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Here’s the quick 5-minute check up that local businesses like yours need to do so you stop playing catchup to the leaders in your industry space.
Digital marketing is a big industry in and of itself. It can get very complicated very quickly as trends are ever-shifting from new regulations (see Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica issue) that impact advertisers, marketers and even consumers alike. Like many people, I would be the first to own up to all the mistakes I have made in the 15 years and counting of running an “internet-based” company. To save you time and bring value to you, I’ve decided to put together the big mistakes I see happening all the time to businesses that can ruin a viable businesses very quickly in the age of the internet.
Before you start writing off those cheques for that next Ad company that promises you an unbelievable ROI on your marketing dollars, you do need to know what your own marketing roadmap looks like. What are your priorities for your business in its current growth phase? Are you looking to expand your target markets or perhaps taking it regional or global?
It’s important to know what your objectives are before you start throwing money at a problem. Because trust me, a lot of advertising agencies will be all too happy to take the commissions even when you have not even developed a brief.
If there’s 2 things you need to know they are:
It’s 2018 at the time of writing this article and there are some businesses with their owners still quibbling about having to “manage a Facebook page” or asking questions like “can Instagram bring me new businesses?”
It doesn’t take 5 minutes for any competent person to set up a social media account for a company and it should not be an excuse not to widen your potential audience scope. The reason being that it’s all free. Yes. You don’t have to pay a cent to Facebook or Twitter to get your social channels up. There are some concerns that a company may not know how to deal with live-time comments and feedback, but the benefits of having an active social account outweighs not having one and being perceived as “unreliable” or “unknown.” by a potential prospect.
Digital marketing is truly a force to be reckoned with to any marketing department that knows how to leverage its power of reach and influence. It is the combined use of content strategy (writing of industry-related articles, news and other information), social media and online advertising.Individually they work but when incorporated as a strategy, they are a marketer’s dream combination. Yet, 49% of organisations do not have any clearly defined marketing strategy and are purely approaching digital marketing from a seasonal ad-hoc exercise.
source: Content Marketing Institute
Mobile ads are performing better than desktop ads
75% of visitors who find helpful information in search results are more likely to visit physical stores
Businesses make and average for $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on Adwords.
Email Marketing is still one of the most powerful channels in the digital marketing space surpassing all other types of marketing at the moment.
As the digital marketing platforms like Google and Facebook get more advertisers jumping on board, the cost of advertising goes up. Which means that you will need to spend each marketing dollar more wisely. Simply sending an ad out to be seen by everyone isn’t a good strategy for any business it will simply be akin to throwing your money into a black hole and hoping a unicorn flies out and spits out a treasure chest. Understanding who you are reaching out to, such as if you’re into selling consumer goods, advertising on Instagram would be the most fitting platform. And learning to target your consumers is a science as much as it is an art. You can find out more about some of my company’s services.
A really simple way to find out who you should be targeting is to look at all the past business you have and come up with an imaginary profile of who your customer is based on all the average attributes of people who have bought your products and services.
One of the tenets of customer persuasion is to offer value to them. This could be in the form of a full product review or maybe a comparison page. You might be a little biased for marketing purposes but let your content be a way for people to know more about your product offerings as well as the alternatives give them an avenue for them to contact your company so they get to know your business better. It’s pure human nature to want to reciprocate in kind when we receive something for free, so if you can write out great content and show pictures and videos of your products and services, you can spread that across all your social accounts and your website and that will put more lines in the internet ocean which equates to having more chances at an eventual sale.
If you have a company website but don’t know who’s coming to your website or where the traffic is coming from, you will lose out on understanding who might be interested in your content. Armed with accurate data, you can then make better informed marketing decisions and even know how to move ahead with your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts.
Have someone place Analytics on your site so you understand more about your visitors and if your marketing efforts are providing you the results that you are looking for. This also serves as a good gauge of your ad performance if you are using an agency to run your ads.
Check your website for potential problems. Use Google Search Console to crawl your site for errors and visibility so you know how to improve your site so you don’t lose out on traffic or search rankings.
If you want to find out how your business is doing in its digital strategy, please email sales@realisma.com for a quick and free digital landscape audit. There are limited slots available for a free audit so get your request in quick and let’s have a discussion going on your business.