Maximizing your online marketing performance requires the right tools, strategy and team to oversee its execution. This is our philosophy when it comes to digital marketing – one that has helped us measurably improve our contractors’ sales and marketing performance since 2008. While every business is unique and requires a customized marketing strategy, the core principles required for success don’t change.
If you want to measurably improve your online marketing performance and get more leads and sales from the web, you should:
1. Track Everything and Make Data-Driven Decisions
Everything online can—and should—be tracked. You can’t win the game if you don’t know the score. Capturing more accurate and granular information about the performance of each of your marketing strategies (traditional and online advertising) allows you to see opportunities and problem areas your competitors cannot.
2. Your Website Is Not a Brochure; It’s a Virtual Sales Rep
Too many business owners and companies (continue to) treat their website as if it were a digital brochure. Your website is not a brochure; it’s a virtual sales rep—an economic engine capable of catapulting your business to new levels of growth. Unlike a sales rep, your website will never ask you for a vacation or leave your for a higher paying job. But like a sales rep, your website performs best when it is accurately measured and tracked; when it has clear goals, and when it is properly managed. Your website is your single most valuable marketing asset. Make sure you’re investing in it appropriately and that you have the right team in charge of overseeing and managing it.
3. Maximize Your Online Real Estate – Starting With Search Engine Results
The internet is a real estate game. If you want to successfully market your business online, you need to cost-effectively maximize your digital footprint. Start by maximizing your real estate in the search engine results because search engines are one of the few advertising channels where you can cost-effectively put your business directly in front of people with high interest and intent. In other words, they need your service and they need it now. Every page of your website, social media site, niche blog, industry directory, etc. is another piece of real estate capable of converting visitors into leads.
4. Continually Optimize Your Visit-To-Sale Conversion Rate
To get more website traffic and leads, you need to continually optimize your visit-to-sale conversion rate. The more effective your company’s sales process is, the more marketing options you have. If all other things are equal (average revenue per sale, gross margin, etc.), a company that converts twice as many website visitors into leads can afford to pay twice as much per click or visit. Being able to pay more per click or visit allows you to bid higher in the PPC listings and spend more on SEO—both of which ultimately result in more traffic and leads.
5. Establish and Promote Your Company as the Authority
The most successful companies online are those that establish themselves as the authority for what they do in their respective markets. Over an extended period of time, there is no marketing substitute capable of trumping genuine authority. With traditional media, big brands have a huge advantage because they can afford to rent access to a target audience from the few companies that control it. In the world of digital marketing, this is not the case.
Businesses of all sizes have the opportunity to build their own audience (something you can own as opposed to renting). To build an audience, you need to create great content—content that delivers genuine value to your target market. To become an authority, you have to focus on your customers—not your competitors. Decide who you want to serve and then be the best—stay out of the middle (avoid mediocrity like the plague). You can win by serving hot tea and you can win by serving ice tea. You can’t win by serving luke warm tea.
Contact us to learn more about Blue Corona’s approach to online marketing and how we can help you measurably improve your sales and marketing performance.
