Using these cutting edge tools will help you stay ahead of the competition and drive sales through the roof.
Keeping up with what is trending is harder now than ever with various social media platforms and avenues for content. Don’t get left behind; check out these tools to help you stay on top of new developments.
Making the most of these tools and their features is key to boosting sales.
The Top Ten Tools for Optimizing Online Trends to Increase Sales
1. SEO and VSO
SEO is the fastest way to make sure searching people find your brand. Each search, however, gives you insight on what customers want to know or need now. Focusing on SEO, then, not only means gathering intel on customers to make sure they find you, but it also will show you trends of searches and help you anticipate what’s to come.
An offshoot of SEO is VSO, or Voice Search Optimization. With more users making use of voice commands and searches to various smart devices, VSO is a rising trend in itself by delivering results quickly and efficiently. The added bonus of gathering spoken data is the potential for a sense of context that may not be available through keystrokes while also being more user-friendly for customers.
Optimization of all types of searches ensures your brand is accessible and available when customers are searching while giving you a sense of what customers want in live time. SEO and VSO are both tools and trends that keep you on the cutting edge of customer needs. Each search gets you closer to understanding what customers want, and using the searched information to further tailor your brand to consumer needs adds value to your brand.
2. Social Media
While this tool seems obvious, there are more platforms today than ever. “Going viral” could span just one platform or cross over on several mediums. While it can be difficult to predict what hashtag is buzzy enough to warrant investment by your brand, having a presence and strategy for each platform is crucial to watching customers interact with your brand directly.
In addition, hashtags, locations, stories, and posts that are popular within your target demographics are a great way to focus your trend-seeking efforts into a manageable scope. Looking within hashtags you feel best suit your brand and industry might also spark ideas for new campaigns and tactics to market to your audience.
Planning for social media is also a tool for boosting sales because by planning out the core elements of your social media strategy in advance, you free up time and resources to jump on trending topics. By having an established voice with consistent and quality content, an audience will already be present before adapting to the trend.
3. CRM Software
By capturing customer and visitor data, you’ll be able to track patterns and adjust strategies in ways that will help you stay ahead of the curve. The most efficient way to collect data and convert it into usable information for planning and strategizing, you’ll need a CRM software tool. As a bonus, many CRM softwares offer additional analytics of the market at large that you can use to compare the information you collect to better detect and track patterns.
Organizing customer data will quickly prove indispensable for scaling and converting sales. There are dozens of softwares capable of this feat, from Google to Salesforce. Each has different capabilities, benefits, and quirks. There is no “right” answer for which software to use, but choose one that centers on important information for your industry that’s also easy for you and your team to use. Without having a way to manage incoming data, you won’t be able to convert new leads into sales with speed and efficiency.
4. Data Analytics
Understanding where the leads you manage with CRM software come from is an underrated skill that is vital to boosting sales. “Knowledge is power” is a saying for a reason. Data analytics are both a way to determine trends within your company, within your industry, and within the world at large thereby transforming your sales metrics.
Running analytics on visitors can including learning about the average age, gender, and location of users which both helps you get to know your current customers while also showing you what isn’t working with your target demos. Surveying times your site is visited, both time of day and number of visits, can help you predict when to schedule new posts, product releases, and other next steps. This information in relation to other businesses in your industry can also show where your business or strategy may be missing the mark.
5. GoogleTrends and Reddit
Reddit’s slogan is “the front page of the internet.” While that is open to interpretation, several webpages, from Quora to Buzzfeed, are users' go-to webpages when they look for new information. Familiarizing yourself with your target demographic’s most-visited sites for trends and developments will give your brand the extra edge of being “in” on the latest trend. Adjusting your marketing based on stories and memes on sites like these help make your brand relatable. Don’t forget to check local news outlets or bigger news organizations preferred by your target demo to see what information forms their knowledge base.
For sites like GoogleTrend, tools like these can help you find out what general groups of people across several regions are searching for, which can also be very informative. While people may search Google to follow up on trends and stories they hear from other sources, Google searches and other search criteria can tell you what audiences are thinking about, almost like reading the minds of customers. This intel can help your brand anticipate and meet needs ahead of the competition.
6. Trade Papers/Outlets
It never hurts to brush up on expertise from your own field, so subscribing to trade papers and blogs that are rife with cutting edge, industry-specific information is an excellent tool. Most consumers aren’t experts in your trade and what you have to offer, so anchoring the knowledge you share with them with data from trade papers or news outlets specific to your industry will show that your brand is well vetted and a wise consumer choice. A bonus would be establishing yourself as a respected thought leader to position your brand to be trustworthy within your industry, which will convert leads into sales.
7. Influencer Marketing Strategy and Collaboration
Influencer marketing has become a major trend in and of itself through the pandemic, but there are no signs of that stopping. Quite the contrary, influencers are a valuable resource for engaging directly with audiences and creating content tailored to trends means that by seeing influencers as a critical tool for converting sales instead of just a fad means collaborating with creators that already keep their fingers on the pulse to what is trending and popular. By finding influencers that not only fit your brand but love your brand means being able to trust them to promote your brand in the trendiest, most relatable way without extra effort on your part.
8. In-House Brainstorming
If you have a workplace full of dynamic people who have trusted in your brand enough to build it, they also may have creative, innovative ideas for making it better! Especially if your workplace is built on diversity, you may already have a sample audience from which you can source ideas about what is hip and trending for various demographics within your office! Create a place for colleagues to share ideas or even seemingly offbeat things they find interesting, and you’ve got an extra tool for insights on what is new here and now.
At the same time, pretending like the competition doesn’t exist or have good ideas is foolish. Keeping an eye on what direct competition is doing can help inform your own ideas and perhaps provide inspiration for recapturing attention and brand interest.
9. Chatbots
For some customers, time being of the essence could be why your business is their go-to choice. Maximizing your visibility could be as simple as making sure you’re available. Given that the internet makes business hours more like 24/7, use chatbots integrated with capabilities to solve basic problems and inquiries to meet customer needs no matter when or where they are. By being available, you’re able you collect more data from customers and plan better for future trends to see what will work best. Remember, data is power!
10. Personalized Interaction with Customers
A tool that is unique to your brand is how you interact with customers. In a highly saturated market, personal connection is more valuable than ever. In a flooded inbox of messages clamoring for customer attention, cutting through the noise with a personalized marketing strategy based on your data helps boost your sales by maintaining your connection with customers. This open communication will then keep you at the forefront of a consumer’s mind. Coupling this tool with the others mentioned will give you that extra edge to stay ahead of trends.
Bonus Tool?
While many of these items might have already been in your toolbox, knowing how to use them is equally important. Sometimes learning how to use tools from an expert is the best way to grow quickly. Luckily, our team at ULS has all the right skills to help you build the strategy of your dreams to take your business to the next level. Contact us today to get started on building your empire.
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