Most people who are planning on running their own business know that creating a good business website is key to attracting customers. But they also know that building a website is a lot of work, and it can be expensive.

If you’re looking for a way to generate traffic and make sales without having an extensive knowledge of coding or design, then you’ve come to the right place. Because here’s the truth about running a business: marketing is everything.

You see, customers need to be able to find your business no matter what. And to do that, you need to make sure that they know exactly where to find you. And to do that, you need to develop an online marketing strategy.

Make A Plan

If you want to get this done right, you need to take the time to plan out what you need. So sit down with a pencil and piece of paper and make a list of all the things you need in order to get this marketing strategy going. This might include things like:

• Creating a good business website that is engaging and informative.
• Writing a blog post or two a week.
• Developing an e-mail marketing campaign.

Once you have all of that down on paper, it’s much easier to see the big picture. And you can focus on what you need to do in order to make it happen. Which brings us to our next point.

Identify The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Now that you have a clear picture of what you need in order to get your marketing strategy up and running, you can start looking for the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you will use to determine success. These are the metrics that you will use to track your progress and determine whether or not you are reaching your goals. Remember: it’s all about metrics.

Some examples of key performance indicators might include:

• User engagement (i.e. how many people are visiting your website)
• Traffic (i.e. how many people are finding your website)
• Clicks (i.e. how many people are clicking on the links on your website)
• Leads (i.e. how many people are subscribing to your email list)
• Sales (i.e. how many people are making purchases after being exposed to your product or service)

As you can see, many of the KPIs above are related to online marketing. Which means that if you’re looking to grow your business, then online marketing is a must-have skill. And if you’re looking for a career change, consider a marketing job in a big brand company.

Develop A Marketing Budget

Once you have your list of key performance indicators and the ones you’ll use to track your progress, you can begin to develop a marketing budget. Marketing budgets are very important in cases like this because you need to know how much you can spend on certain things and what you need to prioritize.

For example, you might decide that you need to spend a certain amount of money on the SEO (search engine optimization) of your website. And you’ve decided that your top priority is to get as many people as possible to visit your site. So you’ll spend whatever is necessary to make that happen.

Or maybe you’ve decided that you need to spend a certain amount of money on ads on social media channels (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Because you know that a lot of people in your target audience are on social media, and you want to ensure that they see your ads whenever they log in.

Determining The Correct Media Mix

Now that you have a rough idea of how much you’ll spend on certain things, you can start determining what media mix will be the most effective. Which means that you’ll need to think about the type of content that your audience likes and responds to, and you’ll need to determine the right combination of content to use.

You might decide that the best fit is to create a YouTube channel. In which case, you’ll need to look into ways to integrate your blog posts with compelling content into engaging and informative videos. Because, at the end of the day, YouTube is all about video content.

Or maybe you’ve decided that the best fit is to create a Flickr account to host and share your photos. In which case, you’ll need to look into ways to integrate your blog posts with engaging content into photo-rich posts. Because, at the end of the day, Flickr is all about photos.

Once you have your content, you can start determining the correct media mix. Which is when you’ll want to consider the various platforms that you have and choose the ones that will get the best return on investment (ROI).

Create A Content Strategy

Finally, you’ll need to put into place a content strategy. A content strategy is a plan of action that helps you create and publish content that is going to be useful and engaging for your target audience. In order to do this, you first need to do some research into your target audience.

For example, let’s say that you’re trying to sell kitchen appliances to homeowners. So you do some research and discover that most of your target audience is made up of women between the ages of 35 and 54. With a family of three or more children.

Then you’ll want to create content that speaks to women in that demographic. Who are tired of doing their weekly grocery shopping and want to get the most out of their kitchen. Leading them to purchase appliances for their home that allow them to do so.

You determine that creating videos of helpful and informative tips is the best fit for your content strategy. Because research shows that people learn far more from videos than they do from text-based articles. And to create helpful videos, you’ll need to find someone who is a genius with a camera.