As a company embarks on the journey of online marketing, millions of questions, doubts, and uncertainties flood its mind. Questions like “What channels of marketing should I use?”, “How should I design my social media campaign?”, “How much should I spend?”, “How will I know if the campaigns are working or not?” haunt them continuously. It is natural to feel so confused and clueless as digital marketing is a tricky concept. And for new businesses, it can be a daunting task to manage their business and focus on digital marketing simultaneously.
Digital marketers have simplified the process for these amateurs venturing into digital marketing for the first time. Organizations can take the help of these experienced and professional digital marketing companies in Wollongong to sail smoothly on their internet marketing journey.
However, before starting with anything, even before approaching the digital marketing companies for their services, all businesses should be clear about a few fundamentals. These fundamentals are the goals and expectations that they hold from digital marketing. If they are clear about these, they can present their requirements better to the digital marketing companies. Thus, they will be able to get better recommendations and have seamless marketing experience.
- Decide on what ‘conversion’ means to them and how much is it worth
Business owners should understand that all conversions are not equal. Some obvious conversions like lead and sales are valuable to the business, but there are some secondary conversions as well. These include likes, follows, and shares on social media, referrals, newsletter sign-ups, and links to the company’s website. Although they might not be generating direct revenue, their contribution towards the brand’s online presence is immense.
Lead generation happens in many ways, through phone calls or web inquiries. In a particular business model, a lead coming via a phone call might be more valuable, whereas, in others, the web inquiries might provide better leads.
Deciding what a lead or conversion means to the business helps businesses to analyze the Return on Ad Spent more efficiently. In turn, it helps them to decide on their marketing budget, plan out their digital marketing strategy, and stay in alignment with their marketing goals.
- Analyze how good they are at converting leads
It is futile for a company to continue marketing (traditional or digital) without understanding its true potential. Businesses may keep spending time and energy on designing and executing campaigns but see no result.
Businesses should know how many leads they can convert through the various campaigns. For instance, if phone calls generate ten leads, then they should assess how many of these become regular customers. Moreover, if the business model includes online sales, then the company should check the conversion of website visitors (leads) into sales.
If the business has adopted digital marketing for the lead generation, it is all the more necessary to keep track of conversion rates.
- Track Everything
Businesses should track everything, from campaign engagement to website traffic. It is necessary to keep in line with the above requirement of measuring conversion rates. Companies who have just stepped into the world of digital marketing might not be very sure about all this. Thus, the first prerequisite is that they install Google Analytics on their website. The Analytics engine will give them information about website traffic, the channels used, and conversion rates for the website visitors. In case businesses are unable to interpret or analyze the data and need some expert help, they can contact Analytics professionals. These professionals will help them in the lead conversion tracking, and also teach them the basics of Google Analytics.
Although professional help is available, it is always prudent for businesses to have first-hand knowledge of Analytics. Spending some time with Google Analytics will help them get familiarised with the data. Thus, they can measure website traffic, conversion rates, and decide for themselves if the campaign is working or not.
- Know their online competitors
In the traditional marketing space, a business has direct competitors, those belonging to the same location or industry. As marketing shifts to the online platform, the competitors increase exponentially. The competition expands from the same industry to all the businesses present online.
For instance, if you are a shoe manufacturing company, by going online, you are not just competing with other shoe manufacturers but also with other garment and accessories brands. You are in a tussle with other companies for more ad space or higher search engine rankings. Even on social media sites, you are always in a frenzy to post trending content and get more attention, views, likes, and shares.
Apart from their regular competitors, companies should list down these most-seen brands, which they feel are a threat to their online presence.
Identifying competition is the first step towards creating differentiation. Companies should understand their competitors’ strengths and develop their unique propositions accordingly.
- Have a clear picture of how they want their business to look in the next twelve months
All businesses should have clear and precise goals. They should have a short term and long term plan.
Once they start their digital marketing journey, they should be clear about what is the ideal number of customers they are willing to attract through online marketing. They should be sure about their revenue and growth projections. Further, they should track the offline marketing efforts (if any) and its performance in terms of lead conversion.
All this will help them to ascertain where digital marketing fits into their plan and seek the services of digital marketing companies.
As businesses get a clear picture of their goals, digital marketing becomes simpler. They know whom to target, which channel to utilize, and how much to spend.
Social media marketing lies at the center of digital marketing. Thus, all companies trying out digital marketing have to adopt social media marketing as their primary strategy. The question is which social media site they should choose. Going by the numbers, Facebook wins the game with its user base of 2.27 billion active users. This whopping number compels all companies to be on Facebook. However, with the ongoing controversies surrounding Facebook, they are uncertain if a hefty investment in Facebook is still worth the effort. The good news is that despite all the scams and scandals, Facebook is and will remain the world’s biggest social networking platform. Surveys have shown that there has been no significant change in Facebook usage patterns over the last few years, even after the Cambridge Analytica controversy. Another question that businesses ponder over is whether their target audience is on Facebook or not. Again, statistics come to our rescue and prove that 68% of internet users use Facebook, which is much higher than the usage rate of other social media sites. No matter what gender or age group the company wishes to target, they are sure to find plenty of those users on Facebook.
