of having a blog. A well-maintained blog is able to drive lots of traffic and help to serve as a brand channel to connect with customers. Still, most of the traffic doesn’t always generate leads!

It is frustrating as a business owner to see lots of traffic under Google Analytics but alas without any potential leads! So, how do get more leads from your blog? Here are 4 ways to make it happen.

1- Insert Live Chat

Live Chat is an effective tool at initiating a conversation with a reader. A reader might be curious about your product or services but needs more information. Popping up a Live Chat window at the right time and instilling confidence in your reader could easily convert them into a customer.

Live Chat makes it easy for your customers to get answers right away. 64% of consumers expect real-time answers at anytime.

2- Use Effective CTAs

CTAs that pop up after a fixed period of time or after some scrolling have higher chances of converting compared to popups that are immediately thrown into the face of visitors before even having a chance to read an article. Here is an example popup that appeared on a blog post after some time had passed. This is a great way to capture an email address (lead) and work it through one of your funnels to convert it to a customer.

James Scherer from Wishpond, a skeptic of popups, crunched the numbers and determined that popups produced at least $91,000 in revenue each year. His blog received more than 1,000 email subscribers in less than 3 weeks.

Here are 3 types of CTAs that are found to be the most effective:

● Inline CTA : An Inline CTA is placed within the body of a blog post, but only after the information related to the offer in the CTA has been placed above the CTA as shown below.

● Bottom CTA: The bottom CTA is placed at the end of the blog post and usually contains a subscription option or a digital product related to the post as shown below.

● Sidebar CTA: The sidebar CTA is placed on the side of the post to give away evergreen digital products, services or tools. The static sidebar signup form is also an effective way to generate leads from your blog. An example is shown as:

3- Add a Hello Bar to Your Blog

Hello Bar spotlights a customized message at the top of your blog that is designed to attract, encourage and turn your readers into valuable leads.

You can encourage your visitors to sign up to your email list, subscribe to your feed, register for an event or utilize an offer through the hello bar.

You can easily track engagement on your blog as a it gives you the ability to track the number of clicks it gets.

4- Enable Opt-in Forms

Gather more subscribers by enabling opt-in forms on your blog. When visitors like your content or services offered, they will seek ways to stay in contact with you. This is where opt-in forms come handy, as it helps to collect information from visitors.

Opt-in forms below the posts help in boosting conversion rates. After reading a post, an opt-in form at the end of the article can hook them before exiting your site.

You can even integrate popup forms within your blog in different sections in the following four ways:

● Exit Overlay: By using exit pops you can easily regain the attention of readers who are about to leave and turn them into potential leads. Look at an example below that uses the Opt-in Monster plugin:

● Time Intent: Offer visitors an option to download various digital products or services you have to offer by integrating a popup that shows up only after the user has spent a certain time on your blog. Let’s have a look at the below example of a timed popup, as used on Chris Brogan‘s blog. This one is currently timed to appear after 25 seconds.

● Scroll Intent: Provide your users an option to download some helpful guides only after they have scrolled down the page to a certain section.
● Sticky bars: A sticky header, footer, or sidebar are great sections for an opt-in form since they’re always present. For example, ProBlogger added a top sticky subscribe bar and their subscribers went up by 25%. See below.

Converting your blog traffic to leads can be simple, just place optimized CTAs in the right location at the right time.

What can Upward Commerce do for your business? Contact us to find out.

The post 4 Surefire Ways to Convert Blog Traffic into Leads appeared first on Upward Commerce.

Awareness

This step involves using methods of inbound marketing to bring leads into your website. When people visit your site for the first time, they may not even realize they have a need for your product or service. You, therefore, want to focus all your energies on trying to grab their attention so that you can provide them with some information to gain their initial trust. Content marketing can help you introduce yourself, show people that you understand their problem and have a solution to fix it.

The Awareness stage is where you GET FOUND.

How? Blog, PPC, Search, Social Media, Email

Consideration

Once visitors have identified a need, they will begin to look for alternative options to address it. They will start to add and subtract brands as they evaluate what they want. It is the perfect time to capture their e-mail addresses thus giving you a way to make follow-ups and possibly generate a lead if you can provide value. Sending out periodic newsletters, free reports or e-course is an excellent way to build a stronger relationship with your prospects.

Decision

At this level, the consumer selects a brand at the point of purchase after surveying the competitive landscape of the product/service, e.g. pricing, trial offers, etc. Of importance here is to create backend products that solve your customers’ greatest problems.

