3. Invest In Your Email Marketing
How often does your business send out a press release? How often does it reach out to existing customers about the latest product releases or news about your company? If you aren’t feeling the love from influential websites and online personalities or seeing a big return from online sources, you may need to up the ante on your email marketing game. You should invest money in a good email marketing manager–such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, or Campaigner–but in a good branded email template and in building a decent list for your business’ target audience, whether it be retailers or consumers.
4. Hire a Good Social Media Manager
Getting into social media is the easiest and most cost-effective way you can invest in online marketing. It costs hardly anything to start a Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram or YouTube account and you and your business could see a big return from interacting with your customers on a regular basis through different social media platforms.
“ We’ve just kicked off social media to have a broader presence there in January. Just as with the imagery, you need to be reflecting the users who are coming into it, you also need to be speaking to them in the platforms they are truly comfortable using,” says Kelly Michols, president of STG Lane.
Make sure you use these different social media channels regularly and that if you have no idea how they work, hire an marketing, communications or journalism intern from a local college to help you build traction.
5. Create an Online Video
Videos account for the most popular form of content marketing now and a study from Cisco suggests that by 2019, video will represent over 80 percent of all internet traffic. Videos in email can lead to a 200-300% increase in click-through rates, according to Forrester. According to NIELSEN Wire, 36 percent of online consumers trust video ads. 92 percent of mobile video consumers share those videos with others, according to Invodo. All of these stats should inspire you to invest time and some money in producing some online videos to promote your business. While the FDA rules may be a bit murky about advertising tobacco products, you are still free to shoot videos featuring prominent people representing your brand and can use them to talk about your product. Or do a Live Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat video showing off your latest product release, event, or maybe a predicate product people have forgotten about. With video shooting now capable and improving on mobile phones and devices, videos are a cheap and easy way to promote your business and get ahead of the trend.
For more marketing and business tips for tobacco businesses, be sure to bookmark tobaccobusiness.com and follow us on Facebook and Twitter @tobaccobizonline.
– Story by Antoine Reid, an editor and digital content director for Tobacco Business Magazine. You can follow him on Instagram @editor.reid
