With the rise of Google and the fall of the Yellow Pages, small and medium size businesses are quickly learning that to attract new clientele they must allocate marketing budget towards online marketing, such as Search Engine Optimization. Gone are the days of posting an ad in a phone book and waiting for the phone to ring.
Due to consumer trends, such as searching Google anytime they are looking to buy merchandise, eat at a restaurant, and even to find entertainment, businesses are being forced to take a pro-active approach in establishing their online presence. One such approach is by working with a digital marketing agency and establishing an marketing campaign based on key objectives.
Building your campaign
Building a digital marketing campaign begins with a situation analysis. During this phase there are several things completed including an audience and customer analysis, competitor benchmarking, online partner analysis, and a digital marketing review. This allows the agency to determine how well the client is using digital media in the present versus competitors.
Define KPIs
The next step in the planning is to set objectives. This includes a mission and vision for the campaign, and setting goals, key-point indicators (KPIs) and web analytics to measure campaign success and return-on-investment (ROI.)
Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO allows businesses to attract website visitors organically. SEO campaigns require patience on behalf of the client, due to the fact that there is no guaranteed timeline or results. While it is considered an investment because of the amount of time required to achieve natural rankings, SEO can be one of the best ways to get an astounding ROI.
Let’s not forget that search is the # traffic driver to content sites, beating Social Media by more than 300%. Additionally, SEO leads have a 14.6% close rates, compared to outbound (direct mail or print advertising) which have a 1.7% close rate.
Pay-per-click (PPC)
PPC is an excellent way to get leads quickly by jumping into the advertising portion of SERPs. It is easily measurable by implementing conversion tracking, which is a method of counting how many desired actions are completed by a visitor who clicks on your ad. For example, if you are looking for visitors to fill out a quote form, with PPC it is quite simple to track what percentage of visitors fill out this form, or convert.
According to a 2012 report a survey of 1,915 marketers revealed that 48% use PPC in their online campaigns, while 32% said it was very effective. PPC is an excellent way to supplement the beginning of an SEO campaign for newer companies if the budget allows.
Social media
Social Media is still one of the newer methods of marketing, however many companies are using it in extremely creative ways to engage and connect with both potential and current clients. Take for example a Pepsi Campaign with Task Rabbit, which gave consumers an extra hour in the day. How creative. Need another reason to dive into Social Media? How can we ignore that Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web.
Content marketing
As mentioned in a recent post on 6 Ways to Make Your Content Go Viral, Content Marketing continues to grow. According to Salesforce, $118.4 billion will be spent on content marketing, video marketing and social media in 2013. In fact, 91% of all marketers use content marketing, while they generally spend 25% of their market budgets on content marketing.
Why, you ask? Perhaps it’s because 90% of consumers find custom content useful. And the fact that B2B companies that blog receive 67% more leads per month than those that don’t.
Email marketing
Email marketing can be one of the most effective methods of digital marketing when done right. There are many things that need to be taken into account such as quality of mailing list, and making sure you have a compelling subject line. Did you know that 33% of email recipients open eemail based on subject line alone?
Be sure to also pay attention to a consistent look and feel (branding), have a clear call to action and design and test quality landing pages. Don’t forget to complete A/B split testing on your e-mail campaigns, to find out which version has better open and conversion rates.
What do you think is the most effective form of online marketing?