Incorporating Buyer Personas into the Sales Funnel

A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing clients. Understanding your buyer personas enables you to target or personalize your marketing campaigns for different segments of your audience. To create your personas, consider including demographic information, goals, motivations, buying behavior, hobbies and interests of your clients. For instance, you could have a buyer persona named Maggie. Maggie could be a 29-year-old who uses YouTube on a daily basis. She prefers Google over Bing and loves to surf the internet for health, fashion, and beauty related sites. In this case, you can fine-tune your marketing strategy to fit the persona’s profile. With Maggie being a lover of YouTube, a video based Ad focused campaign would help get your message out. You will also want to use Google Ads over Bing ads and generate more content on health, fashion, and beauty-related topics.

Optimizing your sales plan can feel like a daunting task, but it’s something you may need to do as you go along. For a more successful & well-thought out sales funnel, establish all the possible ways that people enter your funnel so you can identify their origination point. Look out for details like where they come from, their personas and the point they are at in the purchase cycle. Once this is done, make sure they are kept engaged with relevant blog posts, free video content, social media profiles, etc. Lastly, use tools like Google analytics to analyze the page statistics such as the time spent on page, most clicked links, entry and exit paths, etc. With time, effort and focus, you will see huge improvements in the performance of your site.

The post Creating a Sales Funnel for Different Buyer Personas appeared first on Upward Commerce.

Borrow or Purchase a Fellow Marketer’s Subscriber List

It takes time to build an email subscriber list, buying a spot on a list or piggybacking off a subscriber list can save time, increase your reach and reduce the overall cost of customer acquisition. First, you need to find a brand that fits with yours, or is mutually complementary with your service or product. Then, together you can develop a plan that will work for both of you. You may decide to trade email lists, they may feature your information within their email, or they may tell their readers why they are in love with your service or product. And of course, you can reciprocate.

Integration with Other Products or Platforms

Building a customer base from scratch can be difficult, but it’s possible to build on work others have already completed. An example is Spotify who took that first leap of faith and integrated their products into Facebook’s news feed. It took off like wildfire. Other successful integrations include Ebay with Paypal; and Airbnb with Craigslist. Integration can be a dynamic shortcut to growth. You’ll need to do a bit of research to find the perfect fit, but you’ll have a ready-made potential customer base to work with.

Buy an Established Website

Growing a website is hard work. You’re constantly working to obtain more traffic, leads and customers. Acquiring another website is an excellent way to speed up this type of growth. Look for a well-established website that is designed to reach your target audience. Make an offer, and purchase the site and then migrate their content over to your domain. You can use 301 redirects to get all the content and backlinks pointed at your domain. You’ll get a huge SEO boost and all the traffic they worked to obtain and you’ll be acquiring an entire customer base, increasing the size of your market share and eliminating competition in a single move.

Engineer Viral Elements into Your Product/Service

Ideally, building virality into your product means increasing user acquisition without increasing the cost per acquisition. It may sound simple enough to create shareable content and include “share” or “invite” buttons to make it easy for users. While viral growth means lowering the cost of customer acquisition, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Virality has to be engineered into your site and brand. Think of it more as an element and not just a design principle or possibility. Don’t leave it to chance, integrate it into your system and make sharing a natural, appealing and easy step for users to take. You may experiment with referral programs and ways to share benefits with other users to make it attractive for both the sharing and receiving audience. Make it fun to share and engage with your brand.

Co-branded Content and Shared Leads

Co-branding content involves sharing content to a shared audience. When you join forces with another marketer to address your audiences as one, it cuts the work in half and doubles the reach for both of you. Again, you’ll want to partner with a brand that fits well with yours and you’ll both need to have a level of appeal with both audiences to be effective. Your products need to provide more benefit to both customer bases and you can collaborate on your marketing efforts and execution.

Offer Free Trials

Offering free trials can attract new clientele as well as increase brand loyalty from your existing customers. Consumers like free trials and it allows you to demonstrate the value you have to offer them. To boost conversions, free trials need to be well thought out and well planned. Consider the cost and how long you need the campaign to be to convert. They are not meant to last forever, just long enough to be effective. Clearly state your terms and conditions to avoid confusion and help establish trust with your customer base. Make your offer visible, create interest, generate engagement and make sign-up easy to ensure participation.

Email Marketing

Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools for both customer acquisition and retention. Make sign-up easy to build your list and increase your reach. Personalization is the primary influencer behind a successful campaign. To maximize email marketing, it needs to be tailored to fit your audience, always considering your user/reader first. Not only does content need to be personal, engaging and relevant, it should be shareable. Also, note that mobile visitors make up more than half of your traffic so optimizing for mobile devices is essential.

The post 7 Customer Acquisition Strategies that Lead to More Customers appeared first on Upward Commerce.