Investors are feeling bearish on digital advertising lately, according to a TechCrunch article that says venture capital investment in ad tech startups has declined by nearly 80% in the last five years.

A probable cause of VC disinterest is the growing market share of Google and Facebook. It’s no secret that the two companies control the majority of digital marketing spend and are only growing stronger every year.

Between the first quarters of 2016 and 2017, Google advertising revenue grew $1.9 billion in the U.S. and swallowed half of overall growth in ad tech. Facebook displayed strong performance as well, growing by $1.2 billion with a 33% share of growth.

The other 16% of growth was split between everyone else, representing $5.5 billion in advertising revenue in the first quarter. So if you have a tech portal, you are probably thinking about how you are going to increase your Ad revenue almost instantly. This article will provide you with enough information to achieve that.

• How can you Increase Revenue from Existing Customers?
• How can Digital Marketing Increase Revenue?
• How can I Increase my Online Sales Quickly?
• How do you Market a Startup Tech?
• What are 4 General ways to Increase Sales?

How can you Increase Revenue from Existing Customers?

Acquiring new customers is expensive and time-consuming. In fact, research shows that attracting new customers is 5X more expensive than keeping existing customers. Providing customer satisfaction isn’t a guarantee either, as between 60 and 80% of satisfied customers never make another purchase, according to Forbes.

Read Also: 5 Reasons why Pop-under Ads are so Effective

These factors highlight the importance of keeping existing customers over the long-run and encouraging them toward repeat purchases, increase their AOV (average order value), and harnessing their attitudes to bring in new customers through word-of-mouth.

You increase revenue from existing customers by fostering relationships with the individuals and businesses that buy from you. To market to your existing customer base, try these tips.

1. Research your market

Market research and analytics open doors to new opportunities within your existing clientele. By taking a deeper look into the market you serve, you can hone in on who your customers are and what they want.

Some tactics for increasing your knowledge of your customers come from a variety of source including:

• Gathering data by conducting a market analysis.
• Getting feedback through surveys, focus groups, and interviews.
• Listening to what customers say across social platforms.
• Reading trade articles and industry-related publications.
• Also, look at data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Economics & Statistics Administration.
• Mine data from Google Analytics to understand critical elements such as:
• Multichannel attribution
• AOV segmented by demographic and geographic attributes
• Customer journeys through your website also segmented by demographic and geographic variables
• Keywords driving the most traffic as well as your position in search for these keywords
• Set goals reflecting the ROI (or, more accurately, ROAS, which stands for return on advertising spend) of various actions on your website to determine the ROAS from each channel and each advertising message, the performance of your landing pages, and the contribution of other elements on your website

Studying your market helps you dissect your existing customers’ thought processes, their common pathways (journeys) leading to purchase, snags in the customer journey, and even identifying unmet needs that reflect opportunities for you to stand out from the competition.

2. Don’t disappear

Consumers have a lot of options, so it’s great when they choose your offerings over competitors’. But once you complete the initial sale, it’s important to stay in contact to build mutually beneficial relationships. With existing customers, it makes sense to follow up frequently by providing something of value, not just asking for a new purchase.

Marketing to current customers should be done with low-pressure conversations. You’ve already convinced the customer to buy from your business. Now, you just need to continue the dialogue.

Marketing automation, like Salesforce or Marketo and the others above, helps manage customer relationships over time by sending targeted messages based on prior interactions with individual customers. Hence, when you release a new product or update an existing one similar to one already purchased by the customer. a custom message provides this information.

For instance, when a product customers viewed on your website goes on sale, let those customers know. Or, when you add a new product related to prior purchases, send a message highlighting the fit or superiority of the new product to those already owned by the customer. If other customers encounter difficulties with a particular product, send all prior customers workarounds to improve their experience with the product.

But, don’t stop there.

