One of the biggest expenses of any 21st-century business is marketing. Every industry is highly competitive, and unless you’re at the top of your field, your company could be at risk. Effective marketing is how you can find new clients, improve business, and increase revenue. Here are a few ways to make sure you’re advertising in all the right places, and that your strategies are effective. Primarily, your website, SEO and social media advertising.
Make Digital a Priority
Given that 85% of consumers looking for a local business start their search online, if you haven’t already made digital marketing a priority, you should. The aspects of digital marketing you need to consider are setting up a website and social media, email advertising, social media marketing, SEO and pay-per-click advertising.
Your Website
A company website should be step one of a digital marketing campaign, whether it means setting up a website, or giving your existing one a makeover. A few aspects to look at are appearance, content and whether your site is user and mobile friendly. User-friendly means your site loads quickly, and is simple and easy to navigate. More and more people access the internet through their phones, even for business, so having a site that’s mobile friendly, or has a .mobi version is essential.
As far as appearance goes, people are visual by nature, so they will engage more with a site that looks good. This includes layout, colors, and images. Content is also key – your website is where people will go to find out about your business, so make it good. Include details about who you are as a business and what you do. Make sure contact details are easy to find: phone number, street address, and email address.
SEO
An important marketing method that ties into your website is search engine optimization. This includes making your website search engine friendly, thus easier to find, as well as having content on other sites that will generate traffic to your page. SEO uses specific keywords and phrases to move your site up in search engine rankings. Most people don’t look much past the first few pages of results, so that’s where you want your site to be. Look for someone local to manage your SEO – if your business is based in Atlanta, find an Atlanta SEO Company.
Social Media
There are two main aspects of social media marketing – paid, targeted advertising, or marketing through your company page. Paid social media advertising uses information the social network already has – age, gender, location, and interests – to display your ad to your target market. The other aspect of social media marketing, which many companies prefer, particularly those in retail, is advertising through your own page using promos and competitions to have people share and follow your page. This is essentially free advertising.
There are a number of other forms of digital marketing, but these are the ones that show success across the board.
