A Combined Methodology for your Digital Marketing
People often throw around the term “Best Practice” but we know from experience that there is no one simple method of Digital Marketing that fits all businesses. Each company and more specifically a company’s website has its own character, its own personality. So many variables come in to play and terms like “Best Practice” simply does not apply in the realm of Digital Marketing.
What we do know and have witnessed time and time again is a business especially a business starting out needs to spend money, they need to spend money wisely across multiple platforms. Let me elaborate a bit further here. So you have just started your Business and have finalised creating a new website. You think it looks awesome, Perhaps we have built if for you, whatever the case, you are now in a position to want the phone ringing with potential customers calling or you want emails from customers wanting your product/service. Wait, that's not happening at all, no one knows your website or business exists. All is quiet, very quiet. What do you do? An action is required, you are not making any money but you must do something that will feel unnatural. You need to dig deep into your pockets and spend money. How much? How long is a piece of string? We know the deeper you reach into your pockets the further you marketing will go. Now things are not all that simple, this game is not simply about spending money mindlessly, you will need to focus on three main areas.
SEO – SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
First and foremost your Business will need to be found on Google Search. You will need to invest in SEO so your Business ranks organically for highly relevant key word terms and in addition to this rank for Local SEO. SEO is the most cost effective way to gain relevant traffic to your Website but it is not an instant process and ranking for competitive terms can take several months or even a year. Once you finally rank you will still need to keep the ball rolling to ensure your rankings are maintained or all that work will be in vain.
SEM- SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING - GOOGLE ADWORDS
Since SEO is not an instant process and done properly will take time, you need your customers to come to your Site in volume and immediately. This is where we recommend Google Adwords. This is where people type in a keyword search term and your Ad appears at the top of Google’s First Page and when people click on your Ad they are linked to your Website. This works extremely well while your Website is being optimised with SEO but has not started to rank yet.
SMM- SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Finally, and equally important is growing your Brand and reaching a potential audience via word of mouth. Word of mouth online is Social Media Marketing. There are several platforms, some are better suited to particular businesses but increasing an awareness of what you do is vital for business sustainability. Simply posting updates and pictures on Social Media will not cut it. You will need to run paid marketing campaigns on these platforms.
Importantly, no one approach is better than another and money should be invested across all these channels, as the article says, it’s a combined methodology. Now an initial start for us to help you will be a commitment of $1000 and we can stretch this budget over 3 months. If you don’t have this budget don’t give up on your dream but don’t start till you have this amount of money to work with.