7 Digital Marketing Strategies Guaranteed to Spring-Board Your Next Quarter

7 Digital Marketing Strategies Guaranteed to Spring-Board Your Next Quarter

Digital marketing strategies come in all shapes and sizes. What we have always loved about marketing is the ability to mix sales acumen with creativity to amplify a business’s potential. We love working with any budget because regardless of what a business can afford to spend we get an opportunity to assist everyday people to achieve the next step to growth. That’s why I want to spend time providing some tips to get your business going.

1) Imagine the Possibilities of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Look, let’s figure out where to start. Spend time doing your homework. How do you know where you want to go if you don’t spend time answering some of these great questions?

• Where is my competition and how do I compare?
• How is my Industry doing?
• What problem am I solving for? Is it still a problem?
• How am I measuring a successful quarter?
• What’s the 1yr, 3yr, 5yr plan?
• Do I have the right team in place?
• Where do I find partnerships?
• What’s my marketing budget and how much should I be spending?

I know, a lot to unpack there. The point I want to make is. How do you know where to go if you haven’t at least tried to answer some or most of these questions. Think about the saying from Maya Angelou, “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.”

This is so important in digital marketing strategy because we use the word “strategy” because it’s evolving, things work then they don’t. But when you work the process and define the strategy success will come to those that innovate and develop based on the answers to these questions. DEFINE your business, its past, and its future.

2) Marketing Research: Do the Math

Put the time into the research. In our ever-evolving market of digital marketing campaigns, everything is widely available. Whether you are aware or not it’s easy to figure out how much you should be spending on marketing. Either tackling this problem by addressing competition or quantifying marketing spend vs. growth goals it should be easy to commit to marketing spend.

Don’t worry, I’ll prove it

Let’s say your business operates with net revenue of $1 million dollars. Of this amount, you operate at a net 30% margin rate allowing for a conservative annual margin of $300K. You assess your market area growth at 5% YoY and through a marketing plan to acquire another 10% of your customers through competition and new customer acquisition costs. You have conservatively planned through this high-level data you want to grow 15% YoY.

Now, assuming this will only happen through marketing we imagine the only way to acquire another $150,000 in revenue is to run ads in doing so. We will first, diagnose what a new customer is worth on average. Let’s say $60 on average. Through Google Adwords and Facebook marketing analytics, we discover your projected conversion rate for an ad is 20%, at an average cost per click for your niche at $2. I promise this happens all the time… (in fact, these figures were from one of my clients) so stick with me.

This means… you will spend $10 on new client acquisition costs. The industry rate for my services is around 20%… Give me $2 bucks. We are at $12. That means with your average net revenue for a new client at $60 you need 2500 new customers to achieve your goal. This means monthly you must spend $2509 every month at a total of $30,108 annually to achieve your desired growth.

This means that with an investment of 20% of your desired growth you can seemingly guarantee growth for your business. Now, we are business owners too so I know what you are thinking. That cuts into my gross margin rate bringing it down to 10%. We are well aware this profit rate is not sustainable, that’s why this cannot and will not be the only arm of your new digital marketing strategy.

3) Engage & Connect With Your Current Clients

Today’s marketing atmosphere demands meaningful connection. I want to emphasize for a moment… meaningful. Start with the customer, no connection can be meaningful without a pleasant experience. Love it or hate it, google reviews, yelp, and Facebook reviews can leave your business dead in the water before we ever discuss marketing. Fix this first and be ready to deliver when your customer walks in.

When the experience is positive, we may then get a chance to continue the relationship. There is a quote from John Taffer that nails this fact on the head.

“If somebody goes to a restaurant for the first time and has a flawless experience, the statistical likelihood of them doing a second visit is about 40%. They come back a second time and have a flawless experience, the statistical likelihood of a third visit is still about 42%. The third time they come, the statistical likelihood of a fourth visit is over 70%. So, you have to market to three visits, not one.” – John Taffer

The awareness of this fact aligns with the goal and strengthens the marketing strategy. Knowing this we understand right away that our strategy will focus on both.

