Over 70% of leads aren’t sales-ready when they first interact with your brand. Meanwhile, 63% aren’t ready to convert for at least three months.
About 79% of your leads will never convert into sales, either. As a result, over 60% of marketers say lead generation is their top challenge. If you’re struggling to generate and convert leads, you need to evaluate your digital marketing strategy.
Here are a few digital marketing ideas that can help you boost your business.
With these tips, you can appeal to your target audience, generate more leads, and increase sales. Help your business grow with these small business marketing tips today!
Research Your Audience
Before you apply the small business marketing ideas below, take a moment to gather research. Research can help you make informed marketing decisions. You’ll have an easier time accomplishing your goals as a result.
Researching your target audience can also help you personalize your small business marketing plans. Otherwise, you could produce generic content (which is considered a turn-off). In fact, 63% of consumers expect personalization as a standard now.
About 45% of consumers won’t spend time with content that doesn’t match their interests. Another 52% are likely to switch brands if a company doesn’t personalize communications.
Learning how to personalize your digital marketing strategy can help you forge stronger connections with customers. In fact, 90% of marketers experience a measurable lift in results due to personalization. About 98% note personalization advances customer relationships.
Meanwhile, personalization can deliver eight times the ROI on your marketing spend, while boosting sales by 10% or more.
About 80% of consumers are more likely to make purchases if you offer personalized experiences, too.
To use personalization, you first need to define who your customers are and what they care about.
Gather demographic and psychographic research. Consider the consumer’s:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Marital status
- Household income
- Career
- Hobbies
- Interests
- Pain points
- Education
- Language
If your audience falls into more than one group, create buyer personas. Then, you can create personalized content for each group.
Keyword Research
For an effective digital marketing strategy, you’ll also need keyword research. Keyword research can benefit your search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC), and content creation strategies.
You can start gathering keyword research using tools like:
- Answer the Public
- Google Trends
- Keyword Planner
- Ahrefs
- Moz
Develop a list of short-tail and long-tail keywords. You’ll primarily use long-tail keywords when developing your SEO strategy. Long-tail keywords are more precise, allowing you to gain a better understanding of the consumer’s needs.
When gathering keyword research, consider the topics you want to cover within your content.
For example, a marketing agency might cover SEO, PPC, social media marketing, and content creation.
Then, consider what subcategories fall under each topic. For SEO, a marketing agency might focus on keyword research, content creation, and SEO trends.
Keeping your keyword research organized can help you moving forward.
Establish Your Brand
Nearly 60% of consumers prefer shopping from familiar brands. Another 90% expect brands to remain consistent across all platforms and channels. Without consistent branding, brand awareness might never grow.
It can also take over five impressions with a consumer before you generate brand awareness.
Meanwhile, you only have seven seconds to make a strong first impression on a customer.
Take the time to develop your brand guidelines before using the rest of these marketing ideas. Your brand guidelines should outline your:
- Mission statement
- Vision statement
- Logo
- Voice
- Tone
- Personality
- Image style
- Color palette
- Font style
Follow your brand guidelines as you apply the rest of these digital marketing ideas. In time, brand awareness will grow into brand recognition. Then, you can stick in the consumer’s mind.
The next time they need your offerings, they might recall your branding.
Once consumers fall in love with your brand, you can start gaining loyal customers. One loyal customer is worth 10 single-purchase consumers. Even boosting your retention rate by 2% can lower costs by 10%.
Update Your Website UX
Nearly 90% of consumers won’t return to a website after a bad user experience (UX). In fact, 70% of online businesses fail due to bad usability.
Consumers even form 75% of their judgment about your credibility based on your site’s aesthetics.
Make sure to invest in your website. A positive UX will encourage consumers to visit your site. Their dwell times will increase, which can benefit your search engine rankings.
Higher search engine rankings can help you reach more customers online.
Consider working with an experienced web design and development agency to update your website this year. Make sure it’s fast, mobile-friendly, secure, and user-friendly.
A positive UX can also help you encourage more leads and sales.
