Business WebsiteOnline Marketing
We have all heard people suggesting that every business website needs to invest in SEO, AdWords, Facebook and all the other variations of online marketing available. Is this really going to help your business website though and more importantly if it does help, in what way?
Like most marketing options, they can have great rewards if they are targeted correctly, have the right consumer in mind during the planning stages and of course executed in the right way. Online marketing is generally seen as so mysterious for many businesses, as it tends to be marketed to them that way. The truth is that it is pretty simple when you break it down to what it is and what are the benefits though, but if the businesses offering online marketing tell you that, then how can they justify the excessively high costs that they tend to charge?
So how do you get started with online marketing?
Work out what your business is trying to achieve by building an online presence first up, and remember that like regular marketing techniques this can be more than one thing. Are you trying to develop brand awareness, or sell a particular product or service, are you wanting to tell people about your business location, or any other number of messages you want to tell your audience about. The most successful campaigns are those that have planned what the business message, this then allows you to focus on who your target customer for the campaign will be.
The target of your campaign is also important for any campaign, no point advertising a service you offer locally to another city that you do not service, or sell a product to a location that has restrictions in place on that product. Basically this is where you need to gain a better understanding of who your potential customers are, this comes from experience and of course getting to know your existing customers. That way you can develop a basic profile to target your campaign to a potential customer base and this will generally provider a much better return on your investment of your online marketing campaign.
So you have the message and your target audience, what’s next?
Well you need to determine where you want to advertise to your audience, is your product for business and would be better suited to a customer that is browsing the internet and searching on a search engine like Google? Or perhaps your target audience is more likely to be using Facebook or other social media platforms and would notice you there instead. For some business a multi-platform approach is the right way to target your potential customer base. But the important thing is to take the time to think about the demographic you are marketing your business to and that will determine the right approach here.
It is generally at this stage you will realise that every platform has its own way of managing and posting your ads and posts. There are some applications available that allow for multi-platform post management and ad management, but we tend to use the platforms native features, as that allows for you to get direct feedback from each platform. If that is your intention you will need to invest some time each day or maybe each week once you have established your campaign to check your budgets are lasting the day and that you are seeing the desired results. If you are not seeing the results you expect then you can always adjust daily budgets and try different keywords to see if you get better results. When you start managing an online marketing campaign you tend to find it will be tedious and time-consuming until you have the issues ironed out.
The SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is a completely different matter to the above unfortunately, this can be more complex and will require you to have a good understanding of website coding and know what directories to list your business on. We would typically recommend that you engage a reputable business that has a straight forward approach and can provide you with a ranking report to show your improvements on your website keyword rankings. This prevents you from creating negative backlinks that could have short term gain but no long-term results. Most of these businesses can also work with you to manage an Ad campaign and even provide advice on other portions of your online marketing campaign to improve your online presence.
In conclusion, I would recommend taking the steps towards improving your online presence make the investment in business website, but to make sure that you have a plan before you get started. Most aspects of online marketing are positive and will provide you great results when actioned in the right way.