You have customer contact information collected at the point of sale. Most regulations allow you to use that information for future communication. Don’t waste that access by sending continued sales messaging until your customers unsubscribe from future contact. Use tools like email, phone calls, and shoutouts on social platforms, such as Instagram.

Instead, provide something of value in each message. For example:

• Keep customers in the loop about things happening at your business. Customers love this peek behind the scenes.
• Share company-related news through storytelling, such as the story behind a new hire, philanthropic efforts by the brand, or its employees.
• Or celebrate a customer who did something remarkable even if their actions were unrelated to your brand.

3. Address customer needs

As a small business owner, you have an advantage over big businesses. By serving a smaller number of customers, you can offer a personal experience tailored to each customer. The individual nature of your interactions helps you find out what each customer needs then deliver on individual expectations.

What problems can your business solve for existing customers? The answer may come from many different sources, starting with simply asking the customer. You already gained their trust, so the customer is more likely to open up about their needs. Also, look at past purchases and customer demographics to anticipate potential problems.

• Offer a personal touch when marketing to existing customers. For instance, sending personalized thank you notes after a customer makes a purchase goes a long way toward building a relationship.
• Use the customer’s name in emails and phone calls, at a bare minimum, although tailoring messages to the needs and preferences of customers is easy with online platforms where groups of customers get selected messaging.
• Provide one-on-one support when a customer needs help. With chatbots and AI/ ML your customer support is available 24/7, 365 days a year to address customer needs, answer questions and provide feedback.
• And, in addition, to thank you notes, send reminders and birthday messages.

4. Update your offerings

As your business grows, your offerings change. Experience teaches you which goods and services sell and which don’t provide sufficient returns on your investment. Turn to existing customers when it comes to deciding what offerings to eliminate and where opportunities exist.

The items your customer base ignore are probably costing you money in more ways than one. Low sales items also clutter your business. By stripping away items that don’t sell, customers can focus on the products and services they want.

Offering a large variety of products in each product line increases the cognitive load that may lead to inertia that interferes with decision-making. We’ve all experienced cognitive overload when it comes to making a purchase decision by scrolling through page after page of offerings on Amazon or eBay. Similarly, a Google search results in pages of results that we manage by choosing from among those featured higher in the results, which is why SEO is critical for your digital success.

The rule of thumb as to the optimal number of choices goes something like the Goldielocks story — offer enough choice without offering too many options. In an empirical study by Nature, imaging determined the optimal number of choices is 12, while others support a number of choices between 5 and 9 (7 +/- 2).

Offering the optimal number of choices makes it easier for customers to make purchasing decisions and see the value in your offerings. However, there are ways to manage choice effectively to both meet individual demands while reducing overload by using filtering, sorting, and ranking, which rely on a clear understanding of what’s important to customers as well as databases constructed to allow customers to reduce the number of options based on criteria important to their decision.

5. Upsell and cross-sell

Existing customers offer great opportunities for upsells and cross-sells.

You’ve already gotten over the biggest hurdle, which is the initial buy. You’ve established trust and started a relationship, and the customer formed a favorable opinion about your business. Now, it’s time to ask, “What else can I do for you?”

An upsell happens when you convince a customer to buy more than they originally planned. Here’s an example of an upsell:

You own a pizza shop and a customer orders a medium pizza every Friday. You suggest they buy a large pizza so they have some leftovers for lunch on Saturday. Or, you suggest adding a dessert or breadsticks to their order. And, because the customer frequents your business, they’re more likely to agree to the bigger order.

Cross-selling is similar to an upsell. Instead of the same kind of item with a higher value, the customer buys a different product or service. Let’s say you own a salon. You might cross-sell a color service to a customer who usually gets a haircut or suggest they purchase the type of products you use on their hair in the salon.

Upsells and cross-sells are extremely valuable when marketing to existing customers. Usually, the more a customer spends at a business, the more often they return.

6. Create a loyalty program

Selling to existing customers becomes easier when customers feel appreciated. By offering a reward for choosing your business, you gain more repeat customers.

