Every business wants more customers, right? I know we do and we’re a marketing business! The latest trend, and by latest I mean at least a decade old, is digital marketing. How do you leverage digital marketing to gain customers? Where do you spend your dollars and how? Here are 5 ways to gain customers by investing in digital marketing.
1. BUILD YOUR LIST
Building your own list of customers, and then nurturing it, is the best and highest return on your marketing dollars. You can do this easily by adding a “Join our Mailing List” page or pop-up on your website. You can also have a banner on the site that prompts folks to join your email list. This list can be used to market to and to gain additional customers via referral. What do you do with the names on your list? That brings me to #2.
2. EMAIL
Put your list to use with email marketing. A well-crafted email strategy will prove is worth its’ weight in gold. Highly personalized and targeted emails will net some of the highest open rates and click through rates (CTR). Plan your email campaigns around segments. Did someone sign up to receive information on picture frames but your email is about jewelry? Segment your audience so the email is customized to what they want and include a promotional offer to get the best response. This will increase your CTR and purchase rate which equals more customers.
3. SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is when a listing appears organically/naturally in Google. It’s the listings that appear below the Google paid ads and you want that to be you because it’s free, technically. SEO is an investment of time and resources and takes significant effort to maintain however, it’s the best listing you can have, and maintain. Invest in a solid SEO strategy to get this listing for your Top 3-7 keywords. This way when a user searches for your product in Google, your company will be in the first page of results naturally.
4. GOOGLE/PPC ADS
We all know Google has ads that pop up when we search something. These are pay per click (PPC) ads. Google ads will drive highly relevant traffic to your site that you pay for. This traffic is based on the keyword, or search term, the user enters into Google. While it’s easy to see how this gives you more traffic, you need to ensure you have a well-organized site to convert the traffic into more customers. If you have a clear call-to-action (CTA) such as a form to complete, call a rep or product to purchase, then it’s wise to invest in Google Ads.
5. SOCIAL MEDIA
Knowing which social networks to participate in is part of the battle. More than 70% of companies will participate on Facebook and Twitter. For those companies that have a visual product (retailers, cars, etc.), Pinterest makes sense. If you market services to professionals or other businesses, LinkedIn is a good option as well. For those where videos are relevant such as home improvement retailers, we recommend YouTube be part of your strategy. Start out with posting daily on all the networks and then review your analytics to determine the best time of day to post.
