If you’re reading this, I assume you’re either already running a business or you’re thinking about starting one. Launching a business is tricky – you don’t want to go cheap on marketing because you’ll struggle to recoup your investment. The good news is, there’s a more affordable way to market your business that doesn’t compromise on quality.

What you need to do is focus on online marketing, and here’s the perfect guide to help you along the way.

1. Create compelling content

When an internet user comes across your product or service, what will they see? Your website’s content is the answer to this question – but it’s also one of the most critical elements of your overall marketing strategy.

The problem is, creating compelling content for the internet can be extremely difficult. After all, you’re competing for attention with well-designed websites that are packed with content.

To solve this problem, many companies turn to content marketing agencies, which specialize in creating high-quality content for businesses across different industries.

The advantage of working with a content marketing agency is that they can understand your business objectives and the kinds of content you want to create to help you achieve these goals. They’ll also be able to suggest content ideas that fit within your budget and schedule.

2. Use keywords in your headlines, descriptions, and content

When someone searches for a product or service you offer, what will they see? Your SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of getting your website to appear as the first result when someone types in a search query.

To get top rankings in search results, you need to incorporate keywords into your headlines, descriptions, and content. You can do this naturally by using terminology that is relevant to your business, or you can hire an SEO expert to help you find the right keywords and incorporate them into your content.

For example, if you are a hair dryer manufacturer and you want to target women aged between 25 and 45 who live in London, you could run a campaign that incorporates the following keywords:

• hair dryer
• for women
• in London
• women’s hair
• luxury
• designer brands

The results of this campaign will tell you that people searching for hair dryers are more likely to click on your website if it features the above keywords. You’re looking for keywords that are relevant to your business, and you want to appear as close to the top of the results page as possible. You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find the exact keywords that you should be using.

The advantage of using keywords is that you’ll be able to determine the right audience for your product or service. If you create content to appear in the top three results for a particular keyword, you’ll know that this is an audience that will be interested in your product.

3. Measure the success of your marketing plan

To evaluate the success of your marketing efforts, you need to look at the numbers. This means gathering and analyzing data about the response to your different campaigns.

While you can’t control whether or not someone clicks on your website’s banner ad or link to your content, you can monitor the effect that this marketing has on increasing awareness about your company and the services you offer. This is called metrics and analytics, and it’s an essential part of digital marketing.

You’ll want to track the following metrics to see how effective your content marketing strategy is:

• Website traffic: the number of visits to your website, expressed as a percentage of total visits
• Reach: the number of people who have heard of your company, measured using multiple online platforms (such as Google, Twitter, and YouTube)
• Conversion rate: the number of people who have heard of your business or product, expressed as a percentage of those who have visited your website
• Cost-per-acquisition (CPA): the amount of money you spend to acquire a new customer, calculated as the total spent on marketing divided by the total number of acquired customers
• ROI: return on investment, which measures the amount of profit you generate divided by the investment you make in marketing

ROI is a popular metric used to determine the success of marketing programs, because it allows you to compare the results of one campaign to another. In cases where you’re running ads on multiple platforms (such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat), you can track the ROI of each campaign individually. Alternatively, you can use tools like Google Analytics to track the ROI of campaigns that use a combination of platforms.

If you’re looking to calculate the ROI of a marketing campaign, you’ll need to input the following data:

• Implementing platform(s): this is the platform you used for the campaign (for example, HubSpot for sales teams or Marketo for marketing)
• Clicks: this is the total number of times someone clicked on a banner ad, social media post, or email sign-up form
• Costs: this is the amount you spent on each of the campaigns (for example, the cost per click for ads on Google, which can range from $0.10 to $0.50)
• Area: this refers to the geographical area you targeted (for example, London for tourism or hair dryers for a specific product)
• Demographics: this is the group of people you targeted with your campaign (for example, men or women aged between 25 and 45)
• Time: this refers to the amount of time you allowed the campaign to run (for example, 14 days for a paid social media campaign)
• Objective: this is the reason you implemented the campaign (for example, increasing brand awareness in a certain region)
• Metrics: this is the metric you used to track the success of the campaign (for example, click-through rate, new leads, and brand awareness)

With all this information at your fingertips, you’ll be able to track the progress of your campaign and adjust your strategy as needed. Don’t forget – if you’re reading this, you’re among friends and we’re all in this together. If you ever need help, reach out to me via the contact form on my website or my social media accounts, and I’ll be happy to assist you.