A loyalty program (which is somewhat a misnomer since these programs encourage repeat business rather than true loyalty) rewards customers for buying from your business repeated. Set up a loyalty program for your business to encourage customers to keep coming back rather than spreading their purchases over several competitors. To create the program, you could distribute cards or use an app to track customer purchases and rewards.

Usually, a customer receives points each time they buy something from your business. Once the customer reaches a certain number of points, they receive a reward. The reward could be anything you choose, like a discount or free item. A loyalty program pulls customers back to your company, increasing your bottom line in business.

7. Train a service-centric team

While great customer service alone isn’t sufficient to increase revenue from existing customers, providing poor customer service is a great way to lose customers — forever.

To successfully learn how to increase revenue with existing customers, you need to get everyone in your business on board. Let employees know the importance of establishing long-term relationships with customers and set management practices that reinforce your goals by rewarding employees who excel at providing great customer service.

• Create a service-focused environment by encouraging employees to take care of existing customers.
• Train new hires to help customers, and write a policy for handling complaints.
• When your workforce focuses on great service, you end up selling more to existing and keeping them longer customers.

A service audit, such as the one depicted below, helps identify potential areas where problems might occur.

8. Customer Lifetime Value

So far, we’ve proposed means to increase revenue from existing customers. Now we come to the narely topic of what to do with customers you don’t want, and believe me, these exist in many businesses.

Customers you don’t want include:

• Customers who purchase small quantities yet require premium pricing and/ or service.
• Buyers who are demanding and never satisfied regardless of the quality of your products and services

In the first case, you have options to increase revenue from these customers by tieing your pricing to the revenue generated by these customers. Commonly, businesses offer free shipping but only when sales volume exceeds some floor such as $50. The higher sale value offsets the cost incurred in shipping products.

You might similarly charge a lower price for buyers who purchase from you frequently, such as a lower cost charged to subscribers who autoship products on a schedule. Finally, you can offer premium services to frequent or high value buyers, such as offered through airline frequent flyer programs that offer upgrades to first class travel.

Getting rid of customers in the second category is much harder. It’s not like you ever want to provide poor customer service to any customer, regardless of their value to the brand. Poor customer service translates into negative word-of-mouth that damages your brand to both customers and prospects.

A better solution for these customers is to discourage purchases in the first place. For instance, remove them from your marketing automation system so they don’t get emails encouraging them to make a purchase.

9. Encourage customers to bring their friends and family

Your customers are your best brand advocates but don’t leave this valuable marketing tactic to chance.

• Proactively encourage positive posts from your customers by requesting reviews.
• Ask customers to share their purchases by including simple buttons that share their purchase across their social platforms.
• Encourage engagement by turning your social platforms into 2-way communication channels.
• Reward customers who share your content with a tip of the hat or some other reward.
• Host contests of Instagram or other social platforms that encourage customers to share pictures of them using your products.

How can Digital Marketing Increase Revenue?

The internet is increasingly becoming the primary place where people conduct their businesses.

Therefore it is essential to establish a solid digital marketing strategy to secure your revenue. In fact, it is becoming much easier and secure than ever before for businesses to establish their operations online. To keep up with your competitors, it is vital to understand what digital marketing is, and how you can use it to your advantage.

How to increase revenue through digital marketing?

Regardless of whether you are a small business owner or have a large-scale operation, there are digital marketing strategies that can help grow your revenue.

The key is finding one that works best for you, and doing what you need first to identify what your business goals are, what your targets are. From there, you can then begin to craft and tailor your strategy specifically to work for you. Each business will have a slightly different nature and depending on what risks are involved.

1. Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing (SMM), is quickly becoming one of the most effective ways to engage with your audience online.

In this digital age, most people will have subscribed to one of the many social media platforms on the web. It is where the majority of people spend their time catching up, connecting, sharing content with each other, and in some cases making purchases as well.

