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Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business

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Unless you are reviving a thriving business from the 1980’s you probably have been doing some digital marketing over the years. Now more than ever having an online presence that drives results is imperative. I am going to cover some key strategies that will help your business succeed whether you have been working your digital marketing skills or not, so let’s get started!

Great solutions start with great questions, and the question I hear most often is “how do I market my business online, advertise on social media, and get ahead of my competitors on Google so that I can start attracting leads and generating more sales .” Of course, I am grouping multiple questions into one sentence, but you get where I am going with the top pain-points most small business owners feel.

Here is a way to get on the right track before I share some strategies for 2020. First, we need to make a plan.

Sounds easy doesn’t it, but guess what, most businesses don’t do this. They know that they need to be marketing online so they get a Google Ads account, write a blog or two, post a message on Facebook, and maybe update some meta tags and keywords because that is important right? Well yes and no. If all these points are part of a strategic marketing plan with defined goals, schedule of activities and budgets then you are on the right path.  

Here are 7 steps to start your plan.

Step 1: Define Your Business

Step 2: Determine Target Audience.

Step 3: Analyze Competitors.

Step 4: Set Goals.

Step 5: Outline Strategies.

Step 6: Set a Budget.

Step 7: Get to Work!

So here are the 5 Internet Marketing Strategies that you should be doing to start.

Focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

 SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It is the process of getting traffic from the “free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines. 

All major search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo have primary search results, where web pages and other content such as videos or local listings are shown and ranked based on what the search engine considers most relevant to users.

I’m not going to go through all the facets of proper white hat SEO techniques because that is a course on to its self. But I will tell you that it needs to be the foundation of your digital marketing for 2020, and here is why. FREE TRAFFIC!

Investing in a good SEO strategy will pay the best dividends but it won’t be overnight. But, when it starts working you won’t believe the benefits. The current market conditions call for a strong SEO strategy. For more on SEO see our beginner’s checklist.

So, what should I expect, the answer is 6, 12, 18 and 24. Confused? Here is the general rule I go by. After 6 months you should start to see an uptick in traffic and quantity of leads, after 12 months you should know for sure that the plan is working, after 18 months you start modifying and improving your strategy, and finally, at 24 months you are on cruise control making changes and growing your business.

Paid Advertising

I’m talking about Google Ads and Bing Ads. I believe that Google Ads – Google’s enormously successful pay-per-click (PPC) advertising system – can work for almost any type of business. Bing works just as well but you won’t have the same reach that Google will give you.

But if you’ve never used Google Ads before, and you’re wondering whether it’s worthwhile, this post is for you. Here are the 3 reasons to use Google Ads.

Paid Advertising is measurable

Compared to TV, radio, magazines and even SEO, paid advertising is one of the most measurable channels for calculating ROI. You get a ton of metrics on literally every click and even non-clicks (impressions) for your campaigns. You can pretty quickly determine if your campaigns are sucking or driving your business forward.

Paid Ads are scalable

If you create a Paid Ad campaign that is converting at a profitable rate, you can increase your spending as the clients and profits roll in. This makes paid ads highly effective for businesses that need a lot of leads but are short on time to wait for the SEO campaign to kick in.

Paid ads are faster and easier

Instant results of a paid campaign is instantly rewarding. You can put resources into a Google Ads campaign and start getting impressions and clicks immediately. Because it’s so speedy, it’s also a good way to test whether a given keyword or audience is worth pursing via organic search – if it converts well in Google Ads, you can deduce that it’s worth trying to rank for in SEO and build out your content in that area. 

YouTube and Vlogs

YouTube is often overlooked as a search engine, but it is the second-largest search engine on the planet currently. It is not hard to see why, people can search a topic in YouTube and get thousands of topics that can be watched or listened to while driving (not recommended), taking transit to work (help save the planet) or for tuning out your family like every teenage kid does to their parents. (I know this all too well).

There are lots of ways to create content for this medium and it is getting easier, faster and a lot cheaper to accomplish this.

Social Media and Influencer Marketing

We all know by now the importance of social media, so I won’t spend too much time on why LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and let’s throw Pinterest in to the mix, are great platforms. Sorry Google+, nobody really uses you ☹.

The rest is up to you based on your ability to create quality content for all the channels you are populating. If you are posting for the sake of posting, then the old adage applies  Garbage in Garbage out. Remember content is king.

Now the most important event that can help you grow your audience and client base. You need to connect with a good Influencer who has a large following and a good reputation.

What works in Influencer Marketing

Carefully consider your approach in influencer marketing

Be organized, put together a strategy, plan, and budget, spend time on research

Be patient and be human – people talking to people, not companies talking to companies

When picking an influencer, first make sure their followers were obtained organically.

Testimonials and Customer Experiences

If you are an existing business, there is a good chance you have happy customers. If so great, have you captured any of those stories, on “paper”, social media, video? Are you letting potential customers know how happy and satisfied they could be if they became a customer as well?

I know… your customers are busy, and you don’t want to bother them, but chances are if you make it easy for them to share a testimonial there is a good chance they will.

Thank you for reading our blog, please reach out if you have any questions or would like to discuss any topics further.