In 2017, online marketing is no longer a passing fad but rather a necessary tool in any digital marketer’s toolkit. The digital marketing landscape is changing as consumers are shifting to a more mobile-centric lifestyle and seeking engagement in real time. In order to capture their attention, marketers must develop innovative strategies that allow them to engage with consumers where they are—on social media.

One such innovative strategy is credit card marketing. While the practice of offering credit cards to consumers for marketing purposes is quite old, the ability to target the right audience with an inventive offer has enabled savvy marketers to rise to the top.

Here is how digital marketer can use credit cards to their advantage.

Offer Popular Cards To Catch The Audience

Offering a popular card is one of the best ways to engage with consumers on social media. The reason behind this is that people are more likely to be familiar with, and more likely to click on, an offer that they are more likely to want to receive. While there is certainly no harm in offering a card that is not popular (in fact, this can be beneficial for promoting a specific product or service), the key is in getting the right audience in front of your offer. You can use tools like Google Analytics to learn about the cards that your target audience is most interested in.

Use Social Media To Its Full Potential

To ensure that your digital marketing efforts are effective, you should be taking full advantage of the various platforms that you are subscribed to on social media. You should be using each of these platforms to promote your product or service, engage with your audience, and connect with new people. While these are all essential tasks, you should also be thinking about how each of these channels can benefit your overall marketing strategy.

For instance, if you are using Twitter, you can use the platform’s advanced tools to track the conversation regarding your product or service. This can help you identify the types of messages that your audience is responding to and allow you to refine your approach to better connect with your audience. You can also follow people who are influential in your industry as well as those that have an impact on your target audience. Doing this can expose you to new ideas and help develop your own opinions regarding the future of your industry.

On the other hand, if Facebook is your primary social media channel, you can integrate your product or service into the platform’s many engaging features. You can create different types of ads (i.e. text, image, or video ads) that target different types of audiences on Facebook. Creating different types of ads allows you to choose which one will work best for your specific needs.

Use Email Marketing To Reach The Right Audience

Thanks to the prevalence of email marketing, you have an incredibly valuable tool at your disposal for connecting with potential customers. To make the most of this valuable resource, you need to follow a few simple guidelines. Before you begin your email marketing campaign, you should consider the email client that your target audience uses. Also, you must ensure that you have an opt-in list for your emails.

The first step in establishing an effective email marketing strategy is to consider the email client that your target audience uses. While there are many benefits to using email marketing software, the main advantage is that you can reach a large audience and have them view your emails from any device. Due to advancements in email marketing automation, the process of collecting emails is no longer difficult. Nowadays, you can create customized emails and send them out to a large audience without needing a massive physical list.

With this in mind, you must ensure that you have an opt-in list for your emails. You can do this by asking visitors to provide their email address when they visit your site. If they provide it, you can send them email notifications regarding new products, discounts, etc. Alternatively, you can put a sign-up form inside your email newsletter that collects emails en masse. Remember to get permission before you send out any promotional emails. Doing this ensures that you are not breaking any laws and maintains the trust of your audience.

Experiment With Different Forms Of Payment

In previous years, accepting payment via credit card was pretty much restricted to online stores. However, recent years have seen a rise in cash-back based offers as well as offers that require payment on delivery. If your target audience is familiar with these types of offers, you can bet that they are also familiar with related charges such as credit cards and interest rates. While it is certainly beneficial to cater to your audience’s needs, it is also important to look for ways to reduce unnecessary spending. One way of doing this is by experimenting with different forms of payment.

For example, if you are offering 20% cash back on grocery purchases, you can bet that many potential customers are going to be tempted to try this offer rather than a traditional credit card. Even if they are unsure of what cash back is, they will likely have heard of it or seen it before.

Target The Right Market

As we established earlier, the best way to develop an effective online marketing strategy is by targeting the right audience. To do this, you need to consider the platform(s) that your target audience uses, as well as which cards they are most familiar with. Additionally, you must look for ways to reduce unnecessary spending and maximize revenue.

For example, if your target audience is more familiar with Amex than any other card, you can bet that you are going to see a lot of engagement on social media when you promote the Amex brand.

Use Analytics To Its Full Potential

Analytics are essential to any marketer’s toolkit. The reason behind this is that they allow you to track the success of your marketing campaigns and adjust your strategy as needed. To this end, you must be making the most of the various tools that Google Analytics has to offer. Besides allowing you to track the performance of different campaigns, you can also use the platform to learn about your target audience. This can help you identify the best (i.e. most effective) way of reaching them.

For example, if you notice that a certain phrase or words often appear in the posts that you are looking at on social media, you can take this as a sign that your target audience is searching for content related to these terms.

Monetizing Your Efforts

If you are reading this, I assume that you are either a digital marketer or someone who works closely with one. If not, maybe it’s time to consider becoming more involved in this crucial element of marketing.

To get the most out of your blog, you need to be sure that you are using the right affiliate tools to generate the right income. One of the best affiliate platforms to help monetize your efforts is Shopify. Not only do they have a generous affiliate program, but they also offer a payment gateway that allows you to accept credit cards directly on your website.

If you decide to go this route, you should look into setting up a Shopify store in the coming weeks. Doing this will allow you to begin building an audience and monetizing your efforts quickly.

Final Takeaway

If you want to take your online marketing efforts to the next level, consider using credit cards to your advantage. Doing this can help you identify the right audience, experiment with different forms of payment, and set up a dedicated e-commerce store if you are looking to take the retail route.

You can also use other financial services providers like PayPal and Amazon Payments as alternatives to credit cards. They may not offer the same perks as the major banks, but they can certainly help you build a business.