1 in three new businesses that are launched is successful after two years. Your small business digital marketing plan is one of the most critical elements to make sure you are The One of three!
Here is a basic digital marketing plan to assist start-up businesses or any business looking to include digital marketing as a part of a larger marketing plan.
When developing a marketing plan, four considerations are key:
- Campaign components are low-risk with a low entry price tag and a high chance of success.
- The campaign is scalable. It grows with you.
- The campaign can easily be terminated.
- Your campaign components allow for performance tracking.
How to Get Started with Your Digital Marketing Plan
First, you need a website. If you already have a website, it may need to be redesigned to ensure that it is mobile-friendly, resourceful and that it looks as good as your competitors’ websites.
Next, it’s time to find an SEO company. A reputable SEO company will make sure that the new website you are investing in will be SEO friendly. Be wary of website design firms that claim they know SEO. Choose a firm that puts SEO on the top of their list of services.
When choosing your SEO firm, be very thorough. Find search ranking examples, speak with their clients, talk with the owner of the SEO firm and get as technical as you can.
SEO will likely provide the best ROI of all of the components of your digital marketing plan. The downside? If you have a new website and you are a new business, it could take a few months for it to start showing results.
Be sure to check out our High-Performance Small Business SEO Package. No contract with a Performance Guarantee.
Quick But Complicated PPC Campaigns
Next, you will want to look at setting up a PPC campaign with Google AdWords. Google AdWords can generate major volumes of business for you while draining your bank account.
To be safe, not sorry we recommend that you hire a professional! PPC will drive instant business and allow for managed growth.
Higher Risk Digital Marketing Tasks
Blogging and Content Marketing – Blogs help grow the footprint of your website. The more content that you have, the more there is out there to be found. It also can help to build your online reputation and to establish you as a thought-leader.
The quality of your content is important, so make your blogs count.
Social Media – Few companies actually have profitable social media campaigns. In certain circumstances, social media can be very effective, but for most, it won’t.
So why bother with Social Media? It helps your customers communicate with you. Happy clients can pass your information on to others (referrals) and it builds your overall online image.
Display Advertising – If you do want to tackle display advertising, we recommend that you use Google AdWords, where you can pay on a cost-per-click performance basis, rather than on a CPM basis. Be sure that you can track the performance of your campaign.
The solutions outlined above represent the core components of a digital marketing plan. There are certainly other things out there, but we recommend that you focus on the proven technologies before experimenting.
Eventually, you’ll come to master these components, and you’ll have a sense of what will and won’t work.