Therefore it’s in your best interests to be where your audience is and leverage the social media platforms. Some companies are selectively choosing which social media platform they want to build their brands around. Ideally, you want to be present on multiple platforms, especially the leading social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.

2. Business profiles

Many of the major social media platforms today have the option to create a business account.

These business accounts have additional benefits compared to the regular user accounts in that they have tracking tools built-in, and this gives you the option to promote content or posts to have extended reach and exposure of your brand.

However, having a business profile is only the first step. The next step is to create quality, meaningful content on your profile so that your audience can interact and relate to it. Also, having a business profile establishes the presence and awareness of your brand or business.

3. Increase engagement

Having a dedicated social media account for your business allows you a much greater ability to engage with your audience.

Higher engagement with your audience strengthens your credibility as a company and builds trust.

Also, one thing that most people use social media for, is to seek validation. Being present in social media means that your brand is connecting with its audiences, and this connection, in turn, will have a ripple effect. Depending on your type of business, you might also want to offer limited customer services through social media. The objective is to make your audience feel like their comments, are heard and listened to.

4. Diversify platforms

Some businesses are limiting their reach by selectively choosing only specific social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

It’s a good idea to diversify your reach on the different mainstream social media platforms available online.

Each of the social media channels will have a slightly different way of interacting with your audience. Instagram, for example, is a more visual platform where the emphasis is on micro-content and allows for more direct engagement between both parties.

5. Website optimization

Optimizing your website is a crucial aspect of driving more traffic and conversions. There are many technical aspects of web optimization that need to be routinely maintained in order to help you increase revenue.

Having an optimized website indicates that you’re a professional business owner and instills confidence with your users.

6. Cutting edge SEO

Having up-to-date and optimized SEO is a necessity to keep up your rankings with your competitors. It will improve your search-ability, rankings, and overall awareness of your products or services.

With increased awareness, more of your audience will see your business with higher credibility and builds trust over time.

7. UX oriented design

User experience (UX) should be at the forefront of your website design. As your website serves as a gateway and online platform for your business. It needs to be responsive, intuitive, and visually presentable. As a business owner, you want to create the best quality digital environment that instills confidence in your customers to lead to a conversion ultimately.

Another big part of crafting UX oriented design is making sure your site is compatible, responsive, and accessible to mobile devices.

Because more and more traffic is being generated through mobile phones and browsers. And to anticipate this increase in mobile traffic, there needs to be a cohesive, responsive design when users access your business website on the go. This consistency between the different platforms helps translate to a more fluid user experience that will ultimately lead to successful conversions.

8. Targeted Advertising

Take a step further in your digital marketing campaigns by tailoring them specifically for the audience you want to reach out to maximize revenue.

Targeted campaigns can be conducted through Google Ads as well as Social Ads.

Ideally, you want to target your ads to current customers that have already taken an interest in your product or services, because those have a higher likelihood for conversions, they are also much cheaper.

9. Google Ads

The Google Search Ads and display ads are an invaluable, low-risk, and highly adaptable resource for digital marketing.

Perhaps one of the best features of Google Ads is the ability for advertisers or business owners to tailor their ads based on a variety of parameters extensively.

Besides, advertisers also gather valuable data through Google’s dashboard. Google also implements a pay-per-click system where you only pay for the ads when someone clicks on them, meaning that displaying the advertisements themselves is essentially free.

10. Social Media Ads

As a business owner, one of the best things you can do to promote the growth of your business, and ultimately increase your revenue is by increasing the engagement of your business with your audience.

Social ads, which are deployed primarily through Facebook and Instagram, allow advertisers to interact directly with your audience.

Digital marketing is a powerful field that can support the growth of your business, and exponentially increase your revenue when appropriately used. One of the benefits of digital marketing is being able to gather data, and then adapt them to your ongoing campaigns. If a campaign isn’t working out for your business, you can adjust your parameters accordingly.

How can I Increase my Online Sales Quickly?

