A company’s success in today’s business world often hinges on its digital marketing plan.
The world wide web is not a Field of Dreams. You can’t build a website with the mindset “if you build it they will come”.
With more than 1.5 billion websites online you need a digital marketing plan that generates interest, holds visitor’s attention, and converts into profits.
Keep reading for seven tips on creating a powerful and successful digital marketing plan.
A Comprehensive Digital Marketing Plan is Essential
You can’t put all your eggs in one basket. When you’re in the cyberworld, you need to expand your digital marketing plan so that you can reach the most people in the most effective ways possible.
If you sell industrial farm equipment it doesn’t do you any good for soccer moms, accountants, and teenagers to be the people who see your social media posts the most.
You need to develop a plan that works for your industry and your niche. One that takes who your customer is and what they want into account.
1. Consumers Always Want Convenience
Nobody wants to spend hours searching for information that should be easily available. In fact, consumers have very little patience for companies that don’t take their time into account and make convenience a priority.
Close to half of visitors will abandon a website that takes longer than 3 seconds to load. That means it doesn’t matter how great your website is if it doesn’t load quickly and properly on every type of device.
The best thing you can do for your digital marketing plan is to make sure you prioritize the customer experience.
You can have an incredible marketing campaign but lose potential clients forever because your website is not user-friendly.
Don’t forget that more than two-thirds of internet users access the internet on a mobile device so that should always be a consideration in any online strategy.
2. Know Your Audience, Target Your Customer
As mentioned earlier, it doesn’t do your company any good if your marketing efforts aren’t reaching the right people.
You want to attract new customers and not all customers are the same. You may have a product that appeals to several demographics for several reasons.
You don’t want to alienate a potential sale by targeting only one type of consumer. You also don’t want to waste your money, time, and efforts creating a marketing campaign that doesn’t reach the right audience or target people who could actually use your services or products.
3. Search Engine Optimization
As you create your digital marketing plan you’ll want to make sure you create SEO content. Search engine optimization is essential to ranking higher in search engine results.
Search engine users rarely look past the first page of results. If you want any chance of getting customers via search, you’ll need to create content that caters to the algorithms search engines use to rank their results.
Search engines like Google consider hundreds of factors when providing results to their users. The search engine is designed to provide the most relevant websites for the query.
The best marketing strategy you can have is creating all of your content to please customers and search engines at the same time.
4. Be a Social Butterfly and Diversify Your Efforts
You want to create a strategy that will reach as many of the right people as possible. This doesn’t mean that you’ll find them all in one place at one time.
Putting time and effort into creating social media strategies can be a great way to connect with consumers and direct traffic to your website. You can engage with customers and gain followers that you’d never reach otherwise.
Online communities that are in your industry or a related interest can also be a place to reach potential customers.
Connecting with other blogs by providing a guest post or collaborating on an online project can widen your audience and target new customers already interested in your niche.
5. Timing Can Be Everything
Network with other businesses and consumers on various platforms at various times of the day and week. Post content throughout the day and week so that you aren’t missing a large part of your audience simply because of timing.
If you post your content on Monday afternoon every week, but a potential customer only checks their social media wall on Sunday mornings, you’re losing potential business due to poor implementation of your plan.
Facebook ads are great but not every potential customer is going to be making their consumer choices or spending their time on Facebook. You need to find another way to reach those consumers at the right time to pique their interest and close the sale.
6. Engage and Respond
Consumers take word-of-mouth recommendations over any other form of marketing so the best thing you can do for your success is to ensure the customers you do have are happy.
Review sites like Yelp or rating systems of social media platforms like Facebook give consumers a chance to immediately share their opinion of your business. Those reviews remain there for everyone to see. Your response to their review could be the crucial factor in whether other consumers trust you to provide quality and professional service or not.
Even if a customer is not happy with the service they received, their review is an opportunity for you to make it right and turn a negative experience into a positive one. You could change someone who is dissatisfied into a loyal lifelong customer by your response.
A lack of response will leave that customer and other potential customers with a bad taste in their mouths and they’ll move on to a company with more positive outcomes for every review.
7. Do Your Research, Adjust as Needed
When creating a digital marketing plan it’s important to do your research. You need to know who you are reaching and whether your efforts are effective in getting sales.
Research what marketing trends and strategies are most effective right now in your industry. Research what consumers are saying about you and your competitors and adjust your strategies to appease the needs of customers.
Don’t Be Afraid
You don’t have to be an expert at every aspect of running a business. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when building your digital marketing plan so that you can create the most successful strategies for your company to meet its full potential.
For help creating the right strategy for you, connect with us today.
