Long and messy links are pretty annoying. Not only are they distracting, but they can also upstage your marketing strategy. This is especially true when you are sharing your content, adverts, and deals on social media. Long links tend to get a low number of clicks. Fortunately, a link shortener exists. They provide a simple yet powerful solution to this issue of many marketers and proprietors.

As the name suggests, a link shortener is a tool that generates a shortened version of your link. It allows you to share a comprehensive yet short URL slug on many platforms that will redirect your probable customers to your original landing page. 

Using a shorter link is advantageous in many ways. Instead of letting your long links eat up the entire post, you can shorten your links and use the remaining space for introductory remarks. For social media platforms, where users can post an unlimited number of characters, short links ensure that your long links will not engross your target audience. Since some social sharing sites limit the number of characters you can post, short links ensure that you can be on those platforms without inconvenience. 

In addition, many link shortener also includes powerful tool you can utilize to level up your marketing. Features such as branding links, rotating links, tracking links, generating QR codes, and more are sure to help you make your marketing more powerful, more efficient, and more compelling. In addition to these features, a link shortener is also beneficial in many ways. A short link is known to help businesses to increase brand awareness and brand recognition. Shorter links are also proven to generate more clicks relative to longer and messy links. For sure, incorporating a link shortener in your marketing will give an upgraded marketing experience. 

If you’re new to a URL shortener, you may have wondered what ways you can utilize a short link in your marketing. If so, you are on the perfect page. Continue reading to find out the seven excellent ways to apply short links in your marketing. 

How Shorter Link can be a Powerful Marketing Tool for Businesses

Unlike long and distracting links, there are endless possibilities of applying a shorter link in your marketing. Here are the seven best ways to use short links in your marketing. 

Offline Marketing

Probably, it is the hardest to use links on offline marketing campaigns simply because offline marketing does not offer the interaction an online campaign can. And so, putting links in your offline campaigns entails interested audiences having to manually type the link in the web browser to access your site or landing page. This often leads to a lower number of visits coming from offline marketing campaigns. But, a link shortener provides an easy solution to this problem. 

With a URL shortener, marketers can now place a more engaging, easy-to-type, and remember URL slug on offline marketing campaigns such as billboards, flyers, etc. A shorter and more comprehensive link on offline adverts is more capable of bringing visitors to your webpage. People are more likely to follow the links you put since they are shorter and easier to type. It is best to customize your link’s back half into an easy-to-remember phrase for display media, including billboards. 

Another way to use links on offline campaigns is by adding a QR code to redirect visitors to your webpage. Though short links are already a great way, QR code is on another level of driving visitors to visit your website. QR codes make your offline adverts interactive since they allow the audiences to visit your web page by scanning the code. And since most people are carrying a mobile device wherever they go, they can instantly visit your website the moment your offline adverts catch their attention. Some link shortener tools offer QR code features, including Hero.link. 

Comments

Another way to apply a shorter link in your marketing is by answering the questions in the comments. You can reply with a short link that redirects the user to your webpage that contains the detailed answer to their questions. This approach is practical when you are. This strategy is especially beneficial when watching your rivals' social media networks since you may respond with branded links in their comments. 

In addition, comment marketing is also a great way to give your brand the exposure it needs. Especially if your business is new or new to online marketing, the exposure you can get by commenting with shorter links will help you start. 

Podcasts/ Radio Marketing

Podcasts are popular because people treat them as e a convenient way to consume information. Listeners can do it while running, traveling to work, or at any other time. Speaking on the radio, a video, or a live broadcast are all viable alternatives to podcasts. And since podcasts and other alternatives are constantly becoming popular, adverts on these platforms can help you get clients and increase your revenue. 

However, if the goal of your campaign is to drive the listeners to visit your webpage, advertising through audio media is quite challenging. But, a link shortener makes it possible and practical. You can shorten URLs to make it easier for people to remember them once they’ve heard them. After the episode, it becomes much easier for people to input it into their browsers.

To make your podcast adverts more effective, you can also customize your link. For example, if you promote deals, you can customize your links into something like “your.brand/deals”  or “your.brand/buy-now”. You can use short phrases or call to action as the back half of your customized link. This way, people who will hear your adverts will most likely remember the URL slug, increasing your webpage traffic. 

Email Marketing

Many people believe that link shorteners affect email delivery rates. Yes, it can be true, but it’s not always the case. There is still a way to include a shorter link without hurting the deliverability of your email campaign, which is through customized links. 