Your website will allow you to market your business 24/7, even when your doors are closed. Without an eye-catching website, however, you might miss opportunities to reach new customers.
Create Content
Give people a reason to visit your website more than once. Use your keyword research to develop your content marketing strategy. Unique, quality blog posts can help you demonstrate your experience and expertise.
Then, you can boost your brand credibility, which could encourage new customers to trust your brand.
Experiment with different forms of content, including:
- eBooks
- Articles
- Blogs
- Infographics
- Webinars
- Videos
- Polls
- Quizzes
Try creating more interactive content to boost customer engagement, too.
Use SEO
Once you start creating blog content, make sure to optimize using SEO. SEO can help your website rank higher on search engines. Then, you can generate more brand awareness, traffic, and leads.
Creating engaging, quality blog posts can also help you establish yourself as a thought leader in the industry. Then, you can encourage brand trust, helping you generate more leads and sales.
Consider working with an experienced digital marketing agency this year. Their SEO services can help boost your rankings.
Otherwise, make sure to claim and optimize your Google Business listing. Your listing will provide consumers with your:
- Business name
- Business category
- Hours
- Phone number
- Address
- Customer reviews
- Photos/videos
- Posts
Encourage your happy customers to post reviews on your Google Business listing. Positive reviews can boost your brand authority and credibility. On-the-fence consumers might decide to give your business a try after reading reviews.
Otherwise, refresh your Google Business listing with fresh posts, photos, and videos.
Try PPC
Pay-per-click advertising can help you appear on search engines, websites, or social media platforms. When someone clicks on your ad, they’ll reach a landing page on your website. Then, you can communicate your value to boost leads and sales.
You can use Facebook Ads for social media advertising or Google Ads to get started.
Before you develop your first campaign, consider hiring a small business marketing agency. PPC can get costly if you lack experience. An agency can ensure you generate leads without blowing through your budget.
Stay Social
To engage your target audience in real-time, develop a social media marketing strategy this year.
You don’t have to post on every social media platform as you get started. Instead, determine which platform your customers use the most often.
If you’re targeting younger consumers, focus on Snapchat and TikTok. Older consumers are likely on Facebook. You can reach professionals on LinkedIn.
Reformat the blog posts you created for each social media platform you use.
Start creating interactive content using Instagram Stories, too. You can add stickers to your content to encourage more engagement.
Work with Influencers
As part of your social media marketing strategy, consider working with influencers this year.
Your customers already love and trust influencers that are relevant to your niche. You can leverage that trust by having an influencer promote your brand.
Influencer marketing can help you increase your brand visibility online, too.
Nurture with Emails
Add a lead magnet to your website and encourage consumers to offer their email in exchange for your exclusive content. For example, you can offer a tool, eBook, or discount code. Once you build an email list, segment your subscribers.
Then, start sending personalized emails to attract consumers back to your website.
Email marketing can help you nurture leads, allowing you to remain top of mind.
Host Contests
As you apply these digital marketing ideas, look for ways to keep your audience engaged. For example, you can post a contest on your website. Make sure you’re offering a prize consumers want to win.
You can post contests on social media and encourage consumers to participate by:
- Tagging a friend
- Liking the post
- Sharing the post in their stories
- Saving the post
- Commenting
This process can help you generate more engagement and reach more customers online.
Keep Up with Trends
Once you apply these online marketing ideas, keep an eye out for new platforms and trends. Tracking the latest trends will help you remain relevant.
For example, the latest SEO trends include video content, voice search, and Google’s Core Web Vitals.
Analyze and Adjust
Review the analytics from your small business marketing campaigns. Determine which tactics help you reproduce results.
Then, adjust your campaigns to boost your ROI.
Boost Business: Set Yourself Up for Success with these Digital Marketing Ideas
Developing an effective online marketing strategy shouldn’t feel stressful. Instead, use these digital marketing tips to get started. With these tips, you can boost your ROI and set your business up to grow!
Remember, you don’t have to develop or apply your small business marketing plans alone. Instead, consider working with an agency this year.
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