Marketing Success
M A R K E T I N G 8 S U C C E S S S T E P S
Marketing is a massively different prospect today and online marketing is even more so. How can your company compete in an online marketplace when there are so many other sites vying for the attention and dollars of a limited number of potential clients? In this ebook, we will lay out eight steps to online marketing success. Parts are quite simple, other elements are more complex and may require you to engage an expert in the area if you re not confident in it yourself, but you will come away with an awareness of what is needed to achieve online marketing goals. Introduction
1. Do your research What is your goal for your business? Where and what do you want to be? Ask yourself these questions first as your whole approach to online marketing will hinge on the answers. You may be aware that you need to rank well in Google but you might be unsure what you need to rank for. It may sound like a no-brainer, but use Google Adwords. First up, you can research (for free) what kind of words people use to search for things, which will then inform your Pay Per Click (PC) campaign. Basically, you pay to use the words that your potential customers will use to search for a service like yours, which will push your business listing higher up the search page. To get started, go to adwords.google.com and create an account. Using the keyword tool, you can add all the words and phrases that you think people might use to find a business like yours and review the results. The results will show you the level of competition for those words, global monthly searches and local monthly searches. Broader terms might yeild high traffic and high competition, so narrowing a search and getting more specific will allow you to compete more effectively. Think the difference between searching hairdresser and hairdresser Seattle. You can also sign up for Google Analytics and install the tracking code on your site so you can your rankings and progress. Do your research
2. Rev up your site for search engines Once you know what keywords you want to compete for, you have to make sure your site accurately reflects what you offer. You have to make sure your site shows Google that you are a credible search result that your site is going to be the right answer to the search question. Search engines work off algorithms designed to crawl, evaluate, and index millions of websites against search terms. When delving into the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the most important aspects to evaluate immediately are your pages meta data, meta description and content. These elements should reflect your target keyword list. SEO is an art and a science and overdoing it wedging your keywords into every nook and cranny of your site, no matter how awkwardly it sits will do more harm than good. Start by working in two or three keywords per page in all three elements above. Load the new data onto your site via your Content Management System (CMS) or within the HTML code. If this makes your brain melt, a web design firm or IT specialist will be able to help you. With your keywords primed for search engines to pick up on, you ll start to move up the rankings. You can also boost your SEO by tagging any images (Alt Tags) on your site with relevant keywords. Rev up your site for search engines
3. The right content can drive site traffic You can increase your search engine rankings is by regularly adding new relevant - content. Make your web presence work for you and add new pages about the services you really want people to discover. Don t just build your site, wipe your hands and think you re all done. Google loves fresh content and one of the best ways you can increase your search engine rankings is by regularly adding new relevant - content. Make your web presence work for you and add new pages about the services you really want people to discover. One quick and easy way of doing that is by having a blog on your site. If you don t already have one, get your web designer to add one in. Blogs are good value options as they allow you to add new content quickly and easily without the cost of page builds. Don t be afraid to write or ask anyone in your organisation if they would like to contribute. Just remember to keep it relevant. If you want to steer the blog a bit more strategically, put together an editorial calendar to structure the topics and schedule. Aim to publish a minimum of one new article a week. Use your blog to drive traffic to your site by promoting new articles on social media, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. If you don t have accounts for any of these platforms, it s very quick and easy to set one up and get started. The right content can drive site traffic
4. Using social media to get your message out Social media is a quick and effective way of getting your message out there and there are several good social media content distribution sites you can capture your audience with. Social media is a quick and effective way of getting your message out there and there are several good social media content distribution sites like Sprout Social or Hootsuite that let you publish all your content in one hit without having to go to Twitter or Facebook individually. Bear in mind that you need to tread carefully though. Think about what to post, how often, and on which platform. It s fine to schedule a few tweets a day, but do the same on Facebook and it ll irritate your customers and your followers will walk. So what should you share on social media? Again, keep it relevant. Content from your website should be your starting point. If you have an active blog, use that. Make sure you add clear, captivating tag lines and solid calls to action so you can convert traffic to leads. Put social share buttons on your blog articles so people can share them instantly, letting your readers do some of your marketing for you. Using social media to get your message out
