Carly Bortz, Administrative/Communications Assistant
Forget the hand shake and cut the small talk—people form a first impression of online content in a mere 50 milliseconds, (Medium/Marketing and Entrepreneurship). That’s a short amount of time to grip your reader.
Even more startling is that 81% of people skim online content and read at most 20 to 28% of words during the average visit. There are two problems you’re faced with on the short end of this straw: getting more viewers and, most importantly, engaging those viewers so they choose your business every time. But how do you keep viewers engaged in 50 milliseconds with 28% of your content?
There isn’t an easy answer, but here are 5 simple ways to boost your online presence and make a great first impression on the web!
- Utilize Email Marketing
Social media platforms have more niche audiences which can alienate some of your customers that don’t participate. Email marketing is the best route because it’s the most direct way to reach all of your customers. But, you have to use email marketing the right way for it to be effective.
Don’t spam! If you send too many emails, your customers won’t care about the value of what you send. Since the average office worker receives an average of 121 emails per day with 50 percent of those emails being spam, dress up your email to stand out in their inbox.
Use Free Email Automation. Try using free websites like Constant Contact or MailChimp to help you create personalized campaigns from a variety of free templates. Build lists to target specific audiences, and track the marketing progress of every email you send to see how viewers respond to your content.
Get creative with the Subject Line. The subject line stands between the garbage can and the flag as important option. Make sure it’s catchy and pushes the most important information forward. HubSpot has some great examples!
- Showcase the Experts
Build rapport with your audiences and feature industry experts in collaborative content. This could be a video interview or a blog article with multiple professionals quoted. Whatever the medium, this is a great tool to show readers your network and authority.
Promote and Link. If each contributor shares the link to this content, you’ve already reached a multitude with a simple click! This means more followers, views, features and so on.
- Borrow content
When your gears are grinding, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Share content from businesses and industries that are doing the same things as you, or dig the web for market stats that speak to your industry, just make sure it’s engaging and that you give credit. HubSpot has a great blog for this.
- Provide Value
No matter what avenue you use to display content, always provide consistent value. What are your customers looking for? Always create content that answers the needs of your audience.
- Write for Audience and Web
Get inside the mind of your customers. It’s likely your business has a diverse audience and they don’t all want to know the same information. Craft separate content for each audience. In order to bridge that 28 percent words read gap, get to the point and don’t use highbrow language.
For questions and comments on all things communications, contact NLEA at 231-582-6482 or email carly@northernlakes.net.
