Taking your marketing to the next level can seem like a daunting task, but there are simple steps you can carry out to make it happen. The key is in harnessing the most significant macro-trends in today’s hyper-connected media environment and making them work for you. With the right approach and a strategic investment of time and energy, it’s possible to hone your marketing while working smarter instead of harder.

Follow these tips to increase your visibility and supercharge your engagement with clients and prospective clients alike.

1. Embrace the Power of Video

It’s a truism that video marketing can be a powerful tool, but it’s possible to underestimate just how effective it really is. This is true for every kind of business from mega-brands to small firms. The statistics are striking: YouTube alone captures over a billion users, a third of all the people on the internet. Over 90 percent of mobile video viewers share the content they watch with other users, and video marketing delivers almost 50 percent more growth than other media. Landing pages with videos experience almost 80 percent better conversion rates than those without.

You don’t need a huge amount of video content to get started. Get a quality camera and video editing software and, with a time investment of 20-30 minutes, make a simple one-minute scripted video that highlights the expertise you can deliver for buyers and sellers in your area. Share it across your social media platforms, especially on Facebook, and you’re on your way to leveraging the most captivating and easily shareable form of trust-building marketing online.

2. Expand Your Reach with Micro-Targeting

This is about more than just posting on a range of social media platforms — although that’s certainly a good idea. It’s also about taking advantage of the data at your fingertips to develop your audience on any platform in a more focused way. The headline-grabbing macro-trend of micro-targeting has made headlines in recent years, not all of them savory, but you can engage with this trend in an honest and ethical way using readily available tools and techniques:

  • Long-tailed keywords — phrases likely to be part of a spoken online search — make you more visible to voice searching from mobile devices.
  • Google’s AdWords lets you target ads to a specific geographical area.
  • Social network search functions give you access to the people who are talking about viral or trending topics that can correlate with your services.

These are just some of the potential tools that can help your content go further faster and generate more prospects and opportunities.

3. Get Hyper-Personal

Despite the continued rise of video marketing, email isn’t going anywhere. The average ROI for email marketing is $38 for each dollar invested. The key is in having the right approach and delivering emails to your network that are both relevant and personalized: what’s called the macro-trend toward the hyper-personal. The good news is that it’s getting easier to combine the personal approach with automation. With tools like Market Snapshot and MailChimp — which boasts powerful email campaign segmentation tools — you can effectively and affordably combine the power of technology with the impact of a personal touch.