Starting a new business is a bit like caring for your first born. Now while you don’t need to write a marketing strategy for your first born; you do need to ensure that you are giving your business the best chance of success. That is done by ensuring that you are placing it in front of people looking for your product.
When you are devising your business strategy; planning the supply chain; product specifications; looking at costing models and ultimately picturing your retirement on a Caribbean beach; don’t forget your marketing strategy – specifically your internet marketing strategy.
The reason we are stressing internet marketing strategy is because as a start-up; there is not a lot of loose change lying around and internet marketing lets you easily account for every cent you spend and then track this back to measure a Return on Investment (ROI).
Once you have done a little bit of market research and determined who your ideal audience is and how your product can service their needs, you need to start making that research and your business strategy bind together to start informing and attracting your audience.
There are a few basic internet marketing strategies that every start-up needs to get right from the beginning:
1. Website
The website is the first and most important aspect of a holistic internet marketing strategy. There are two facets to website design. The front end and the back end.
The website is the first and most important aspect of a holistic internet marketing strategy. There are two facets to website design. The front end and the back end.
The front end determines the user experience. It needs to be :
- easy to navigate
- easy to understand
- get the point across quickly
- be search engine friendly
The backend of the site is what the browsers and the search engines look at when they read your site and need to follow the following rules:
- adhere to World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines
- be code light (good text to code ratio)
- be search engine friendly
- include the appropriate meta data
Generally, website audiences do not like to read and are easily distracted. Your website design needs to communicate why your product can fulfill their need as quickly as possible and with the minimum of distractions.
2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO is critically important, not only for start-ups, but for online business in general. Simply put, SEO is a process which ensures your website is made as relevant as possible to specific searches performed on sites such as Google. There is a near inexhaustible list of SEO checks that need to be performed, the most important of which are:
SEO is critically important, not only for start-ups, but for online business in general. Simply put, SEO is a process which ensures your website is made as relevant as possible to specific searches performed on sites such as Google. There is a near inexhaustible list of SEO checks that need to be performed, the most important of which are:
- Page Load Speed
- Meta data
- H1 tags (heading tags)
- Content, content, content
- Back links
- Image Alt tags
There are literally hundreds more checks in this list and each has a different degree of importance. There is no definitive list which lays out the process to follow and every SEO company in India has their own interpretations of exactly what is important.
3. Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC)
There are a number of pay per click platforms on the web at the moment; the most notable of which are : Google Ad-words; Facebook Ads and Yahoo Ads. These ads are served mainly as text ads; but image and video ad formats are also available.
There are a number of pay per click platforms on the web at the moment; the most notable of which are : Google Ad-words; Facebook Ads and Yahoo Ads. These ads are served mainly as text ads; but image and video ad formats are also available.
The major benefit of PPC advertising over traditional advertising is the fact that it is not priced on an impression basis, but rather, as the name says, a cost per click model. These ads are served on pages where the ads are relevant to the search term that is being searched (with Search engine PPC models) or to the demographic of the person on whose profile the ad is being served on (in the case of social media PPC ads).
PPC ads have to be highly relevant to:
- The search term of the user
- The landing page where the ad will direct the user
The above affects your cost per click and determines how well your ad will perform on the networks.
These three internet marketing strategies need to be done right! There are many more strategies that come further down the line like social media; display advertising; website optimization and so forth.
Getting these basics right is like instilling the right values and morals in your child. They need them like your business needs a sounds marketing platform in order to succeed and achieve a big life.
This is not to say that the first steps are complete and you can forget about them and move on; but rather that you should now build on to your existing marketing arsenal.
Content and social media are incredibly intertwined and they must work together with every other aspect of your digital marketing strategy in order to be as effective as possible.
The following two important aspects of digital marketing will help to ensure the longevity of your fledgling business in the digital environment:
4. Content
Web content is critical to convincing your potential customers that they need to use your product to make their lives better and solve their problems. There are five key things that content must have in order to make it compelling:
- It needs to be able to tell a story
- Make sure that you are invested in your content
- It must add value to the reader
- Include a price tag or value proposition
- Be a timeless as possible as great content does not date
Further to being compelling to human audiences, your website content must be equally compelling to search engines.
It is appropriate content, combined with the other ranking factors, that will ensure that your website ranks highly in the Search Engine Results Pages.
5. Social Media
The new buzz word of the marketing world. Social media has very quickly become the “go to” aspect of marketing and it definitely does deserve to be there. Ideally for new businesses the major platforms to explore would be : LinkedIn; Facebook and Twitter. Each of these social networks have their own idiosyncrasies and a cookie cutter, “one size fits all” approach does not work.
Facebook audiences respond incredibly well to promotions and competitions, while Twitter is ideal for quickly sharing short bursts of compelling content and having that content shared again and again.
LinkedIn on the other hand is a true business network where you can highlight and profile a specific set of skills that will ultimately allow prospective clients to trust you (especially if you are selling a service). You can also create a business profile where your specific services/products can be highlighted and promoted on LinkedIn.
How does a business properly harness content and social media?
The key take away from this is context. There needs to be context in what you are saying on your site and on your social media platforms.
This context is what makes your content relevant to your audience; and it is this relevance that is the first step to converting them into customers.
As a business you need to understand your potential customers frame of reference and then construct your content around this. This is how context is built.
The working together of your website, SEO, PPC, content and social media profiles are a recipe for digital marketing success and will ensure that you as a business owner are able to raise your baby from being a fragile new born through to a brave and exploratory toddler. There are many more aspects which are equally important in ensuring the success of your business; but these foundation steps are critical.
