By: Elizabeth Jeter
The ultimate purpose of any business’s digital marketing strategy is to make more conversions. That being said, there’s nothing more frustrating than having a marketing strategy that isn’t converting. Oftentimes, this dilemma is caused by a lack of understanding of how powerful nearly every facet of digital marketing is. With SME’s, it’s safe to say when the marketing budget is, well, budgeted, corners may be cut, shortcuts might get made, and some steps may get missed. And that’s certainly understandable. However, do you have a way to find out exactly where your marketing strategy is going wrong?
When it comes to digital marketing, the strategy is absolutely key. When there’s no understanding of the bigger picture or what steps your marketing team needs to strategize next, it’s going to show in the numbers.
If you’re wondering why your strategy is falling by the wayside, here are five reasons you’re feeling the blow:
1) You don’t have a strong marketing strategy, or you don’t have one at all.
Depending on the size of your business and if you have a marketing department at all, your business may or may not spend time strategizing how to improve your marketing plan. Sometimes employees also wear multiple hats. Maybe your marketing person is also the receptionist.
It’s not hard to fudge a few Facebook ads here and there, almost anyone can do it. But not just anyone can do it well. The great thing about having a strong strategy is knowing that your dollars are being spent wisely and you’re going to enjoy some ROI.
2) It’s outdated and not current with marketing trends.
Are you still soliciting your potential customer base with direct mail? While direct mail is still a very powerful marketing tool, it’s not so powerful when you’re sending it to the wrong people, or you’re overloading them with direct mail. Are you sending it too often? Not often enough? How much time does it take sending it out?
Another outdated marketing tactic is not promoting your blogs. So we all know how vital it is to constantly put out new, relevant and original pieces, but what are you doing with your blogs after you publish them? If you’re not promoting them in some fashion either by social media or email marketing, you’re more than likely looking at some pretty low numbers in your page visits.
3) You don’t know who your target audience is.
One of the most important marketing tactics is researching your target audience and appropriately appealing to them. If you’re just blasting out emails, direct mail or ads to just anyone, anticipate a much lower response rate. The risk of just assuming you know who your audience is without doing the research, gathering data over time and testing some of your ideas is a huge reason you may seeing low or zero conversions.
4) You don’t know where your current customer base is coming from.
Yes, I have seen this more times than I would like to admit. I have seen businesses have pretty good marketing strategies and close deals well enough, but they don’t keep up with where they’re customers are coming from. And if they do, it’s not precise enough. For instance, I’ve seen a business classify lead sources as “Online, Mail, or Yellow Pages.” Once I saw this, it became very apparent that I was going to have to breakdown “online” much further. You need to have a very clear understanding of where your leads are coming from: Facebook Organic, Facebook Ads, Google Organic, Google Ads, Referral Sites, etc. Once you fully understand where your customers are coming from, you can then begin to lean your marketing budget heavier to that source, since you’re getting a much better return on your investment there anyway.
5) There’s no follow-up.
Lead captures, email sign-ups, cold calling, events, ads, etc. all get you leads. But do you have a plan for when that lead shows interest but doesn’t quite convert yet? It’s absolutely vital that you follow up with all the leads in your pipeline one way or another. This could be through email drip campaigns or calling them directly. Establishing a credible relationship with leads who show interest in your business need follow-up. Whether it’s sales or marketing who do the follow-ups, this should be a non-negotiable
These are just five reasons you’re not seeing a successful marketing strategy. Because trends are constantly evolving, it’s important to stay up-to-date. Further, it’s important to constantly show your target market that you have an understanding of your industry and have advantages over your competition by putting out regularly relevant and original content. If you can fix these issues, you’re well on your way to streamlining your marketing strategy and getting those missing conversions.