How to Get the Most Benefit out of your Online Marketing Service
How can you get the most out of your online marketing service in 2016?
The first step to making the most of your online marketing service is to set realistic, manageable goals for your fiscal year.
What Should You Know About Your Online Marketing Service?
Here are some questions to help get you on your way to defining and clarifying your digital marketing goals:
- Which marketing approach will work the best for your company?
For example, are you going to use a content marketing approach and focus on creating and distributing valuable content for your brand? Or will it be more valuable for you to spend the majority of your advertising dollars on online marketing consulting in the areas of public relations and event management?
Take a look at your data, and find out where your leads have come from in the past. This should help you settle the Advertising vs. Public Relations question. If you still can’t decide which approach will work the best for your company, consider hiring an inbound marketing consulting firm to help you with your budgetary decisions.
- Do you have a clearly defined audience, or target market, in mind?
Too often we marketing professionals get caught up in the marketing activities – like creating content for advertising campaigns, redesigning our websites, and publishing blog posts — without considering who we are writing for.
Who do you want to attract with your marketing efforts?
As a business owner, I want to attract customers who will maximize my profit margins.
I want to find and retain repeat customers who value my services. I would want to find those types of customers that we all truly love – the kinds of customers who sing our praises on Google Reviews and generate valuable referrals.
I want to attract the best customers, clients with whom I can establish long lasting business relationships that are mutually beneficial.
Remember, your end goal should be to attract your ideal customers, because that’s going to translate into more sales and maximize profits for your business. In order to attract those customers, you’ll need to define your ideal customer prototype or customer avatar and list his or her primary characteristics. Once you’ve created your customer avatars, you can craft advertisements and content for your website and social media specifically to this clearly defined audience.
- How are you going to attract and retain your audience?
It’s important for your business to come up with a solid plan on how they are going to attract potential clients. Many times clients are attracted to a business through an advertising campaign but do not become paying customers because they do not hear about your company enough.
How will you keep your potential and current customers’ attention?
Here are a few of the channels you can use to attract and retain your customer base:
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Blogging
- Webinars & Video Blogs
Too often businesses spend a lot of time and expense attracting customers but neglect to market to their existing customer base. Your current customers are similar to “low hanging fruit.” They are much more likely to purchase services from your company than a new customer because your current customer already knows and trusts your brand. Invest in a solid marketing strategy that includes efforts to keep your past and current clientele informed about your company news and latest products and services.