Unlike generic links, branded links are more reputable and will not harm your email deliverability. In addition, using a short URL in your email can act as: 

• Including a shorter URL in the email text: This strategy encourages recipients to visit a link. When comparing the overall number of opened emails to clicks, specific data are helpful in addition to referring consumers to a promotional source. It's worth noting that using a short branded URL rather than a generic short link reduces the odds of your message ending up in the spam bin.

• Adding shorter URLs to CTA buttons: This strategy uses advanced statistical data to track recipients' actions. UTM-tagged short links produce precise results when it comes to tracking various aspects. The benefits of producing UTM-tagged links and incorporating them into buttons without the use of HTML are numerous.

SMS Marketing

Including a link to a webpage in your SMS marketing message is an excellent approach to keep your clients engaged and connected. Your consumers can be directed to a specific deal or portion of your website, an app download, or anything else you wish. 

However, links are often long and can quickly take many characters in your SMS marketing message. And since text messages are typically limited to 160 characters only, adding long links will obviously eat up the character count. Though you can extend your character count limit, it often costs you additional payment.  So it is greatly beneficial to use a shorter link in your SMS Marketing. It helps you save both space and money. In addition, short URLs can also help you accomplish the following marketing necessity. 

1. Increase the audience’s awareness of your brand. Promotional SMS are more likely to be opened by people than emails. Hence, it can give your brand greater exposure. Using branded links in your SMS marketing can help you increase people’s awareness and recognition of your brand. Branded links establish a connection between your brand and the link you are sending to your target audience. 

1. Track your performance. Some link shortener services feature a tool that can help you track the performance of your short links. The capability to track link performance allows you to learn about your audience and demographics, which can significantly help you upgrade your marketing strategy. It also allows you to determine which deals can get more revenue and which campaigns effectively drive people to visit your website. 

1. Optimized mobile experience. You may also utilize deep mobile links to direct people to a specific site within your app rather than a web browser. If your app isn't installed, users will be requested to do so or sent to the mobile web experience. Deep links in mobile apps are frequently utilized to generate critical app metrics like app installations.

1. Call to Action. Branding your links is a simple approach to convince your audience and your SMS provider that your brand is behind the message and that the link in the SMS is trustworthy. Branded links also make it clear to your readers that you’re directing them to your own or another reliable website.

Some URL shortening services also enable you to customize the back half of your short URLs. Instead of using a random combination of letters and numbers, you can customize the back half of your link into a powerful call to action. 

Social Media Marketing

Social networking is a low-cost tool that can help you optimize brand recognition and enhance SEO. So, incorporating social media into your link-building initiatives is a good idea. In addition, social media marketing is a powerful campaign to drive the audience to visit your website or landing page. Social media is excellent in sending referral traffic to your site and increasing your revenue. 

If the goal of your social media campaign is to drive the audience to visit your website or a landing page, using long and messy links is not a good practice. It is because long and messy links are distracting and known to upstage your campaign. People also regard long links as unreliable and malicious. Moreover, long links consume too much character count. If you are to share your campaign on microblogging sites, like Twitter, long links will eat up the entire post. Hence, it is crucial to condense the links you will use in your social media adverts. 

Shorter URLs are easier to remember and more appealing than long, messy slugs. They're suitable for social media since they take up little space and are simple to post. In addition, using a shorter link in your social media posts is sure to help you boost the conversion rate of your campaign. 

To further optimize your social media campaign, you can also customize and brand your links. On social media, using shortened and branded links helps to raise brand recognition. They also appear to be more authoritative and reliable.

Deals Trial

Besides being advantageous in the actual implementation, shorter links can help you decide which deals or campaign is best. Specialized short links called link rotators are excellent in testing your deals, campaigns, and custom landing page. Before implementing multiple campaigns or deals, it is best to try them out through a link rotator. It allows you to determine which deals can generate more revenue and which campaign is most likely to be successful. In addition, the link rotator also helps you save time and resources since it ensures that the campaign or deal you will launch is effective and can give you a high ROI.

5 Best Benefits Shorter Link Can Offer in Marketing

Implementing shorter links in your marketing is beneficial in various ways. Here are the 5 best benefits shorter link can offer in marketing.

Short link Generate More Clicks and Share

One of the best benefits a shorter link can offer in your marketing is its capability to generate more clicks and send referral traffic to your website. The general public trusts short links and branded links more than they do on long, messy URLs. This, in return, helps you generate more click and referral traffic. 

