When you are looking to get started with online marketing in Stockport, it is important to understand the various tools available to you, the strategies you can use, and which one is likely to be the best fit for your business.
Things to consider when choosing an online marketing strategy in Stockport
To help you make the right choice, we have compiled a list of things you should consider when choosing an online marketing strategy for your business.
Review the audience
The first and most important thing to consider is your audience. What is your target audience and what are their needs and wants? When you know who you are trying to reach, it is easier to decide what kind of content to create and where to distribute it.
Is your audience more traditionally interested in traditional marketing methods such as newspaper ads or radio spots? Or do they prefer to connect with brands and businesses online? Knowing this will help you decide what kind of content to create and where to distribute it.
Consider the purpose of your content strategy
Another important thing to consider when choosing an online marketing strategy is the purpose of your content strategy. What do you want to get out of your content creation? Are you looking to create brand awareness? Drive traffic to your website or social media pages? Generate leads? Let’s look at each one individually.
If you are just getting started with online marketing, your first purpose should be to gain visibility and drive traffic to your website or social media pages. When choosing an online marketing strategy in Stockport, this is usually referred to as ‘building a brand’. Your second purpose should be to educate your audience about your products or services or to promote a specific cause.
If you are an established business in Stockport, your content strategy should already be in place and you just need to decide how to use social media to promote it.
How much content do you need?
Another important thing to consider when choosing an online marketing strategy is how much content you need. How many articles do you need to write to establish your business in Stockport? To what extent do you need to be involved in social media to have an impact?
These are all important questions to ask yourself before choosing an online marketing strategy.
If you are just getting started, you may not yet know what kind of content you need or how much you need. Take your time and build up a library of content that you can use to inform your decision.
What distribution platforms do you want to use?
Another important thing to consider when choosing an online marketing strategy is the distribution platforms you want to use. Do you want to use your own email platform to distribute your content? Or do you want to use a content distribution platform such as Hootsuite or Buzzfeed to gain more reach?
Deciding where to distribute your content is one of the most important decisions you will make as an online marketer. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, so it is important to think about what you want out of your online marketing strategy in Stockport before choosing one over the other.
What is your budget?
Another important thing to consider when choosing an online marketing strategy is your budget. Are you able to spend a large sum of money on ads, landing pages, and digital marketing? Or do you have a small budget and you need to choose your tools wisely?
Budgets vary from person to person, but a small business in Stockport usually has a monthly budget of less than £1000. In this case, it might make more sense to choose a free option such as a blogger platform like WordPress or blogspot, and use Google Adwords to attract potential customers to your website.
If you have a small budget, you might want to consider which tools are most cost-effective for the level of results you are looking for. For example, while Google Adwords is cheap, it can be very effective at reaching your target audience. What is important is that you choose a solution that suits your needs.
Where do you want your content to appear?
Another important thing to consider when choosing an online marketing strategy is where you want your content to appear. Do you want your content to appear in search engines such as Google or Bing? Or do you want to have your content curated on websites such as LinkedIn or Medium?
Deciding where to have your content published is another important decision you will need to make as an online marketer. Not all content will perform equal in all places, so you want to choose a placement that is appropriate for the type of content you are creating.
If you are looking to gain more visibility on Google, the obvious choice would be to have your content appear in search engines such as Google or Bing. These are the most widely used search engines so if your content is well-written and relevant to your audience, it is likely to perform well in these places.
How will you measure the success of your strategy?
Another important thing to consider when choosing an online marketing strategy is how you will measure its success. Will you track the number of leads generated? The amount of sales you make? The amount of times your content is viewed?
Once you have decided on a content strategy, it is important to think about how you will measure the success of your work. You want to choose a metric that is relevant to your business and can be assessed easily. For instance, if you are marketing your business’ website, you can measure the effectiveness of your work by looking at the number of visits the website gets each month. Or, if you are using influencers to promote your business, you can measure the success of your campaign by looking at the number of orders you receive from your target audience.
At this point, you may be asking yourself questions such as: “Should I choose a free blogging platform or paid services?” or “Should I use an email marketing platform or build my own?”. To help you make the right choice, we have compiled a list of answers to common questions regarding the best online marketing strategy in Stockport.
What is the best paid service for content creation?
Here are the answers to the questions: “What is the best paid service for content creation” and “What is the best blogging platform for small businesses in Stockport?”
Firstly, let us look at the best paid service for content creation:
- Value for money: Compared to other options, Squarespace’s upfront fees are relatively low and they provide a free trial so you can check out their service without risk.
- Easy to use: Anyone can use Squarespace’s blogging platform and it is extremely easy to set up a blog with their help. All you need to do is enter your content and select the appearance you want for your blog.
- Features: Squarespace provides an amazing number of features including unlimited pages, professional looking headings, lots of free templates, and free domain registration so you don’t need to worry about cost-effectively maintaining a website.
- Extensions: One of the defining features of Squarespace is its extensive list of extensions which allow you to fully customize the appearance of your website. To put it simply, if you can think of a design feature that can be improved upon, there is probably an extension available to do just that.
Secondly, let us now look at the best blogging platform for small businesses in Stockport:
- Value for money: Unlike other free blogging platforms, Wix’s upfront fees aren’t too high and they provide a free domain so you don’t need to worry about cost-effectively maintaining a website.
- Features: In addition to providing a free domain, Wix also offers features such as free backups, free domain privacy, and free WordPress SSL.
- Easy to use: Anyone can use Wix’s blogging platform and it is extremely easy to set up a blog with their help. All you need to do is enter your content and select the appearance you want for your blog.
- Extensions: Like Squarespace, Wix provides an amazing number of extensions so you can fully customize the appearance of your website.
What is the best free blogging platform?
Here are the answers to the questions: “What is the best free blogging platform” and “What is the best blogging platform for small businesses in Stockport?”
Firstly, let us look at the best free blogging platform: