The world of marketing has shifted immensely with digital marketing taking the forefront. Traditional marketing tactics can still work but they should still be included with digital marketing. The truth is that using the wrong strategy when marketing online can be a time-consuming waste of money. Gathering as much data as possible can lead to incremental improvements in leads generated, sales, and search engine rankings. Growing a company with the right digital marketing strategy can take the stress off of other areas of the business. Data is going to become more and more valuable especially with artificial intelligence making its way into the workplace. The following are tips to use data along with the experience of the marketing team to generate results for a small business.
Digital marketing for small businesses can be challenging. With scarce resources, you need to approach your investment in a smart way. SEO is one of the highest ROI channels for small businesses. Unlike paid advertising, businesses don’t have to pay for every click, which turns SEO into a true investment. Plus, results achieved in SEO can stay with you for years.
With results that are good, competition in the small business SEO space is increasing. That’s where data analytics truly comes into play. Instead of finding the highest volume keywords, you should go for opportunities your competitors missed. This can take hours of digging unless you approach this with a degree of automation and powerful visualizations that data analysis provides.
Find Out Which Bloggers/Writers Convert in Traffic
There is a chance that you outsource some content creation or have multiple members of the staff handle it. A particular member of the staff could generate content that simply attracts more traffic than others. Traffic can result in backlinks which makes the piece of content that much more valuable. Designate this person as the writer for the best topics on the editorial calendar so they can produce great content with an already interesting title. In the case of using freelancers, the priority should be on retaining the freelance writer responsible for the best content on and off of the company website. As long as the freelancer communicates and hits deadliners with quality work there shouldn’t be any issues.
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Dropping Tactics that Don’t Convert
Experienced marketers understand which tactics do not deliver and this can vary by business niche. Instagram is a huge marketing platform for real estate agents along with Facebook while Twitter simply doesn’t have the same impact. Twitter can catch up if the right photos are associated with a tweet. Being able to give up on a certain tactic allows the marketing team to focus on what is actually working. Keep in mind that data might state that it takes a few weeks or months to generate true results with a specific strategy. Patience is key but knowing when to pull the plug is equally if not more important.
Invest in an Email Outreach Tool with Tracking
Outreach is going to be essential at any company whether it is sales outreach by phone or influencer outreach by email. Outreach has to be handled carefully with a tool that can help track data. A salesperson can see which of their emails are being opened by subject line and can do A/B testing with the content of their email. There are even tools that allow the sender to see which links were clicked on in the email. The last thing that a company wants to do is ruin a relationship by pitching or annoying a potential customer. Organization of emails, phone calls, and other contact needs to be organized to avoid double dipping when it comes to pitching leads. Outreach can also be important for SEO as link building is the lifeblood of search engine rankings although Google vehemently denies this. The denial goes against the data marketing professionals have gathered to prove that links do matter.
A/B Testing with the Website
The website is going to be important while marketing as visitors to the sites turning into leads helps grow a business. The last thing a company wants is to spend money on marketing and get traffic to the site that immediately clicks off due to slow loading times or a funky layout. The understanding of web design trends along with SEO best practices is essential in any web design you employ or contract out work to. You might even find that a small difference in a contact form creates more leads as it is shorter or easier to fill out. Checkout processes also need to be optimized to be as easy and secure as possible. Ecommerce businesses could see huge increases in sales when making this change to reduce the number of people that keep items in their cart.
Data can drive a marketing campaign that reaches new heights for a small business. Allowing a marketing team to flourish will take investment which needs to be kept in mind. As long as they continue to have a positive ROI then putting money towards marketing is a positive!