Advertising through the digital medium has become an indispensable part of the marketing strategy of businesses large and small. Digital marketing provides brands with new and improved ways of increasing brand awareness while helping them reach out to a vast majority of existing and potential customers through the click of a button or the swipe of a finger. Setting up accounts and running advertising campaigns across search engines and social media pages are often simple, quick, and easy, which make digital marketing an effective tool for even companies with shoestring budgets. What’s equally appealing is that the medium also provides the opportunity to showcase your brand and offerings to a worldwide audience than just a localized set, but at the fraction of the cost of what you would typically spend on print media. With a little time, money, and effort, digital marketing in China can give you great returns. Here are five tips to help you in this regard.

1 – Define the right audience

To be able to sell your product or service, you need to identify the right target consumer. When applied to digital marketing, these consumers or potential ones become the audience for your online advertisements. Using a few defining features like the age, gender, profession, city of residence, etc., you can narrow down on the right set of people who the marketing campaign should be delivered to. Defining your audience not only helps reach target consumers more easily but also checks and spends that may otherwise overshoot from delivering the ads to people who are least interested in buying your product or service.

2 – Set a realistic budget

When growing your brand inorganically through digital marketing, it is necessary that you earmark a certain amount of money for advertisement and promotions through various online channels. However, to ensure that you spend the money prudently, set aside a specific budget for all digital marketing efforts. Split this across channels and media. Monitor the performance of your ads, campaigns, etc. to see which of them performs well and gives you the best returns. Even when ads are running, fine tune them when they fail to deliver expected results.

3 – Tap into the power of social media

The influence and reach that social media has on the people today makes it a lot easier for brands to target their potential consumers through such platforms. Web and mobile apps that rely on texts, microblogs, images, and video content to connect people online, actually help you connect directly with customers or potential ones while being available for them round the clock. Social media lets you create your own brand pages, promote them, and have direct conversations with customers, thus helping your brand build stronger relationships and better awareness about your product or service offerings. The feeds of such pages are also great means to announce new arrivals, offers, contests, special discounts, updates and alerts that entice customers. Vice versa, they also let your customers have conversations with friends about your brand.

4 – Use PPC advertising

The pay per click format is a highly sought-after and well-used format of advertising. This allows you to market your product or service based on specific keywords and you get charged typically when a customer clicks the ad displayed. PPC advertising is seen across search engine and social media marketing formats but may vary based on the provider or region. For instance, Chinese digital marketing typically uses Baidu PPC campaigns to reach out to the Chinese audience while Google is popular with Western countries.

5 – Leverage the power of customer reviews

Online reviews play the role of word-of-mouth referrals. Almost anyone today uses customer reviews as authentic means to gain information and to make decisions about purchasing a product or availing a service. Having more positive reviews not only improves your credibility but also enhances your visibility as people search for your business or similar ones through online media. Better customer reviews also mean improved results from digital marketing efforts.

The next time you set up or run a digital marketing campaign, keep in mind the above-mentioned tips and apply them to your digital advertising efforts to reap maximum rewards.