Product : If your product does not appeal to your target market and does not get them excited then you will end up wasting a lot of time and money on marketing campaigns, offline or online. I see so many businesses who have not done enough market research to find out what the customer wants. It is like inviting vegetarians to a party and having only meat for food. They will go back hungry.
Presence : Your web and mobile presence are critical elements of your online marketing. Very often companies are selling great products but make their website using a cheap template. Your website graphics, layout, content and presentation will decide whether the visitors on your website are engaged or leave it quickly.
Promotion : If you have a product which appeals to the target market, promoting is the next important step. Your promotion should always combine the need to get some quick wins and getting long term, sustainable competitive advantage. A targeted online advertising campaign, utlising the latest advancements in technology can yield a quick return on investment with a low cost of aquisition. Some examples are display campaigns on Google Adwords which target specific audiences and Facebook advertising which allows advertisers to choose audiences by geography and demographics. Having a specific call to action in the advertising campaign, like inviting people to webinars and then selling to them can be very powerful. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which is the process of improving the relevance and reputation of a website to rank highly on Google is a great way of building competitive advantage for a business, as websites which rank on top positions on Google are trusted more than websites which pay for being seen on top results of Google.
Process : Does you have a process to encourage your website visitors to engage with your company. Have you got atleast three different ways in which your prospective customers can engage with you? Not every one who comes to your website will buy or enquire straight away. Some people will want to know more about you and your business before they decide to take action. What are you doing to engage these people?
Metrics : Do you regularly measure how many people visit your website, what % of them got converted into leads/sales, How are these results trending on a weekly/monthly basis? Do you know what pages of your website are popular and what pages need improvement? Do you find out what links are getting clicked and what links get ignored. Do you ever split test different headings and different images on your website to see what converts better?
In most cases, you can increase your website leads and sales by alteast ten times by doing these things.
If you are doing all this, congratulations. If not it is time to make your online marketing sharper.
