This week fellow client and team member, Leigh Fowler, schools us on some great tips for saving time and money when dealing with your online marketing campaigns. Enjoy!
6 Strategies to Save Time & Money with YOUR Online Marketing
by Leigh Fowler, Rise Media + Design
A lot of business owners know the importance of online marketing for their business but they just don’t know where to get started, or how to take it to the next level.
Not only that – but once you get started – it can be so overwhelming with all the options, platforms and constantly updated systems that are available to us that our time and budget will be affected -– so it’s important to be efficient and effective with your online marketing.
I’ve come up with a list of key action steps that will help you get started with your online marketing – but also save you time and money – because this approach will be strategic in nature!
Strategy #1 – DEFINE YOUR OBJECTIVES
Before you even start posting on Facebook or blogging on your website, it’s important to create a plan with clear objectives that is really going to keep your marketing on track. This is so important. You can’t just randomly post things or upload photos with no clear agenda or objectives. What you do online represents your business – so if you do it haphazardly that will also reflect how people view your business. It’s really important to sit down and define what you’re trying to do. Once you know that, it’ll be easier to decide what platform is going to do that for you.
Strategy #2 – PLAN FOR CONSISTENCY
Put together a style guide to maintain your consistent branding messages, keywords, and calls to action for your consumer base. This is really important, especially as your team grows. You must be able to hand this manual off to anybody, and they can continue with the same tone and feel of your marketing and key messages.
Within that style guide, I would also differentiate between the different platforms that you’re going to be using, and the different tools, processes, language and formats that your team will need to follow when updating of your online platforms.
Strategy #3 – BRANDING ELEMENTS
Consider how you want to be perceived when you brand each of your online marketing initiatives. Are they consistent? Are the same key messages coming across? Are you logos and tag lines the same across each platform? Are things done to spec and are consistent with the standards for optimum viewing on each platform?
Strategy #4 – ANALYTICS
If you don’t already have it installed on your website, I suggest you download Google Analytics and review your results regularly. What you can find and pull from here is quite fascinating – you can learn more about the customers you already have – the people who are already visiting your website. This information will help you make informed decisions on key content areas and the outcome of each of your strategies.
If you do have a search bar installed on your website, look up what the top searches are. You can also, through the Google Analytics of your website, find out what your top content pages are. What are your consumers and potential customers gravitating towards? What topics, what content pieces, and what sections?
Knowing this piece of information is really going to help you connect with your consumer base online. It’s also going to help you form your content plan for your marketing initiatives. You can even start pulling from those sections when you start posting on different platforms. This is really good, strategic information based on the people who are already coming to your website.
Strategy #5 – PRODUCE A SCHEDULE
Produce a schedule. You want to teach and train your audience on what to expect from you, and you want to be consistent with that. If you’re posting regularly or if you’re blogging, they know they can come back in a couple days and you’ll have some new posts up there. So be really clear about what your consumer base and your fan base can expect from you.
Strategy #6 – MAXIMIZE YOUR LANDING PAGES
You want to maximize your opt-in pages. These are sometimes called squeeze pages or landing pages – but basically they are the pages that people arrive on once they’ve clicked through your marketing campaign. When your marketing efforts bring your ideal customers to your website, you want to make sure you have a way to connect with them, otherwise, your marketing efforts will be for naught.
Download 9 more ways to save time and money with your online marketing by downloading Leigh’s Free Guide to Saving Time & Money with online marketing at risemediadesign.com.
Make sure to catch Leigh’s upcoming webinar, hosted through the Company of Women on October 1 at 1pm EST. You can register here.
Need more help specific to your business? Pick Leigh’s brain during a free strategy session, available on Fridays! Schedule one today!