In addition, short branded links are more worthy of sharing on social media. They tend to get more shares compared to long URLs. These shares help you gain referral traffic through word-of-mouth and also help you establish a robust brand identity. 

Most importantly, short links ensure that you can implement your marketing campaign on all platforms you’re on, including microblogging sites. Since short URLs are condensed and contain fewer characters, it allows you to post them on microblogging sites, such as Twitter, which only allows users to share a limited number of characters per post. 

Tracking short links helps you understand your audience and demographics.

Another benefit of URL shorteners that company owners should not miss is web analytics. Shorteners keep track of how many people click on each link, so they can theoretically tell you how many people visited the website using the abbreviated URL, the demographics they came from, what page or app they came from, and so on.

Whether or not you can trust this information is determined by the URL shortener you select. Many free services are notorious for providing inaccurate statistics—even the number of clicks is frequently underestimated. A pro plan is frequently required to have access to richer data and analytical tools. Hero.link is one of the link shortener services that provides you accurate data about the performance of your shorter link. 

Having access to statistics and analytics allows you to tailor more effective and more accurate campaigns in the future. It also allows you to make a definitive plan for the implementation of your adverts. 

Short branded links raise brand trust. 

Branded links assist in developing a trustworthy relationship with the audience and aid in building brand reputation. It provides them with a notion of your product and displays your brand identity on various social media platforms worldwide. Compared to long URL, branded links are easier to remember, looks good, and is user-friendly.

In addition, shorter branded links may help you build your business by representing your brand in front of the audience, increasing product exposure in the market, allowing people to click on the URL, and converting them into actual consumers.

Provide Built-in Advanced Marketing Features

Short links may appear tiny, yet they are solid and robust. Condensed URLs provide tremendous marketing opportunities in addition to being safe and beautiful. Long linkages need the use of other third parties. On the other hand, short links may be deployed at full scale with merely a good URL shortener.

In addition, short link services also provide powerful and effective marketing features. Geo- and mobile targeting, UTM-tag tracking, retargeting, and deep links are all capabilities that many link shortener services provide. These features will help you optimize your marketing strategy and help you get a higher ROI on your campaigns. 

Short links are suitable for offline marketing.

Including links that will redirect your audience to your site is quite tricky in offline marketing. It is because offline advertisements lack interactiveness. But, there are two ways you can include links in your offline marketing: customized links and QR codes. 

In including customized links, it is best to use short phrases that are easy to remember, such as a call to action or your brand. This way, the audience can memorize them quickly. If they can remember your link, people are more likely to enter them in their web browser and access your landing page. In addition, customized and short links are easier to type in a web browser. 

Perhaps, the best way to include a link in your offline campaign is through QR codes. If you have a QR code, an interested audience can instantly and conveniently access your landing site. They just have to scan the code, and they will be automatically redirected to the landing page. In addition, you can also use QR codes in your offline adverts to redirect your visitors to your web page. 

So, if you are implementing both offline and online campaigns, it is best to choose a link shortener provider that offers both QR code and short links, like Hero.link. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some of the frequently asked questions about the shorter link.

What are shorter links?

Basically, a shorter link is a cropped version of your original URL. Short links are more attractive and less extensive than your original URL, making them better to use in marketing and social media posts. 

Shorter links can either be generic, branded, or customized. While generic links are random, customized, branded links are the specialized links that match your brand or content. In many ways, branded and customized links are best for marketing. 

Are short links good in marketing?

Indeed! Rather than using long and clunky links that can upstage your campaign, it is recommended to use shorter links since they are neat and take up less space. In addition, utilizing short links in marketing can offer your many benefits. Here are some of the advantages link shortener can offer. 

Higher click-through-rate. Not only do short links look neat and pleasing, but they also tend to get higher click-through rates. It is because people trust them and perceive short and branded links as trustworthy and reputable. 

Trackability. Short links are more convenient to track. When someone clicks your shortened link, the service provider will record this in their database. This record of the performance of your link can significantly help you understand your audience and their demographics. This will further help you in making decisions for your business and marketing. 

Versatility. One of the best benefits of short URLs in marketing is their suitability for offline and online campaigns. It is better to use short links in offline campaigns since they are more accessible to type and memorable. On the other hand, in online marketing, short URLs look more pleasing and generate a higher number of clicks and referral traffic.

Does a shorter link hurt my SEO?

