Content Marketing 101: Blogging and Email Marketing
Ok, so you have got your website up and running (hopefully it is well optimised for search engines and you are ranking on page 1 for your selected keywords) and now your looking for additional online marketing strategies to increase traffic to your website.
Well, to help you with your research, we've identified some key practical online marketing tactics which you can implement to drive traffic to your site and hopefully convert visitors into customers!
Content Marketing
Content marketing refers to the fresh, relevant and informative information you provide to your prospective customers in a non-interruptive, non-salesy way. It is often educational in nature, leading your prospective customer to make an informed sales decision.
Content types include but aren't limited to blogs, whitepapers, email marketing, video tutorials, e-books, case studies, infographics, podcasts, virtual conferences… the list goes on. But to keep things nice and simple, we'll expand on blogging and email marketing.
Blogging
Managing a regular blog is one of the most effective ways of ensuring you have fresh content on your site. It is important that your blog establishes you as a 'master' or 'authority' in your field. This way you are showing not only your prospective clients that you know what your talking about, but it also proves to Google and other search engines that you are offering relevant content, with regard to specific keywords - which, if it is done right, will improve your search engine rankings, and therefore increase traffic to your site!
You may be able to add a blog to your current website, or it may already have one built in if you're using our favourite content management system, WordPress.
Email Marketing
One of the fundamental marketing tactics for every business in 2012 should be the development and implementation of a regular email marketing strategy to engage current and potential customers.
Not only is it a cost-efficient way to promote business/product news, but email marketing offers business several advantages:
- It builds a tangible business asset - a database of clients, or prospective clients. This asset can add extra value to your bottom line.
- It offers businesses a way to target specific market groups with specific messages;
- It provides a platform for businesses to share their knowledge within their field of expertise;
- It has the ability to drive sales through increasing brand awareness, and encourages loyalty and advocacy; and,
- It supports other marketing initiatives as an additional campaign tool.
As you know, it is easier to retain customers, than find new ones – and the best way to retain your customer base is to communicate relevant and highly targeted messages to your customers regularly by using an Email Marketing Service Provider.
Here's a complete list of Email Marketing Service Providers for your perusal… We can highly recommend looking into MailChimp which is what we use. It's easy and free for small businesses who have less than 200 subscribers, with affordable plans as your email database grows over time. Other EMSPs that we've have heard good things about are Aweber, Constant Contact, iContact and Vertical Response.
Need help with your content marketing?
If you think you may need help setting up a blog or email marketing for your tourism business, contact us to discuss your requirements today!