Whether you have a small startup or a business that you want to grow to the next level, you need to make sure that your business is in the best possible position to secure a greater share of the market. We live in a digital age, and it is by harnessing the online marketing strategies firmly to your business that can enable your company to grow beyond your wildest dreams.
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Every industry is diverse, and there is no one solution that will suit them all: a real estate business has very different marketing needs to say a bookmaker; however, the process of developing a marketing plan, adhering to it, evaluating it and applying time and effort to it is the same industry wide.
Small businesses are the backbone of all nations’ economies, and you need to empower yourself to gain your share! Here are some tips to help you on your online marketing journey.
Understand That Marketing Is Not Advertising
Advertising is the paid communication of a product or service in a non-personal way.
Marketing is the planning and application of strategies to bring buyer and seller together. Put very simply: marketing needs you to understand your audience and advertising needs you to understand your product.
Set Yourself A Plan And Budget
Benjamin Franklin hit the nail on the head when he said, ‘by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail’. If you are prepared for success, you are ready when it comes.
You need to develop a marketing plan that can push your company forward. Look at your current situation and identify holes in your existing strategy, aim to remove these weaknesses by completing a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and recognize key factors that influence your business.
By setting a plan, you will reach objectives and goals to benefit your company, and you can then assess the amount of money you need to set aside to reach them.
Set Realistic Goals And Targets
You need to set yourself some business targets and goals that can be quantitatively measured. Marketing is a numbers game, and you need to be able to see what is working, and what is not.
A good online marketing strategy will allow you to calculate the Return Of Interest (ROI) – how much money have you had to spend, to generate extra sales?
The best ROI for your business is to optimize your website’s ranking, and by partnering with an SEO agency can take the pain away from having to do it yourself. Just as you benefit from seeking feedback from your customers, check out SEO company reviews for a clear indication of how the company has performed for their current and past clients.
A company such as The Hoth has great feedback, and because this information is in the public domain, it shows that the company is not only transparent and trustworthy but confident in its abilities to exceed client expectations.
Understand Who Your Customers Are
Not everybody needs your product or service; however, your customers are a group of people who all have one thing in common – they have needed your product.
From your business experience, you will know what their demographic is, and if you don’t, make sure to find out – for example, have feedback forms on your website, notice who comes into your store, or pick the phone up and speak to them.
Targeting your marketing activities directly to the people who are buying from you is the secret to creating quality inquiries that translate into sales.
Understand Who Your Competitors Are
What makes your competitors successful? What are they doing right, or wrong, within the industry?
The internet allows you to have a sneak peek into their business without having to contact them physically. Check out their reviews – you will gain a valuable insight into their business practices and how you can improve your business.
Make sure not to copy their ideas; use them as inspiration.
Make Your Website Work For You
Not only is your website a shop window for your products and services, but it is also a tool to promote your brand. Your website should promote your business in a visually appealing way: include your logo and contact details alongside your product.
You want your visitors to stay on your website and navigate through the pages for as long as possible, but once you have your products and services showcased, what can you do? By having pages that provide further points of interest, you are going to achieve a lower bounce rate.
The bounce rate is the percentage of people that arrive at your landing page but do not click through to other pages. Â These are lost customers and lost revenue. They have made the effort to seek you out, but you have not given them what they want.
The solution to this is to develop a blog that features site relevant articles that will engage the audience enough to carry on reading.
Your partnered SEO company can help you with this by providing content that appeals to your potential customers. The content on your blog, when managed successfully, can bring visitors to your website.
The SEO company can ensure that blog posts on other sites refer to your pages too; the increase in your site’s traffic will grow organically over time. With well-chosen content, your brand can be further enhanced as your site becomes a rich source of relevant content – which is important, as Google’s latest update, ‘Fred’, is analyzing intent and relevant content to measure its rankings.
The internet gives entrepreneurs the ability to achieve great success if it is used to its full potential. Your business can triumph in the marketplace if you plan. You cannot afford to ignore your online marketing strategy if you wish to continue to grow. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the whole process, do not be afraid to outsource: you are the professional in your industry, and there is no need for you to try and be expert in another field.
