By Adriana Rehbein, Distribution & Marketing Officer
As a small business owner, the online world can seem complicated, time consuming and intimidating. This is why you stick to what you know works for your business, but how do you know what is actually effective? The fact is, your customers are evolving and digital marketing is the only way to stay ahead. As a publishing company we know how hard this can be. This is why we would like to show you digital marketing in five simple steps to help your company grow.
- What is our goal? It sounds like a silly question to ask, but most companies get into digital marketing without a clear goal, therefore the rate of success on a digital campaign can be very low. Digital marketing requires strategy and precision and having a goal helps you to focus. We all know that every company’s main goal is ROI, however, digital marketing is very broad, which is why your goal might vary per digital platform. See some examples below of digital goals you could set:
- Social Media: engage with the audience and gather some feedback
- eNewsletter banner: brand exposure (Top of Mind: remind customers that you exist so they always think about your brand first)
- Online content (advertorials, blog, etc): provide relevant information that will earn the trust of customers as an expert in the field
- Webskin: Promote special offers to generate quick sales.
Important: The design of your message must be the same across all platforms. This way your customers can recognise your campaign and brand easily.
- Do we have a marketing funnel? Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. A marketing funnel is divided by these four elements. But, what’s a marketing funnel? It’s following a customer’s adventure from a complete stranger to a lead, once you know the journey you can put strategies (calls to action, offers, information sharing) in place to get the customer to move through the funnel.
- Awareness:
- Potential customer comes to the website, knows the product or service.
- They browse through the website looking for something they need.
- Attract the customer with a call-to-action. In exchange, get some relevant information from them to help you understand the reason why they came to your website.
E.g., Imagine you have bought a puppy and you are looking for pet insurance. You open Google and find www.rspcapetinsurance.org.au. Next, you open the website and click on “Get a Quote & Buy Online” (call-to-action) to see the range of prices according to what you need. Hang on – to get to the quote you have to answer a couple of easy questions that helps RSPCA to understand your needs better. This is awareness.
- Interest:
- The customer has expressed interest in your product or service.
- You have given them the basic information they need.
- You now should provide the potential client the additional information that is tailored to their needs to help them make their final decision. This demonstrates that you care about what they want and need.
E.g., After you have completed the questions on RSPCA’s website and you have a quote, you decide to close the page and to not book the pet insurance just yet as you might need to do some research. On the next day, RSPCA calls you, and according to the information provided and additional questions asked, they offer extra material and competitive pricing, to help you make an informed decision. This is interest.
- Desire:
- The customer is interested and has all the information they need.
- Follow up with an email providing real life examples of your product and/or additional call-to-action.
E.g., After RSPCA’s call, you decide to talk about it with a family member/friend before making any decisions and that’s when you receive an email from RSPCA with real cases of common claims on pet insurance and how RSPCA tackles the claims. This is desire.
- Action:
- This is when the customer goes into the purchasing stage, and you are able to turn your potential client into a lead.
- You have showed them that you care and all it is left to discuss is payment and additional Terms & Conditions.
Nowadays, customers can access all the information they need, and this is why they need that push that tips the scales towards your company against competitors. Always remember, your point of difference is not always based on your product or service but it could be determined by your marketing funnel.
The elements of a marketing funnel can seem hard to put together, but really they are simple procedures that once they are put in place, your company should start to see not only more leads but repeat buyers.
- What’s our call-to-action? I have talked about call-to-action in the second step, however what’s a call-to-action? A lot of companies confuse the term by using a lot of questions on their ad (example: Is your Super enough to retire?), thinking that these questions will drive potential customers to become leads. Find below a list of common call-to-actions:
- Subscribe now
- Call us today
- Join Free for a month
- Get started
- Give “company’s name” a go
- Claim your free trial
Creating a large number of call-to-actions will increase the potential customer-to-lead conversion opportunities. An effective call-to-action will help a potential customer to move further into your marketing funnel.
- How do we create an effective lead magnet? Do you remember in step two, marketing funnel, how we talked about Interest? Well, this is how you create an effective lead magnet. Give your potential lead all the information they need. Provide a call-to-action, show that you care and this will help them move into the funnel. Nurture campaigns are key to generating a successful lead.
Nurture Campaigning is a process by which potential customers are tracked and developed into sales-qualified leads.
- Time to drive traffic: To be able to drive people into your marketing funnel you need to generate traffic to your website first. See a few ways you can drive traffic to your website below:
- Drive traffic from your Social Media platforms to your website with quality content. To see how you could engage, connect and successfully drive traffic to your website, check this simple Social Media strategy that you could be applying today.
- Insert keywords into your content and relevant tags on your website posts. Use links to different websites that connect with your content. These keyword strategies will help your brand gain exposure and drive traffic to your website.