Increasing online sales is the primary goal of countless businesses, large and small alike. Whether you run a mom-and-pop retail business or work for a vast e-commerce giant like Amazon, increasing sales through online channels is a little like bowling a strike – it looks a lot easier than it actually is.

Fortunately, there are dozens of ways you can make more sales online, many of which you can implement right away. Some of these tips focus on specific strategies you can implement, whereas others are more generalized. We’ll now look at 10 such strategies, so whether you sell physical goods or run a service-based business, here are 10 actionable techniques you can use to increase online sales performance.

1. Be Honest in Your Sales Copy

This might seem painfully obvious, but it’s amazing to me how many sites write checks their products can’t cash. Not only is honesty in your copy crucial to your business’ reputation, it also fosters and encourages trust in your brand. Don’t make claims you can’t substantiate, and don’t use hyperbole lightly – today’s consumers are hypersensitive to marketing BS, so be honest, straightforward, and approachable in all your sales copy, from your homepage to your email campaigns.

This principle also applies to how you position yourself as a business. Ever come across a site that’s obviously run by one or two people, but features copy that would be better suited to a multinational enterprise company? This approach not only makes you look foolish, it also damages your brand’s credibility. If you’re a small company, take pride in that and be upfront about it – many consumers are turning to smaller businesses precisely because of the more individualized, personal service they can offer. Don’t try to be something you’re not.

2. Get More Ad Clicks with Ad Extensions

If you’re selling stuff online, ad extensions are a no-brainer – this feature (available in both AdWords and Bing) allows you to make your ad bigger with more places to click. And it doesn’t cost any extra! AND it increases your ad’s click-through rate! Amazing, right?

In the above example, the links to “Men’s Sunglasses” and “Women’s Sunglasses” give people who are looking to buy a new pair of Ray-Ban’s two additional places to click. This saves the potential customer a step and makes it easier and faster to find exactly what they want (so they go to your site instead of a competitor’s).

3. Show Off Customer Testimonials and Trust Signals

In today’s social media environment, customer feedback has never been more important. Fortunately, this means that your satisfied customers can provide you with one of the most valuable weapons in your arsenal – testimonials.

Legions of satisfied customers are considerably more influential than even the best-written sales copy, so make sure you include gushing testimonials and reviews from your hardcore brand evangelists gushing about how wonderful you are. These might appear on your product pages, landing pages, pricing page, even your home page. For more info, check out my post on the power of customer testimonials.

Similarly, the inclusion of trust signals can be an excellent way to increase online sales, as it creates a more favorable perception of your brand in the mind of the prospect and can potentially overcome hesitations preemptively.

If your business has any professional accreditations (even something as routine as a Better Business Bureau certification or membership to your local chamber of commerce), put these trust signals front and center on your site. If you have an impressive list of satisfied clients, make sure your prospects know about it.

4. Create a Sense of Urgency

It’s important to be honest and transparent about who you are and what you do, but there’s no rule against creating a sense of urgency to persuade prospects to buy from you right now.

Many consumers respond positively to incentives that create a sense of urgency, from time-sensitive special offers to limited-edition products. Although the ways you can accomplish this are as diverse as the products you can buy online, some strategies may be more effective than others. For example, if you don’t (or can’t) make a limited-edition product to entice prospects, maybe you can offer a financial incentive to customers who commit to a purchase right away, such as free shipping or a discount.

In AdWords, you can use ad customizers to display a countdown on a seasonal offer or limited-time sale:

However you choose to do it, creating a sense of urgency is a great way to increase online sales.

5. Offer a Bulletproof Money-Back Guarantee

Oftentimes, one of the most powerful factors in a consumer’s decision not to buy something is risk aversion – the desire to avoid a potential loss. Most times, this perceived risk is a financial one. Why should someone buy your products? What if they don’t work, or the customer doesn’t like them? Even small purchases can carry the risk of “buyer’s remorse,” so overcome this objection from the outset by offering a bulletproof money-back guarantee.