4) Decision Making – Plan and Coordinate your Marketing Tactics

Now it’s time to use our research to get started! Know what you must do and what you may be able to live without! Just because Tik Tok is the fastest growing social media marketing platform in the US doesn’t mean you have to be on it. Sure, if there is no budget and uncapped potential go for it. But find where you must be, where you should be and where you could be. Plan your budget accordingly and get going!

I have written many articles that will assist in discerning which platforms you may seek to invest in, so I will spare you many of these details. But I will leave you with this. Think of your strategy as a funnel and be sure to have all parts fully functional before you begin investing in your future. For example, If you plan to acquire many of your new clients through a Google Ads campaign but your website is outdated, unreliable, and not streamlined on closing leads… Then spend time there first.

I suggest a high priority in Website Development, Google Ads, Google My Business, and at least 1 Social Media platform (Facebook/Instagram/Linkedin). This will allow us to acquire new customers and, retain your current clients.

5) Invest in multiple digital channels for Past | Present | Future

When I said there will be ways to make up profit margins lost in a Google Ads-only approach this is what I mean. Focusing on only Google Ads will offer only a temporary influx in marketing. A valuable and proven one, but the expense will not satisfy your feelings of accomplishment without utilizing its full potential.

You see, in SEO and search optimization one of the most important performance indicators in a great SEO marketing strategy is website traffic. In addition to website traffic, Google tracks how long a user remains on your site, how many pages are visited, and whether the click resulted in a purchase or satisfying query.

Herein lies the magic of a google ad campaign that focuses on SEO optimization. The SEO juice you will acquire through paid clicks on a website that provides a valuable customer experience will in turn result in future free advertising through search engine optimization. This is why we never advocate to just pay for clicks and move on.

6) Get Noticed & Stay Top of Mind

It’s often those that bark the loudest that get the most attention. This universal fact applies to marketing in that content and repetition are king! Many influencers and marketing professionals say there are minimums to posting and marketing, while in the same breath agree there is never a maximum. There are businesses and marketing professionals that will post 1 time every hour because of this fact.

While I personally, do not have any clients in which this seems necessary what is profound is the idea that you must stay top of mind with your customer. Today, when we need a service or product we tend to place a search or refer to apps such as social media in real-time.

Go to your customer, be loud, keep it simple and be frequent. It’s no secret we are all in digital information overload and this mindset will not help matters. But as a marketing director and business owner, your job should be to remain ahead of your competition, educate your customer, and don’t be afraid of change.

I bring this quote up a lot but because again it is so relevant. “The reason why we don’t see Lamborghini or other expensive exotic cars tv commercials is that the people who can afford them don’t sit all day watching tv.” Find where your ads work, and rev your marketing engine. Be loud, obnoxious, and present.

7) Re-Target, Re-visit and Revise your Digital Campaigns

You could sum much of this article up in the advice, “be strategic.” I want to be sure to point out. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is know when to steer the ship and shift focus. Campaigns will fall flat, new social media platforms will launch, some will decline, and new tools will become available. You must be ready to change. Accept these when it makes sense, and when your conversion rate declines or your success declines don’t stick with something just because it brings some success. It’s probably you and it is always repairable.

Surround yourself with smart marketing experts that understand how to build a sales funnel. Ensure you are not afraid to reset your advertising campaign and case perform studies that designate where your gaps may be. Don’t be afraid to try it and or afraid to course correct.

Get Started

I’ve talked enough it’s time to get started. Put some or all of these practices in place whether you have no marketing department, a current marketing team, or a stale campaign. Use these tips to evaluate your current marketing health. Take a swing, get on base and begin seeing the benefits of taking this approach to your next digital marketing campaign. If you still feel lost, or want someone to evaluate your digital marketing campaign, let the experts at Lane Digital Marketing take a look.