Deciding on which online marketing tactics to use can be a daunting task. It needn't be though.
There's a pretty simple way to approach your planning:
- Don't put all your eggs in one basket, and
- Make sure you're using analytics tools that enable you to regularly measure your results
The thing about online marketing is that there is no set formula for success, that's why it's really important for you to be able to make adjustments as and when.
By having a range of tactics and campaigns as well as an efficient system of monitoring those campaigns, you'll be in a good position to do more of what's working and less of what's not.
A comprehensive online marketing strategy should include :
- Blogging and advanced content creation
- Search engine optimisation and keyword selection
- Social Media
- Lead generation
- Lead nurturing
- Email marketing
- Paid Advertising (Google Adwords, Facebook Advertising etc)
Only when campaigns are in action will you be able to gauge their impact or lack thereof. And how do you do this?
You use closed loop marketing to constantly assess the results you're getting. Since closed loop marketing enables you to see which campaigns are driving the most traffic and even more importantly, which campaigns are resulting in leads and sales, you're in a position to place more focus on the campaigns that are yielding the best results. Similarly, you can quite easily adjust or even scrap the campaigns that are not providing a return.
For example, you may see that a free ebook you're offering from a landing page on your website to visitors who come from facebook is resulting in 50 new leads per month. A pay per click campaign on the other hand that is sending visitors to the same landing page may only be resulting in 5 new leads a month, for example.
From these results for example, you can immediately make a call to put more focus into your facebook activities and perhaps reassess or scrap that particular PPC campaign.
In my book, if it's not bringing in revenue, it's time to take another look. And closed loop marketing will give you the best view in the house.