Yes, it can. But that’s not always the case. A shorter link will only hurt your SEO if it uses redirects other than 301 redirects. There are link shortening services that only use 301 redirects, like Hero.link. Hence, they are SEO-friendly. In fact, they can help you optimize your website’s SEO and can help you rank higher on search engines. So, make sure to know the type of redirect being used by your link shortening service. 

Does a short link affect my email deliverability?

Generic short links could. However, it does not apply to branded links. Branded links’ domains are customized and match your brand, making it a particular case in email. In fact, it is recommended to use branded links in email since they have the highest delivery rate among all types of links in an email. Since spammers often use link shorteners to mask their links that redirect the user to malicious sites, emails that include generic short links have a lower delivery rate.

How do QR codes work?

In essence, a QR code functions similarly to a barcode at the grocery. It's a machine-readable picture that can be read instantaneously using a Smartphone camera. A QR code comprises a series of black squares and dots that represent various kinds of data. When your Smartphone scans this code, it converts the information into a form that humans can understand.

Are short links safe to share on social media?

It is safe as long as the short link you share does not redirect the users to a malicious site or does not contain viruses. In fact, link shortener does not pose adverse effects on businesses. It is actually spammers and hackers that make short links bad. They love utilizing URL shorteners to victimize more people. To avoid being marked as spam, it is recommended to customize and brand your links. 

Does the short link expire?

No, short links do not have an expiration. However, short links are limited to the number of clicks they can generate. Typically, the count resets after a certain period. It is best to select a link shortener service that offers high monthly click limits, like Hero.link. If your landing pages expect a high number of clicks, it is best to upgrade to a subscription package that offers unlimited clicks per link. Hero.link’s unlimited subscription allows you to generate and record an unlimited number of clicks per link. In addition, it also offers you exclusive features such as unlimited URLs allowed, custom aliases, unlimited branded and customized links, social media statistics, and more. 

Is it free to shorten my link?

Hero.link allows you to shorten your link for free. You just have to create a free account. However, our free account limits you from generating a certain amount of short links. In addition, free link shortening services generate generic short links. If you have to shorten a large number of links, it is best to avail our subscription package. Besides being able to shorten a significant amount to an unlimited number of links, it also allows you to utilize our additional features that are highly beneficial in your marketing. Our packages are inexpensive compared to other link shortener services.

What are branded links?

Branded links are a specialized type of shorter links. It allows you to customize the domain of your short URL. Hence, it gives you the freedom to relate your domain to your brand or business.  Instead of utilizing the "hero.link" domain, you can customize the domain into "sports.co" or something similar to complement your brand. Because brand awareness is one of the most critical variables in consumer loyalty, branding your links is an excellent chance for many business owners to enhance their marketing plan.

Starbuck (sbux.co), the New York Times (nyti.ms), Walt Disney (di.sn), and other well-known websites all employ branded links.

Apart from personalizing your links, branding your short URLs may also provide you with the following advantages.

-Increased brand awareness
-Increased brand visibility
-Descriptive, easy to pronounce, and memorable. 
-Perfect for offline promotions
-Increased trust among the target audience
-Increased click-through rates

Can I use my own domain to create short links?

Of course. You can use your domain to create short links. This process is termed link branding. Instead of using the domain of the service you are using, you can customize it so the link will match your domain. Besides your domain, you can also relate your customized domain to your business tagline. Link branding gives you endless possibilities on how you can match the domain to your niche. 

Notably, link branding is often exclusive to subscription plans only. Luckily, Hero.link offers a cost-effective subscription plan that allows you to brand your links.

Take Away

Link shortener does not only crop your long links and turn them into a more shareable one. Many businesses do not know that incorporating a shorter link in their marketing is truly beneficial in many ways. Sharing and implementing short, customized, and branded links in marketing campaigns is way better than long and clanky links. 

In addition, many still believe that link shortener is detrimental in marketing, which is untrue. Link shorteners have evolved to more than just shortening your links and offer various features that can truly help marketers elevate their marketing strategies and campaigns.  Moreso, it also gives them essential insights, through analytics and statistics, that can help them deeply understand their audience and their demographics. 

In this fast-phased marketing competition, it is essential to have a lead. And this is what link shorteners are providing to many businesses. Link shortener can offer more than just a shorter link. 

So if you need to shorten your link and upgrade your marketing, do not hesitate to use Hero.link. Just create an account and you can shorten your links for free. It is best to subscribe to our cost-effective subscription plans if you need more than just shortening links like link branding, link tracking, ling rotator, custom aliases, QR code, and more. We are glad to help you level up your marketing and be on the lead. Contact us today and learn more.