Developing an effective digital strategy isn’t easy. Once you’ve got your website right, how do you begin to increase the traffic to your site, convert these visitors into customers and generate more sales?
There are a number of ways you can achieve this. The main benefit of online marketing is that it enables you to measure the return on investment accurately, allowing you to clearly see what parts of your marketing campaign are working and where to improve the parts that aren’t. And because the web is so dynamic, different optimisation strategies can be trialled very easily, meaning that optimisation can take weeks rather than months, as is the case with offline advertising.
For example, you can test your creative online by switching between two or three banners quickly and easily to see which work best, and then roll this out offline. Once you know the routes that work for you, ongoing testing and conversion optimisation is key to a prolonged success to make sure you are always attracting new visitors and seeing them turn into customers. At the end of the day… this is the result we all want to see.
Better consumer targeting is another key benefit to digital marketing because you can focus on specific demographics who you know will have an interest in your product or services. Researching the marketplace, specifically your competitors, is something that can, again, be easily achieved in order for you to make sure you don’t replicate mistakes that have already been made, saving you money in the long term.
Engaging with customers through social media gives you another platform to promote your brand, without up selling directly. This relationship building will compliment conversion rates and support any affiliate marketing to increase the scope of your online sales force. And when it comes to reducing wastage of your marketing spend, it is easier now, with the help of better analytics packages, for you to track the channels that are driving sales in order to achieve a stronger ROI.
It is essential to ensure that you spend your budget in the most effective and efficient way, which might be more achievable than you think. If your budget is limited then investment in search marketing would be a good place to start. Search marketing allows you to stand out from your competition and continuously have an online presence, whilst accurately conveying the benefits of your product over someone else’s.
If your site conversion rate is low, it will make more sense to undertake some site optimisation work to increase it rather than spend more money on online media, as the long term effect of increasing the conversion rate will generate a far higher ROI than any other option. It’s about tackling the quick wins first, improving your online business as quickly as possible and reducing the effect of the law of diminishing returns.
There are so many options available that it’s difficult to encompass them all. However, whether you’re considering paid or natural search marketing, display ads, sponsorship or online video, social media marketing or contextual advertising, the important thing is to find the channels that provide the highest return on investment for you and optimise your campaign to continually improve performance. If approached in a strategic manner, you will see your sales increasing in no time!