Thus, all businesses should understand the nitty-gritty of promotion through Facebook. To have a better understanding, let us discuss the fundamentals of Facebook Marketing.
Marketing with Facebook Pages
Just like how a website serves as the face of the brand, on social media, a Facebook page is the information hub for the brand. It is a platform where the brand can display its capabilities, value propositions, and engage its users. Thus, marketers can take cues from website advertising companies to design their Facebook pages.
First impressions are crucial, be it a person, place, or brand. And Facebook pages are instrumental in providing this first impression. Brands should strive to provide the perfect first impression, which can captivate their users and leave them spellbound.
The profile photo on the page should be the brand’s logo. The About section is where the brand provides information about themselves, their offerings, and unique propositions. Updating content regularly on the Facebook Page is a must. It helps the brand to stay relevant and connected with their users. Some typical timeline posts include :
- links to articles related to your company
- links to blog posts
- coupon codes for users
- new product announcements
- links to innovative online tools that the brand’s users might find useful
- customized videos that are appealing to their audience
Spamming the Facebook page is the last thing brands should do as it degrades the credibility of the brand. Another necessary thing is to use analytics to derive insights about the Facebook page. In case of any surge or drop in users, brands should check the content on their page and change their methodology accordingly.
Using Facebook Groups, Marketplaces, and Jobs
Facebooks groups are like discussion forums but with some more features. Companies can create Facebook groups related to their industry or products. Facebook groups are more engaging and likely to bring together a group of like-minded potential customers. It increases the brand’s outreach and gets them in contact with a bigger audience. However, Facebook pages are more demanding than Facebook pages or profiles. They require constant monitoring, posting, and managing members.
Facebook Marketplace might be a new feature that Facebook has introduced, but it holds immense opportunities for e-commerce retailers and product-based companies. Through Facebook Marketplace, they can list their products on a Shop tab on their Facebook Page. These products are accessible for search throughout Facebook, and anyone can view them. Online advertising in Wollongong, especially for the e-commerce business, has found a new dimension through the Facebook Marketplace.
Listing jobs on Facebook is also useful for brands in some situations. It facilitates the hiring process, and the reach of social media ensures that they get both quantity and quality talent.
Targeted Advertising
Facebook offers the best-targeted advertising opportunities. It captures demographic information about users and enables brands to use the correct advertising technique. Companies can feature ads targeting specific geographies, age, gender, education levels, and the devices customers use for browsing. Usually, companies track the information their target users have in their profiles and design their ads accordingly. The different ad formats are video ads, image ads, carousel ads, collection ads, slideshow ads, and lead generation ads.
The advantage that Facebook advertising offers is the feature to customize ads as per the target audience. Facebook is a platform that provides the opportunity to reach multiple people in a way they will find engaging.
Facebook and Email Marketing
Apart from the global coverage and highly-targeted ads, another advantage that Facebook offers is its integration with other marketing channels. Businesses can combine Facebook marketing with other marketing channels such as email marketing, search engine marketing, and mobile marketing. It helps to develop a promotion mix that will enhance the brand’s online presence and visibility.
Facebook, when combined with email marketing, opens up a new window of opportunities. Lead ads on Facebook provides users the option to opt-in to the brand’s newsletters through their Facebook posts. Moreover, brands can utilize user feedback from Facebook to create an environment of trust and empower their relationship with their customers. The emails that brands send out to their present and prospective customers should have the social media button attached in the mail footer, encouraging their customers to engage with them on social media.
Facebook Contests and Promoted Posts
Holding Facebook contests is a popular way of increasing brand awareness. Brands use a third-party app, which then directs the contestants to the company’s Facebook page.
If brands take the help of Facebook Promoted posts, they have to pay a minimum rate so that the Facebook posts have more number of users and gain visibility. Paying, so that the posts garner users, becomes necessary in today’s situation when people spend almost every waking minute of their day hooked to Facebook. They view a wide variety of content and hop from one brand’s Facebook page to another. In such a scenario, attracting the user’s attention and retaining it becomes a challenging task. Facebook Promoted posts ensure that the brand’s posts are always on their target customer’s feed. Thus, the chances of customer engagement increase, and brands can leverage this opportunity for generating higher sales.
Companies today are trying to perfect their game of digital marketing. Social media marketing, especially Facebook, is an indispensable part of the whole digital strategy. Thus, brands should be on their toes to better understand Facebook marketing and use it to their strength.
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