Long-Term Marketing Tactics You Need To Invest In
Some marketing strategies are designed to get instant results over a short period. These include promotional emails, social media ads, telesales, sales events and ‘limited offer’ ads.
Others are much more long-term – sometimes taking weeks or months to have an impact, but guaranteeing a slow and steady flow of customers. These long-term marketing strategies can require a lot of patience, but can often pay off in the end. Below are just a few examples of long-term marketing tactics that could be worth investing in.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing strategy used to increase a company’s rankings on search engines like Google and Bing. Higher search rankings can mean more website visits – and often more customers.
There are many factors that can affect a webpage’s rankings including use of keywords, use of links, page load speed, word count and even image file names. An SEO agency will be able to help you explore all of these factors in order to make each webpage as SEO-friendly as possible.
SEO typically takes 3 to 6 months to have an impact. Investing in ongoing SEO will keep your rankings consistently high.
Loyalty schemes
Loyalty schemes are designed to keep customers coming back. They usually promise a reward such as a discount or freebie if a customer makes a certain amount of purchases or uses your service for a certain length of time. Loyalty cards, air miles and no claims bonuses are all examples of loyalty schemes.
There are various ways to encourage customers to take advantage of loyalty schemes including handing out cards, encouraging customers to download apps or simply letting customers know through emails. You can even surprise loyal customers with discounts and freebies (such as birthday rewards).
It’s important that loyalty schemes are profitable – if you’re giving out huge discounts too soon to loyal customers, you could make a loss. At the same time, they need to be attractive enough that people will want to come back to take advantage of them. This guide to loyalty schemes explains more.
Networking events
Knowing the right people can be important for encouraging recommendations. By constantly networking, you can make more people aware of you and your business – some of these people may convert into customers, while others may be able to recommend you to friends or clients.
The best way to meet people is to attend networking events. This could include joining local business groups and attending meetings, talking to people at trade shows and conferences, or even talking to people at local non-business events.
Business cards
Business cards are typically handed out while networking. They are a quick way of providing your contact details to prospective clients. While they can get short-term results, you could find that they also help you to attract customers a few months or even a few years down the line.
There are lots of services online for designing and printing off business cards.Consider carrying around a few business cards with you wherever you go in case you meet a prospective client.
Radio jingles
Radio jingles are designed to stick in your head, and can be used to help attract customers over time. They typically involve singing a company name, slogan, website or phone number to a catchy melody in order to make it more memorable.
When producing a radio advert, it’s often worth incorporating a jingle for this reason. Jingles can also be incorporated into video ads. There are companies you can use to write and perform a jingle.
Continuous PPC campaigns
PPC (pay-per-click) adverts are sometimes seen as a short-term form of marketing. These are the online ads you find all across the internet – you pay for them to display until a certain number of people have clicked on them. These clicks can sometimes turn into customers, however there is another way in which PPC ads can convert customers.
PPC ads are great at simply building brand awareness. A prospective client may continuously see your advert and become familiar with your company name. If they ever need to use your company, they may then be more likely to use your company.
While PPC ads only display until a certain number of people have clicked on them, you can keep relaunching new PPC ad campaigns. Posters, flyers and billboards can have a similar effect, however PPC ads typically have a wider reach and can be more cost-effective.
