how to improve marketing performance

MostВ business owners understand the importance of being online - But very few know effectiveВ online marketing techniques and they struggle to get results

If you blindly leap in to online marketing you could just be finding another black hole for your money to disappear into.

Most businesses with a website will tell you they get customers from their website, but what they don’t appreciate is that those customers probably would have come to them anyway. Regardless of how well their website is designed, it is probably only being found by peoplelooking specifically for that product or service.

Usually when we conduct an analysis of the search engine results for a business, we find them ranking only inВ keywords that contain their specific business or product name.

In other words, their website inquiries are really onlyВ referrals or repeat customers using the internet instead of the white pages.

Online marketing can be cost effective:

Online inbound marketing, (where you post interesting, informative material that leads people to enquire)В is 62% cheaper than traditional outbound marketing, (advertising in newspapers, Yellow Pages etc.)

That’s an incredible cost saving for any business, but you must do it properly to reap the rewards.

It’s important to note that we don’t advocate dropping your offline marketing completely - some offline marketing techniques can be very cost effective with a high rate of conversion. Just review your offline marketing and reduce or eliminate those high cost activities that don’t bring you a return, focusing instead on effective, direct response offline marketing techniques coordinated with your online activities.

Beware of Online SEO Predators

Almost everybody who has a website has beenВ approached by online predators. These are theВ SEO expertsВ - people who used to make a fortune helping people cheat Google results. When Google implemented the technology to detect this cheating and exclude people using it from search engine results, tens of thousands of websitesВ disappeared from search engine results overnightВ and the SEO industry found themselvesВ largely unemployed.

They have desperately tried to reinvent themselves and get new business by preying on uninformed business owners. Their approach is to send an email praising the website, but adding “it is not getting much traffic” and with their services of course, that could be greatly increased.

Regardless of how clever their new methodology,В any results you get from these marketing techniques will only be short term, until Google again finds a way to disqualify them.

One thing you must understand about online marketing is that youВ cannot cheat your way to the top. There is no shortcut or magic bullet - online marketing is really aboutВ getting your story out there in an honest and open way. It is aboutВ engaging prospective customers and clientsВ and leading them through a process to the sale.

This can be done through well written informative content, videos, interaction on social media or webinars, orВ better still, a combination of all these elements.