05/10/2017
There’s only 3 ways to increase revenue and grow your business:
1. Increase the number of clients/customers.
2. Increase the size of sale per client.
3. Increase the number of times a client/customer returns to purchase.
And when you use digital marketing correctly, you can achieve all 3 simultaneously and realise substantial growth.
When getting started in digital marketing, it’s important to ask yourself a few questions.
What is my goal and how will I measure results?
What channels/platforms do I want to use and why?
What resources am I going to deploy? time or money?
Who is my ideal client/customer and what are their behaviours online?
It’s important that answer these questions so you can develop a plan, execute against it then test the results.
In my opinion, it all starts with a website. If you don’t have a website in 2017 you are not relevant. You only have to look at yourself and your own actions to realise the truth to this statement. When you first become aware of a brand or business, what do you do? Check out their website?
Consumers are much wiser and informed these days and will quickly disregard your business if they cannot see you online to assess whether or not they want to engage you for your products or services.
Your website is your most important/vital digital pillar. It will ride the test of time with the ebbs and flows of the internet, social media, search engines, digital advertising etc. As these other platforms come and go your website will perpetuate and evolve with you and your business as you will not be subject to the success or failure of any particular platform.
The same can be said for email and an email list.
Email serves many functions for a business online. It can be used to communicate with your clients/customers, market products and services, nurture potential clients/customers/leads etc.
It’s important to constantly think of ways to build your email list
As with the website, email is a pillar of your digital marketing that you own and can do with as you like. As the saying goes, “never build a house on rented land”.
Now once you have your website sorted and email strategy in place, you want to consider methods to drive people to your website or sign up to your email list.
Social Media and Search Engines are two core pillars that can increase the number of people who land on your website.
Social media marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are free to use in nature however they’re not quick fixes. They require a substantial amount of ongoing work, but the rewards of a successful strategy can be fruitful.
Social and search engines have paid options such as Facebook Ads and Google AdWords. These can be relatively cheap to purchase compared to other traditional advertising channels (radio, tv, print etc.) and can provide quicker results that you can track, measure and attribute directly to website traffic or sales.
There are many other ways to market your business online but if you can get your website, email list, social media profiles and SEO effectively running in harmony, you should be well on your way to growing your revenue and business by one or more of the 3 ways.