Talk to many business owners about their marketing budget and their eyes glaze over as they stare back at you. The old school, mainstream media organisations- (television, radio and media) – want everyone to stay confused. They think that if there is confusion in the market place then people will keep spending money there because that is what they have always done. The thing is though, the market place has moved, your consumers have moved, and it is time to move with them.
Don’t keep wasting money on mainstream media advertising, especially because it is impossible to track the results. Look online and start integrating a digital strategy and you will soon see improved success.
Before we look at different digital marketing options (it’s not just social media services!) let’s take a quick look at the customer lifecycle to make sure we are all on the same page.
- Prospect- Before they become customers of yours, you seek out prospects. Well actually, these days, prospects are seeking out you. When consumers are making purchasing decisions they are getting online to do research in search engines like Google and they are also asking their friends advice on Social media services like Facebook and Twitter.
- Acquisition and purchase- After they’ve done their research, consumers make their purchasing decisions.
- Product Usage- Obviously, customers then go through a period of using the product for the term of the contract
- Impending Contract Expiry – At the end of their contract period, some of your customers may decide that they want to research other options before automatically repurchasing your product.
- Recontracting- Ideally after further research, your customer will decide to recontract with you.
- Loyalty- If a customer recontracts with you it is time to turn them into a loyal customer.
- Advocacy- A loyal customer is one that will advocate for you to their family, friends, colleagues and contacts. They will do this both online and offline.
Now we’ll take a look at some of the options available to you as part of a digital strategy to ensure you are able to tap in to your prospects and customers at the right times to ensure both maximum customer satisfaction and maximum sales.
Search Engine Marketing- Pay per click advertising, or Search Engine Marketing, is the quickest way to get to the top of the search engines. You bid on keywords and keyword phrases and every time somebody clicks on one of your ads you pay a fee to the search engine. The most popular search engine and Pay per Click Advertising Platform is Google Adwords, obviously running in the Google Search Engine. Search Engine Marketing is important for the prospecting stage of the customer lifecycle.
Search Engine Optimisation- You know that everyone uses Google to find information. You’ve probably done it yourself today. The aim of Search Engine optimization is to make your website be the one that appears at the top of the Search Engines naturally and without paying for site visitors. Studies have suggested that people don’t go past the second page of results for a query that they have input and, oftentimes, they will not go past the first page results. Obviously you need to rank highly so you can get more visitors and then turn them in to customers. Search Engine Optimisation is about identifying those keywords that a large enough group of your customers are using but also ensuring that the people searching for those terms are prepared to spend money. Search Engine Optimisation is important for the prospecting stage of the customer lifecycle.
Web Design and Landing Pages- Your company website is also vitally important. You need to make sure that your prospects or customers are clear on what they should do and what information they will find on any page they land on. The internet is the land of the short attention span and there is little time between a prospect getting frustrated and them clicking the dreaded ‘back’ button, going to a different website and spending their money with someone else.
Email Marketing- Email marketing can be used in two ways- as a tool to regularly touch base with prospects until they are ready to purchase and to maintain relationships with existing clients- to make sure they remember you exist when they are looking at re-contracting services. With prospects, you should entice them to give you their email addresses in exchange for something for free. This could be through an offer of a free eBook if they sign up to your newsletter. Prospects may not become customers on the first visit to your website so you need to do everything in your power to ensure that you are free to continue to contact them after their first visit.
Social Media Services- Social media has changed everything. According to Facebook there are over 500 million active accounts. There are millions of Twitter users as well. Most people with social media accounts are active on these accounts every day. A large percentage of social media users also connect with brands that they know and trust online. As a business owner you need to be participating in these conversations because chances are that your customers and prospects are talking about you anyway. The new Polls feature on Facebook is a great way to survey your customers and get some quick feedback. Social media may be more beneficial for existing customers and your brand advocates. You need to do what you can to encourage your brand champions are talking to their friends about your products our services.
Data Analytics and Interpretation- All the steps that I mention above are all very well and good but there’s no point participating if you aren’t going to measure the results of your activities. If you can’t measure results, how will you know whether your efforts have been successful? It’s not just as simple as number of customers.