The more risk you remove from the prospect’s decision, the more likely they are to buy from you, so take away anything that could dissuade prospects from buying from you.

6. Offer Fewer Choices

To many businesses, this concept is simply unthinkable. Surely offering more products is a great way to increase sales! Well, not necessarily. In fact, in many instances, a greater variety of choice can lead to indecision on the part of the prospect, which in turn results in lost sales.

If you have a wide range of products, consider structuring your site or product pages in a way that offers visitors as few choices as possible. This reduces the possibility that the visitor will be overwhelmed by dozens of different products.

This can be accomplished by arranging your products into increasingly narrow categories (an added bonus of which is offering visitors greater ease to find exactly what they’re looking for), or you could place greater emphasis on fewer individual products. Either way, remember that the more choices you provide, the more likely a customer is to bounce and go elsewhere.

7. Target Lookalike Audiences on Facebook

One of the best ways to increase online sales is to use the data you have about your existing customers to find people just like them. Facebook allows you to do this through the targeting of lookalike audiences.

Lookalike audiences in Facebook are essentially users on Facebook who share characteristics and behaviors to customers in your database. You upload your data to Facebook, which then cross-references its own data (and information from third-party data brokers) to create matches based on the criteria you specify.

You can also use tracking pixels and data from app installations to help you create lookalike audiences. This is an excellent way to make the data on your existing customers work for you, as it effectively allows you to greatly expand your reach with minimal effort and use highly targeted ads to entice Facebook users who are very similar to your existing customers.

8. Reduce Friction in the Checkout Process

According to Business Insider, approximately $4 TRILLION worth of online merchandise was abandoned in incomplete shopping carts last year alone, of which 63% was potentially recoverable. This is a truly jaw-dropping statistic and one that reveals how crucial it is to nail your checkout process.

Similar to the point above about user experience, reducing friction in your checkout process can have an incredible impact on your conversion rates. Just as you should make it as easy as possible for visitors to use and navigate your site, you should make it even easier for them to actually buy what you’re selling.

Eliminate any unnecessary steps in your checkout process that could dissuade a prospect from converting. Skip unnecessary fields in forms. Don’t time them out and make them start over from the beginning. Here are some more tips on battling shopping cart abandonment.

9. Provide as Many Payment Options as Possible

Okay, so your business takes credit cards. What about Google Wallet payments? Or ApplePay? What about Stripe? WePay?

Consumers have more choice than ever before in terms of how they actually pay for goods and services, and not everyone prefers to use American Express. By offering more payment options, including newer services that are becoming increasingly popular on mobile, you’re making it easier for prospects to give you their money.

Sure, it can be a hassle to optimize your site (and checkout process, as we discussed above) to include all these options, but doing so is a great way to increase online sales, particularly if your site has strong mobile traffic.

10. Invest in Quality Product Images

There’s compelling evidence that well-presented food actually tastes better than sloppily plated dishes. Given how important appearance is in relation to how we perceive things (including other people), it stands to reason that investing in quality product photography will have a similar effect on visitors to your site.

Regardless of what you sell, include high-quality images of your products – no tiny thumbnails or poorly lit shots taken in your stock room. Also be sure to include a wide range of images. It might seem overkill to include shots of your products from every conceivable angle, but try it out. People love to kick a product’s proverbial tires before buying, especially online.

How do you Market a Startup Tech?

A great product is half the work; advertising is the other half. If you want to grab people’s attention and make a reputation for yourself, you’ll need a solid marketing strategy to get the word out. The chances are good that you’re up against competition either from established competitors in your industry, or from other startups. That means cutting through the noise will be a challenge.

The good news is that marketing done right can help to cater to your target audience whether you’re B2B or B2C and whether you offer a product or a service. With a little effort and the right toolkit, you can catch people’s attention, introduce them to your brand and convert a social media follower into a customer. Here are nine ways to do just that.

