Creating a marketing plan for your products and services is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Finding ways to boost your brand awareness, connect with customers, and reinforce current relationships should constantly be on your mind. But with so many ways out there to market your business online, it’s hard to narrow down the basics building blocks to a successful internet marketing campaign.
The five essential building blocks for internet marketing success include:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Paid Advertising / Pay Per Click (PPC)
In this article we’re going to break down these five essential elements behind most successful internet marketing strategies in order to accomplish the level of brand visibility, website traffic and revenue you'd like to see.
1. Web Design
In this digital age, having a well designed website is an absolute necessity for many types of businesses, but it can benefit almost every business.
Your
website is the foundation for all of your marketing efforts. All of your
advertising and content that is published will point back to your website to
encourage customers to take action. Websites need to be user-friendly with a
mobile-friendly responsive design, engaging enough to keep visitors’ attention, filled
with fresh content, and be fully optimized for search engines. These key web
design features will all play a significant role in your marketing tactics.
2. Search Engine
Optimization (SEO)
SEO is another critical component of your online marketing.
Without it, the potential for your business to be found on Google, Bing, Yahoo,
or any other search engine is slim. Most searchers don’t make it past the first
few pages in a search engine.
If your business doesn’t stand out at the
forefront of the results, you’ll lose quite a bit of web traffic and revenue.
Learn more about our SEO services here.
3. Pay Per Click
(PPC)
As competition for organic search results grows fiercer,
pay-per-click (PPC) can offer a supplemental option to increase search
visibility. While SEO is still very important for long-term website marketing,
PPC gives businesses the option for a quicker ROI.
PPC results can start
showing in traffic and sales within a few days, depending on a variety of
factors such as your industry, budget, and ad copy. This makes it great for
starting new promotions or products.
4. Email Marketing
Communicating with your prospects and current customers is key to continuing to increase your revenue. Email marketing gives you the opportunity to reach out with different types of offers, discounts, or holiday sales and discover what works best to sell more of your products or services.
It also gives you the opportunity to update customers on new products or service offering – keeping them in the loop and coming back for additional purchases.
In addition to those types of emails, you can also follow up with prospects using email. This reminds them of what you have to offer and continues to reel them in until you can convert them into a sale. The best types of emails to send to this group are emails that gives them a large amount of value upfront – such as free downloads, whitepapers, or some other type of offer.
5. Social Media
While not all people are on social media to shop or engage
with brands, there are exceptions to that.
There are millions of people on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn who seek out
brand pages to follow and interact with. This active audience is searching for
information and content provided by brands to either help persuade a purchase
or to reassure them of their purchases. By ignoring social media, brands are
losing out on opportunities to gain new customers and to engage with their core
brand advocates.
Take the time now to rate yourself on each of these building blocks on a scale of 1 to 10. If you are not utilizing one of these building blocks or feel that you score low in one of these areas, your marketing is suffering. These building blocks are the fundamentals for any online marketing strategy. Without one, you won’t be nearly as successful.
These building blocks are just the beginning of what your marketing could be! Once you have these elements in place you can build onto them and include more elements to increase visibility, traffic, and revenue.
For more information about building an amazing internet
marketing strategy, contact Sales & Marketing Technologies today for a free
consultation.