Over the last couple of years, I have met many business owners in the Greater Toronto Area. Most of them realize the changing buying behaviors of their prospects and consumers in favor of digital marketing, but they all share one common concern- "How do I approach it?"
Their concern is valid.
There is too much incomplete and biased information regarding online marketing. Examples of misinformation or incomplete information are:
The concern is not the effectiveness of any of the tactics mentioned above, but rather WHY you need this. You may still need social media, SEO, and AdWords but those tactics have to be specifically built around your goals and strategies.
Are there any other online marketing strategies you can use which could be more effective and more aligned with your business goals?
How do you determine those strategies?
It all depends on a having the right approach to digital marketing.
First of all, you don't have to learn all of the nuances of online marketing. All you need to do is think like a business owner. If you end up learning it all, you will spend your entire life and still not get a good understanding of it.
I’m an expert in online marketing and I still don't believe that I've learned everything. As a matter of fact, no one has truly mastered online marketing. People like Neil Patel and who spend days and nights implementing digital marketing might be a thousand miles ahead of you in terms of knowledge, but they haven't reached the finish line and will never reach the finish line in their lifetime.
That's enough of being humble :)
Let’s get back to the approach.
When you think like a business owner, you should approach it like this:
Let's dive into the details of these steps now.
You will need something like a measurement plan where you can marry all the moving parts of your tactics and strategies (we will discuss the plan in the next step) with business goals of increased revenue, goodwill, and branding.
It would take a week or so to do this. You would need to hire a digital marketing consultant or a company and engage the following members of your team:
Your plan should focus on the business development aspect. Think about:
The outcome of your plan will be the strategies aligned with your business objectives, target audience, and industry. This will give you clarity on what tactics you need to implement in a set timeline and budget. You will have clear goals of the entire business development cycle.
Your plan will include all of your tactics. Now it’s time to build the infrastructure. Infrastructure can include:
Now, who are the people you need to make this machine work? You may need to hire more than one person to make it happen unless you find a unicorn or you hire a digital marketing company. Your marketing team, whether in-house or outsourced, must have all or most of the following skill sets:
You will need a budget for
How much budget do you need?
It will be factored into your online marketing plan. As far as the implementation team is concerned, you will be looking anywhere from $40k to $90k per person. If you are looking at outsourcing, companies can charge you anywhere from $2000 to $7000 per month.
A successful business owner is always on top of where the money goes and from where it's coming. So, as a smart business owner, you are already well-versed in this practice. Your leads, visits, and all the online actions are your dollars $$$ coming in and going out. It will definitely take time for the velocity of incoming dollars to increase versus the velocity of outgoing dollars, but you need to keep an eye on it, day and night.
If you are keeping it in-house, get an external audit done by a digital marketing consultant or hire them for occasional consulting to determine whether or not your strategies need further refinement, or to ensure the ship is sailing in the right direction.
Let us know if this makes sense. At Analytico, we are always ready to help you at any step of your business.