A New Year means a new start with new ideas, dreams and goals and as such it’s a great time of new opportunities for your business to reach new customers. So what are you going to do to market your business in 2013?
Online digital marketing in particular provides you with lots of possibilities, but to be effective with whatever you do it’s important to follow three golden rules so that your marketing doesn’t miss the mark and you maximise its results in 2013:
Understand your target market
Image courtesy of jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A big mistake businesses often make with their marketing is to use a scatter gun approach, in other words, if you spray your marketing message as wide as possible you are bound to hit something. The problem with that strategy is that the percentage return is small and a lot of marketing money is wasted.
A lot of traditional offline marketing (e.g. billboards, general magazines) can be that way too, but online digital marketing helps you to be more targeted and by using analytics you can much more easily measure success.
You need to get inside the head of the people or businesses you are trying to reach. Who are they? Where do they hang out? What makes them tick? What are the problems and challenges they face that you can help them solve?
Capture their attention
Image courtesy of dream designs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Once a customer arrives at your website you need to ensure they buy and don’t bounce! “Bounce rate”, as defined by Google, is “the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.”
People are time-starved and so will quickly decide (typically in less than 8 seconds) whether or not to stay on your website. They surf and don’t stroll! Web marketing is all about capturing your customer’s attention. Does your website do that? What could you do to make it better?
When they arrive at your website, what will a customer find and will they understand? Is your website written for your customers in words that they will understand or is it full of jargon?
It’s important to realise that when someone searches online for the products or services you sell and arrives at your website, they are not really interested in you, but whether or not you can fix their problem. You need to:
- Avoid long sentences and paragraphs – use more bullet points instead
- Use strong photographs or images where possible. They help enhance the flow of a page and draw the reader in
- Consider using video – a picture speaks a thousand words. A short promotional video can say thousands more
Call them to action
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Having targeted your website for the people or businesses you want to reach and captured their attention, make sure they know what to do next.
If you run an ecommerce website that sells directly online then the strongest call to action you can make is a “Buy Now” button. For other sites, the call to action will be different, but it still should be as immediate.
Whether you want your customer to fill in a web form (web forms are more ‘immediate’ calls to action than offering an email address) or picking up the phone to call you, make sure that next action is clear.
So at the start of this New Year what will you do? What are the ideas, dreams and goals you have for your business? Will your marketing take you there?
If you could do with chatting your ideas through or just need some more inspiration to get you moving on how to improve your online marketing, then contact us here or call us on 01202 532522.
If you want to get ahead, you better get Cracking!
