The following article, including editable template, is available for download as a PDF here: Coast Capital Digital Marketing One Page Plan
By understanding how your clients make purchasing decisions and why they would choose you, you can craft a winning digital marketing strategy tailored to connect with your target audience and drive meaningful results.
1. Optimize your website
Your website is the way many people first find you online or use to confirm all the great things they’ve heard about you. This means you want a website that both ranks well in search results and highlights your expertise.
Make sure your website is optimized for search engines so people can easily find you when they search. Include links between your website and your social media accounts, so people who find you in one place can find you in many places. Use links to external sites to build your credibility and keep your website content relevant and timely.
Each page on your website should have a title that grabs people’s attention and tells them what they want to know. Include searchable content, such as industry research, insights on trends, case studies, white papers, and blogs. Testimonials and reviews also help build your credibility.
2. Creating online leads
Leads are people who have started on their purchasing journey and are open to receiving information from you about your goods, services, or expertise. Depending on your industry and your target customers, it can take many interactions between your company and your customer before they make a purchase.
Your marketing efforts are all about reaching out to your valuable customers and showcasing the fantastic goods and services you offer.
Did you know that our merchant services partner Global Payments can be integrated into your website? They offer an extensive suite of payment solutions, including payment gateways, software and POS equipment. They are experts in developing omnichannel presence to promote more sales online. Talk with a Coast Capital Business Advisor to learn
more about the benefits of this feature.
Using lead magnets (for example, trial subscriptions, free samples, white papers, e-newsletters, free consultations, ebooks and webinars) enables you to nurture leads so they sign up for your email service and ultimately buy from you when they’re ready. Some ways you can create leads include:
- Having gated lead generators such as e-books or white papers on your website, so they must give you their email to download your content.
- Sending automatic emails when customers abandon their online shopping cart.
- Using calls to action to encourage potential customers to take their next steps towards a purchase, such as signing up to receive your newsletter.
You may also consider offering free trials, which makes the most sense for products or services that cost nothing to deliver, such as software. When clients are ready to or need to advance to a premium tier or product, then you can charge them.
3. Content marketing
Content marketing is the creation and sharing of online materials to increase traffic to your website and ultimately increase sales. Timely content that is useful for and relevant to your audience enhances your credibility and builds consumer trust and loyalty. Effective content marketing also allows you to get to know your customers so you can identify their pain points and show how your goods or services solve their problems. Content marketing that may drive traffic to your website includes:
- Blog posts, which can improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), deliver increased value, and expand awareness of your company.
- Social media, to increase awareness of your brand and encourage people to visit your website.
- Email newsletters, which highlight your products, events, and industry-related news.
- Case studies, which highlight the outstanding work you’ve done for a client or customer and how your good or service solved their pain points.
- E-books that showcase your expertise and encourage people to learn more about your business can also be highly effective.
4. Marketing automation
Automating your marketing enables you to continue marketing your business even while you’re focused on other important tasks. Some marketing tasks can be automated so you and your team can focus on other matters. For example, you could automate emails to be sent to people based on their habits on your website. You can set up email sequences
so that when people sign up to receive your e-book, they automatically receive welcome and thank you emails. Or if people abandon a shopping cart, they get an email reminder enticing them to complete their purchase. You can also set up sales representative notifications so that if a lead views certain pages on your website, your sales team is
notified, and they can follow up with those people.
5. Email campaign
Targeted email campaigns can be an effective way to build relationships and showcase your expertise. Once you have an email list, you can determine what topics you want to email about and what you want your audience to do after they read your email. You can segment your list into categories, so you can customize the message. Among the types of email campaigns: • Newsletters, which keep subscribers engaged and informed about any trends or developments related to your industry.
- Promotional emails, which let readers know about sales, discounts, or special offers. These can be personalized based on subscriber behavior and are often effective for generating immediate sales.
- Onboarding emails, which are sent to new subscribers to introduce them to your brand and highlight some products or services.
- Abandoned cart emails, which are sent to people who left items in their online shopping cart but haven’t yet purchased them. These emails encourage customers to finish the transaction and may provide an incentive for doing so.
- Re-engagement emails, which are sent to inactive subscribers and may offer incentives, discounts, or exclusive content to encourage them to re-engage. Email campaigns can also be automated so you don’t have to monitor your audience’s behaviors and manually email them, your automations take care of that for you.
6. Social media
There are many social media platforms out there, and the good news is you don’t have to be on all of them. All you need to do is figure out which platforms your ideal customers are on and focus your social media on the one or two platforms that your target clients use most frequently. Post useful information regularly, rather than selling all the time.
That way, your audience will come to view you as an expert, which will make them more likely to buy from you when the time is right. Engage in social listening, which is where you monitor what people say about your business on social media and respond to comments and feedback promptly. If you receive negative comments, determine
if there’s anything you can do to make things right. Build your audience, join social media groups and communities, and participate in conversations. Track your social media results to see which posts get the most engagement and which conversations result in the most conversions. Adjust your plan if you need to.
7. Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is how you attract customers who are searching for your good or service to your website. It’s what search engines use to determine which results are the most relevant to a user’s search. Setting up your website with SEO helps your ranking in the search results, so your business is higher in the results than your competitors.
Determine your keywords based on what terms people are most likely to use when they’re searching for a business like yours. Incorporate those keywords into the text on the website pages and in the keyword meta tags.
Include links to websites that are relevant to your business. This increases the credibility of your site and can influence your search results ranking. Additionally, backlinking, where a link on an outside website links to your own, is also helpful in your SEO. See if other websites will link to your site. This is especially helpful if those sites are highly credible.
Update your website regularly and use Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of your SEO. This will also tell you how people find you online, what keywords they use, and what path they follow once they’re on your site.
8. Online advertising
Online advertising can be used to get your business the attention it needs. Well-developed advertising campaigns target your ideal customers and may even segment them further based on their online habits. Among the types of advertising you can use are:
- Social media advertising.
- Pay-per-click advertising, where you pay a fee based on how many people click on the link to visit your website.
- Embedded videos or banners.
- Affiliate programs, where you pay other people to link to your goods or services.
The Stuff We Need To Say
This content is for general information purposes only. It is not to be relied upon as financial, tax, or investment advice or guarantees about the future, nor should it be considered a recommendation to buy or sell. You should consult your own professional advisor for specific financial, investment, and/or tax advice tailored to your needs to ensure that individual circumstances are considered properly and action is taken based on the latest available information.
