Many businesses have chosen to operate online because of the convenience and ease of reaching a global audience. But operating a business online also has its challenges. One of the biggest challenges is trying to figure out how to effectively market an online business. Now is the perfect time to figure it out, because you’re probably already doing some of the things anyway. So in this article, we will discuss seven ways to make your online marketing more efficient.
1. Optimize For The Search Engines
This might be the most important thing if you’re trying to figure out how to make your marketing more efficient. You have to make sure that your site is optimized for the search engines. There are several tools you can use to make this process easier, like SEMrush, which we’ll discuss in more detail in a bit. But essentially, you want to have a significant amount of content on your site that is extremely relevant to your target audience. When a prospective customer types in a query into the search engine, your website should come up as one of the first results. When you have a strong showing in the search results, you’ll immediately start to see traffic directed to your site.
2. Set Up Email Automation
You might be familiar with email marketing, because it’s been around for a while. However, did you know that nearly 70% of adults use some sort of automated marketing system to get emails from brands they know and love? Email automation allows you to capture leads and grow your email list with minimal effort. You can set up automated emails to send to your audience based on certain actions they take, or you can send out periodic emails with important announcements and updates.
3. Use Technology To Its Tolerance
Many marketers are still reluctant to fully adopt technology even though it’s been a few years since the last major recession. But with each new generation, this is surely going to change. Using technology to its fullest extent is one of the best ways to make your marketing more efficient. This means using tools like Google Analytics to monitor traffic and leads, as well as using platforms like Salesforce to track and follow up with leads.
To give you a better idea of how important it is to use technology to its fullest, let’s dive into how Google Analytics and Salesforce can each be used for successful online marketing. Firstly, using Google Analytics makes it much easier to track the results of your various marketing efforts. You can simply log into your Google Analytics account and see all of your data in one place. This data can then be used to track the results of your various marketing activities, like PPC campaigns or email marketing programs. Essentially, with Google Analytics, you can have all of the data you need in one place, so it’s much easier to keep track of results.
On the other hand, Salesforce can be used to effectively track the progress of a customer through the purchasing process. Once they become a lead, you can send them tailored emails or even push them to the point of purchase with a PPC campaign. In case they decide to purchase after all, you can continue following up with them through the CRM system to ensure they receive the best experience from your company.
4. Consistency Is Key
Varying your marketing techniques and approaches can be a good thing, as long as you stay consistent. Using multiple platforms to promote your business can be a great way to reach the most people, as long as you don’t stray from the formula. For example, if you use PPC to drive traffic to your site and then decide to take advantage of the various social media platforms available and create a Facebook fan page for your business, this is all well and good, as long as you continue to use Facebook as your main source of marketing.
If you decide to hop on Twitter and start a hashtag campaign, this is also going to be effective as long as you stick with it. Consistency is important because it shows that you’re trying to be transparent about what you are doing. And when a customer knows what to expect, they are more likely to have faith in your brand and what you are offering. When someone decides to do business with you after all of these efforts, it’s going to be because they have faith in your brand.
5. Measure The Right Things
Measuring the right things is essential to making your online marketing more efficient. First of all, you should be monitoring the performance of each individual effort, rather than relying on general metrics like traffic or leads. If you are doing PPC, you should be checking the performance of each keyword or campaign. If you use email marketing, you should be looking at the open and click-through rates of each individual email.
6. Have One Goal In Mind
Having a clear goal in mind is essential to being able to figure out how to improve your marketing efforts. And the best way to create a goal is to set a benchmark and monitor your progress toward it. If you are looking to get more leads, you should be aiming to increase your conversion rate. If you want to drive traffic to your site, you should be aiming to get as many people as possible to click on your ads or visit your site.
7. Use The Data You Collect
One of the biggest benefits of using automated marketing systems is having all of the data you need in one place. And what better place to keep all of this data than a spreadsheet? Data should be organized and easy to find, and this is exactly what you get when you use a spreadsheet to keep track of your marketing efforts. You can use tools like Google Sheets or Excel to keep track of your data, and they are both 100% free. Plus, you can use Microsoft Excel to create pretty flashy graphs and charts to analyze the data you collect.
Hopefully, you’re thinking that now it’s time to apply all of this advice to your own business. But before you do, you should probably read the disclaimers first:
Warning #1: This is a beginners’ guide. Don’t expect to become an expert in online marketing overnight. It will take time to figure out what works best for your business, and what strategies you should be implementing. That’s what is meant by the advice in this article.
You also need to be aware of the limitations of what you’re reading. This article will give you a general idea of how to make your marketing more efficient. If you want to learn more, you should read the disclaimers and look for the recommended reading section below.
What you need to keep in mind is that every business and marketing situation is different. What might work for one business might not work for another. So don’t just take any old advice that you see online.
Recommended Reading
If you want to learn more about how to make your online marketing more efficient, you can start by reading these 5 books.
-The E-Myth: Why Most Businesses Have Trouble Earning Profits Online and How to Fix It by Michael Gerber
-The Anatomy of an Advertising Campaign: A Comprehensive Guide to the Most Useful Tools and Techniques by Kevin D. Halliday
-The Successful Marketer’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization by Scott J. Fermor
-Digital Marketing For Dummies: How to Use Social Media to Engage With Customers and Gain Market Share by Amy Porterfield and Greg Graffin
-Digital Marketing For Busy People: How to Make Your Online Marketing More Effective Using Only LESS Time by Amy Porterfield and Greg Graffin
Disclaimer
The advice and information in this article are for informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or condition. You are responsible for your own health and you should seek medical advice from a licensed doctor or other qualified healthcare provider if you have questions about your health or if you are experiencing any symptoms of illness. You should not disregard licensed medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you might have read or heard about online. Furthermore, none of the information in this article should be considered as medical advice and none of the authorities involved accept any responsibility for any effects or consequences relating to this article.