November 01, 2018

In the first few years of commencement, small companies often face the dilemma of choosing between different marketing strategies in order to generate leads, and eventually meet revenue targets. Since the business market is competitive and dynamic, selecting the right mix of business strategies can be quite overwhelming. The foremost aim of every business is to capture the right customer base and achieve high Return on Investment.

If you are like most people, you are familiar with the traditional offline methods of marketing your business. Going door to door, cold calling or putting up flyers or ads in a local newspaper are some traditional marketing methods. However as the internet grows, using these conventional methods of marketing make less sense for your small business when it comes to Return on Investment as there are cheaper and more effective means available in the form of Digital Marketing. Building and generating business online is done in a slightly different manner. There are many means to attract prospective customers and the potential customer base is significantly bigger.

Inbound Organic Marketing: a Long Term viable Digital Marketing Option

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO rules the roost when it comes to picking the most effective and Long Term solution.

The majority of website traffic still comes from organic search – more than paid campaigns. As such, SEO and SMO to drive organic traffic is clearly as significant as ever.

In the Pre Penguin and Panda days you could rank easily for competitive search terms simply by keyword stuffing on your web pages and building a few spammy inbound links to your website. However things are different now. Google and other search engines now give a lot of importance to High quality original content and natural links coming to your website from Authority website.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing is the practice of promoting your content and your brand on social media channels to increase, drive traffic, brand awareness and generate leads for your business.

SMM is the new tool to Increase Web Traffic, Boost SEO, Connect with Consumers and Industry Leaders get noticed at events and build your brand loyalty.

Integrated Approach to Inbound Marketing

These recent updates in Search Engine Algorithms have made SEO, Social Media and Content marketing inseparable. These three can no longer be viewed separately and an integrated approach is a must for regular growth in rankings and traffic.

For this inclusive approach to work, Content is of prime importance. Content can be in the form of Blog Articles or more socially shareable Info graphics and Videos. Content is required for all marketing channels:

High quality content is required for both Onsite and Offsite optimization. Link building on High Authority sites is best achieved with content which users and webmasters love to share. Social Media Marketing – Social Media and Community engagements can be achieved only with high quality shareable content.

Paid Marketing: Targeted Traffic for New Websites

As part of your marketing strategy it is usual to have some form of paid marketing; often this is done with PPC (pay per click), an essential way of getting your business noticed within the rankings. This is often done with the top search engines and it is part of any internet marketer’s campaign strategy. A defined budget is necessary in order to get your website noticed but as a rule of thumb it must not be discounted.

Organic Marketing should be the Long term goal of Businesses in all niches. However, we cannot discount Paid Marketing as it can help small businesses get off the gound with Lead generation cheaply and effectively. Below are other reasons to consider Paid Marketing:

SEO is a long term

Search Engine Optimization can take upwords of 3 months before you see start seeing traffic from your low hanging, easy to rank search terms. SEO is a slow and gradual process. Any attempt to quickly and artificially build inbound links can adversely effect your rankings. In such a scenario, it is best to get the ball rolling quickly with Paid campaigns to get you initial Lead generation and Sales.

Hard to rank on top pages for all keywords

You’ll get the best ROI of time and money targeting only Low competition keywords. Low competition Keywords are usually Long tail search terms. Unfortunately, many low competition keywords are also Low volume. Paid marketing comes to the rescue here as you can selectively target high volume keywords.

Granular targeting options

Nowadays, PPC platforms offer you a plethora of targeting options and not a ton of advice on how to do it effectively. You can micro target your audience to reach your ideal prospect. There are options to target prospects based on their gender, age, city, country, income, marital status, education and much more. Further, you can also retarget past visitors to your website effectively and very cheaply.

Drives quick conversions

With Paid advertising, you can drive traffic and conversions to your website immediately. Its also easy to test a niche or keywords to see where are you getting maximum conversions and returns.

You have a multitude of options available for your campaigns, namely – Pay Per Call, Cost per Click (CPC) or Cost Per Impression (CPM).

ROI can be measured easily

The conversions and traffic is measurable. You can easily setup conversion tracking systems to track your sales funnel by setting up conversion goals. This will help you measure your Cost per Acquisition (CPA) and budget accordingly. You can also setup CPA driven Paid campaigns where you pay google adwords or other PPC platforms only on a CPA basis. In other words, you pay a predefined amount only for the lead acquired.

Concluding thoughts:

A well formulated marketing strategy will ensure that you cover all the bases in order to get your business firmly off the ground; and will ensure that your business has the success it deserves.

Digital marketing can work for any business in any type of industry. Regardless of what your company sells, digital marketing still involves building out buyer personas to identify your targeted audience’s needs, and creating valuable online content. However, that’s not to say that all businesses should implement a digital marketing strategy in the same manner.