5. How smart layout can convert traffic to leads So you ve got all the elements in place now and you re getting plenty of traffic driven to your site. But traffic means nothing if it s not converting to transactions. At this point, you want to capture the contact information of people who are interested in your services but not yet ready to pick up the phone. This is the foundation of inbound marketing. These people may still be researching their options. If you give them something to help their decision process, that makes you a resource. Laying out clear calls to action (CTA) wil give them something to do on their visit. Make CTAs strong, clear and inviting, and offer some kind of free resource to keep them clicking. When clicked, these CTAs should redirect to a custom landing page that details the offer fully and provides a simple contact form to claim, whereby you can capture contact information. Have at least one CTA on every page and make sure it sits prominently above the fold don t make users have to scroll and peer at the bottom of the page. There is a lot to look at on a web page, so make sure your design drives the users gaze to your offers and use slightly different design features to differentiate your offerings. Adding containers or web boxes to your webpage can create a layering effect and separates valuable pieces of content from the background and imagery. How smart layout can convert traffic to leads
6. Foster leads and close the deal So your site s looking great, you ve got lots of people checking it out and you ve got some good contacts. Now you need to nurture your site visitors along the sales funnel. This is generally where email marketing comes in. Keeping in touch with leads via email can be the key to signing new clients, but it s only possible now that you ve converted traffic into leads by offering something which they give their contact details for. Send regular, timely emails that allow customers to learn more or take the next step. This will help you identify true prospects. From there, you can offer them consultations and free trials to get your sales person in front of them. If you use marketing software such as HubSpot, you can set up automated workflows for specific target groups, so you can keep up with all your leads and make sure you re responding to them in a timely manner. If this is all sounding a bit daunting and time consuming, remember that this is not for the part-timer these tactics are for those serious about conversion. However, if you are only running a small operation, you should still put strategies in place to at least respond to your contacts regularly. Don t lose business because you can t be bothered. Foster leads and close the deal
7. Meet the funnel To increase your effectiveness and conversion rates, you need to understand when and why your customers convert in other words, what stage of the sales funnel they re at. The concept of the sales funnel describes the different points of psychological readiness to buy. There are three main sections of the funnel top, middle and bottom. Top of the funnel entrants are the furthest from purchase. They re just looking for overall information and are still considering their options. Further down, the middle of the funnel entrants understand your overall offering and are interested, but aren t quite convinced yet. They want to know if you re credible or not and may look for examples of what you ve done in the past. Bottom of the funnel entrants are primed and ready to purchase. They may need to learn more but they re made the decision, they ve filtered out the competition and are ready to do business with you. Of course, most people don t land on your site ready to buy straight away they re still evaluating and deciding, which is why clear CTAs are vital for supplying more information quickly and clearly. If you want to, you can offer industry whitepapers to people at the top of the funnel, case studies and checklists to the middle, and free consultations and trials to the bottom of the funnel. This will move visitors through the sales cycle in a kind and gentle manner. Meet the funnel
8. How to track, measure and improve performance Assessing data means you can constantly improve on your efforts, growing effectiveness along with your inevitably growing search engine rankings and content library. Okay, time to see how all your hard work is tracking for you by analysing your metrics in depth. Assessing this data means you can constantly improve on your efforts, growing effectiveness along with your inevitably growing search engine rankings and content library. Look at what worked and what didn t. Adjust the failing elements and capitalise on the ones that are proving most successful, modelling future approaches on these winning strategies. Look at when content was sent out did the day of send influence how much traffic an email generated? Are some pages of your site causing a higher bounce rate than they should? Watch the conversion rates of your landing pages in particular. Any page with an offer and a contact form is critical to your success. If people aren t interacting with this, look closely to explore why and amend the page. Do your research
Now what? Get some premium experts on your side, our global team can work with you to take your business to the next level. Now you ve got your head around the eight basic steps to online marketing success, we know you ll be able to apply them to your business, big or small, and see the benefits of understanding your customer and how they operate. Here at Wolf Interactive, we understand online marketing and beyond so if you want to get some premium experts on your side, our global team can work with you to take your business to the next level. Melbourne 2/8 Bromham Place Richmond, VIC 3121 Telephone: + 61 3 9882 7171 Now what?
Melbourne 2/8 Bromham Place Richmond, VIC 3121 Telephone: + 61 3 9882 7171 Sydney Aurora Place Level 25, Aurora Place 88 Phillip Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia Telephone: + 61 2 8355 7359 Brisbane Level 54, One One One Eagle Street 111 Eagle Street Brisbane, Queensland 4000 Telephone: + 61 7 3733 1526