1. Display advertising

Display advertising might seem like an old technology, but it’s still going strong and arguably experiencing a renaissance thanks to the rise of programmatic advertising. It’s now easier than ever to reach the right people with a message that resonates, and if you’re not using display advertisements to serve up re-marketing messages, you’re missing out on potential revenue.

When getting started with display advertising, it’s a good idea to test your ads across multiple platforms including Google, Facebook, Bing and LinkedIn. Tailor your messaging and imagery to each platform and run variants of the same ads to figure out what works best.

You’re likely to find more success on one ad network than another, and it also depends on what your goals are. Just make sure your advertisements will produce tangible result so that you can measure their performance and overall return on investment (ROI).

2. Paid search

Paid search is different from banner advertising because it allows you to anticipate the intent behind a search and cater to it accordingly. Informational queries tend to be cheaper to bid on and are a good choice if you’re looking to generate leads by offering whitepapers and webinars. Transactional queries tend to be more expensive, but they’re also more likely to lead to a direct conversion.

For best results, test messaging that caters to both of these intent types and run your ads on both Google and Bing. Remember that while display ads are better suited to raising brand awareness, paid search tends to be more expensive. As such, you’ll want to make sure that it’s leading to some sort of tangible value somewhere down the line.

3. Organic social

With recent discussion about paid social and the fact that Facebook followers sometimes don’t even see updates unless you pay to boost them, we tend to forget that there’s a lot to be said for organic social media and the simple act of taking part in a community.

Organic social media takes many forms, from joining the discussion on a trending hashtag to publishing articles on LinkedIn and empowering employees to act on your company’s behalf. Participate in Facebook groups and answer questions on Quora. At the same time, seek out discussions that are relevant to the solution you offer and find a way to help out.

Rather than jumping in and immediately trying to sell your product, provide legitimate value to those seeking help. A good faith effort is often reciprocal; by giving to others, they will be interested in what you have on offer.

4. On site activity

Your website is an owned asset that you can exercise control over, which means you can affect everything from the order in which it loads to the signals it sends to both users and search engines. The most effective marketers are those who know that they’re never done and there’s always something left to optimize.

Search engine optimization, split testing, conversion rate optimization and other techniques will all help you to make the most out of your website. Better still, when you improve your site’s overall conversion rate, it’s a gift that keeps on giving; you’ll continue to reap rewards for months and years to come.

5. Content marketing

Content marketing is a key element of an inbound marketing strategy, a style of online marketing that relies on bringing customers to you through the creation of high-quality content that they actually want to consume. The idea is that interrupting people with billboards and magazine ads no longer works and that it’s a better plan to create the kind of content that they’ll actively search for.

Content marketing covers videos, imagery, audio, written content and more. It can be educational, entertaining or inspirational depending upon the context. But the good news is that you’re probably already doing some form of content marketing whether you realize it or not.

The field of content marketing is so vast that it takes a whole course to cover the best techniques. But in reality, getting started is very easy. Simply connecting a blog to your website, and writing content to share with social media followers is a big step in the right direction.

6. Direct email

Email marketing might seem like old news, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t powerful. In fact, building and nurturing an email list is vital for any marketer because it’s another owned asset that they can maintain full control over. You can take it between providers without a problem and even use your email marketing list as the basis for records on a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

Email is powerful because of its low barrier to entry (you can get started for free with a provider like MailChimp) and because of its automation and personalization options. Test out many different emails, from happy birthday messages to license renewal reminders.

7. Special events

Special events are great because they allow you to bring people together around a common cause. The kind of events that you put on will depend on the specifics of your tech startup and the areas that you deal with, but one thing to bear in mind is that if you’re struggling to host events of your own then you may be better off offering to sponsor someone else’s event.

Remember also that events come in many different shapes and sizes, from pop up demos at industry conferences to huge parties and product reveals or even just private networking events. Some companies even hold experiential events in high-profile locations and use any ensuing footage to make campaign videos for further marketing material.

