I flat out love digital marketing. The ebb and flow that presents itself overtime keeps my short attention span captivated and our team on its toes. Such a dynamic industry!
I’ve been asked a couple times already “What do we need to be doing different this year!” and thought it would be a great blog post to publish this first week of the new year. So, here it goes:
1. Advertise on Search and Social Channels
With organic search engine optimization and social media being such hot commodities for the past decade, no one has looked up and seen the potential laying at their feet with advertising. Traditionally, advertising was the only way to get attention from your audience and everyone was doing it. But lately, most businesses are so focused on fighting over organic traffic that advertising is a very reasonable means of attracting targeted traffic without a significant increase in acquisition costs over what you are doing now.
2. Be Consistent in Content
Content marketing is still going strong. It’s evolved a little of the past few years, but it is still a key component of successful strategies for businesses of all sizes. But the key that many are missing is consistency. Like us, businesses get busy and start to focus on production instead of their own marketing. Take our advice and build the systems into your week to keep content on the forefront of your marketing initiative.
3. Email is Still Your Ringer
Email is boring, but it is so successful as a marketing tool. If I was given the option of only having a single marketing asset, it would be a strong email list. Any day of the week…
In 2015, focus on building a clean list of prospects, clients and industry enthusiasts and then decide how you can best capitalize on its use. Email may be old, unsexy and mind-numbingly unassuming, but it works.
4. Change Your Perception of SEO
Search Engine Optimization has changed dramatically; but the world still sees it as the bloated keyword monster that it was a decade ago. And it is time for that perception to change.
SEO is like investing in the stock market. Every now and then you hit on an amazing property that skyrockets to a lucrative find; but most of the time, it’s a slow and steady journey. This frustrates many business owners, but it is a necessary evil.
Keep in mind, investing is a boring initiative if it is done right. But, you look up a couple decades from now a wealthy person. It is the same way with SEO. It’s not fun today, but in several months you will have a site that is dominating your industry in traffic generation. Just have patience.
5. Build Landing Pages… and lots of them
We make the assumption that everyone coming to our site should be treated the same way. But in reality, unless you only offer one product or service, your audience will need information specific to their need in order to make a decision. Unless you want to build dozens of micro-sites to accommodate each product, landing pages will give your audience the experience they are looking for without leaving your site. Building a library of landing pages you can direct your audience to will remedy many of the lead generation issues on your website.
6. Just Do Something
The final thing I tell every business is that it is far more important to get started than to get hung up on the plan. Yes, we need direction and strategy; but it is key that you actually start. Take a couple of the suggestions above and start working on them today. Not tomorrow; today. Then, when you have them functional and consistent, start adding in more until you have the marketing machine built that will work for your business.