8. PR campaign

Public relations can help all sorts of different companies, but tech companies are particularly well-suited for PR techniques because new technologies are a hot topic that people want to read about. Some startups are able to work with a professional PR company, which is usually the best option if you lack expertise internally, but there’s still plenty you can do on your own if you just want to get the ball rolling.

Get started by drafting a press release about your company, making sure that it includes an angle that other people will find interesting. It’s also helpful to get acquainted with the journalists who work for publications that cover your industry and develop and amicable business relationship.

Eventually, you can establish yourself as an expert that they approach for comment. The links this will enable you to pick up will give you a huge boost when it comes to your website’s search engine rankings.

9. Guerrilla marketing

Tech is about taking risks and trying things that others have completely overlooked. Likewise, guerrilla marketing and social hacking are about thinking outside the box and finding new ways to get the word out about your company.

The basic idea is to use non-traditional methods of advertising; if you were a trendy clothing brand for instance, you might consider graffiti art (wherever legal) as a low-cost, high-impact marketing hack that other companies would not be brave enough to risk. Netflix left cryptic messages on the Turkish version of Reddit to advertise the show Black Mirror.

There are no rules when it comes to guerrilla marketing, which makes it perfect for ambitious tech startups. This also makes it impossible to define or to tell you how to get started; the best advice is to try everything you can think of and see what sticks, even if that means doing things that other companies would never even consider.

When it comes to marketing your tech startup, you only need to worry about the basics at first. As long as you understand your target audience and how prospects are ushered along the buyer’s journey, the sky is the limit.

Remember that in the end, marketing is about building long-term relationships and not just securing a quick sale. The good news is that if you manage to create those relationships and build a community around your brand, it will payback for years to come. Just look at how quick people are to buy the latest Apple product.

What are 4 General ways to Increase Sales?

If you want your business to bring in more money, there are only 4 Methods to Increase Revenue: increasing the number of customers, increasing average transaction size, increasing the frequency of transactions per customer, and raising your prices.

Read Also: Why Ad Relevancy is Important in Boosting Your Website Revenue

Believe it or not, there are only four ways to increase your revenue:

1. Increase the number of customers.
2. Increase the average transaction size.
3. Increase the frequency of transactions per customer.
4. Raise your prices.

Imagine you’re operating a restaurant, and you want to increase the amount of revenue that that restaurant brings in. Here’s how to apply these strategies:

1. Increasing the number of customers means you’re trying to bring more people in the door. This strategy is relatively straightforward: more visitors to your restaurant will equal more tabs, which (assuming the average transaction size stays the same), will bring in more money.
2. Increasing average transaction size means you’re trying to get each customer in to purchase more. This is typically done through a process called upselling. When a customer purchases an entree, you offer them appetizers, drinks, and dessert. The more of these items the customer purchases, the more they spend, and the more revenue you collect.
3. Increasing the frequency of transactions per customer means encouraging people to purchase from you more often. If your average customer comes in once a month, convincing them to patronize your business once a week will increase your revenue. The more frequently they visit your establishment, the more revenue your restaurant will bring in, assuming the average transaction size stays the same.
4. Raising your prices means you’ll collect more revenue from every purchase a customer makes. Assuming your volume, average transaction size, and frequency stay the same, raising your prices will bring in more revenue for the same amount of effort.

Remember the lesson of Qualification: not every customer is a good customer. Some customers will sap your time, energy, and resources without providing the results that you’re looking for. If you’re spending a lot of energy serving customers who don’t come in often, have a low average transaction size, don’t spread the word, and complain about the price, it doesn’t make sense to attract more of those customers.

Always focus the majority of your efforts on serving your ideal customers. Your ideal customers buy early, buy often, spend the most, spread the word, and are willing to pay a premium for the value you provide.

The more ideal customers you can attract, the better your business.