There are countless marketing strategies you can use to bring traffic to your website and generate sales, but not all are worth pursuing. The methods you want to pursue are those that will provide the most leverage. You want the most bang for your buck, and the most results for the energy you expend.
If you’re curious about what marketing tactics will get you the strongest leverage and the biggest results, here are 3 of those strategies.
1. Paid Ads
Have you ever wondered if running paid ads is worth the time and money? Paid ads are a critical component in your digital marketing strategy, but if you haven’t been getting results, there’s probably a logical reason. If you started a paid ad campaign without help from an expert, you’re probably publishing ads that target too many people. The key is to use local PPC. If you don’t focus on your local audience, you’ll cast a net too wide to be effective.
Running ads that reach a specific demographic is part of the equation, but unless you also narrow your market down to local people, you’re going to be competing with big businesses. When you compete with million-dollar marketing budgets, you’ll have to pay outrageous costs just to stay in the game.
By running a local PPC ad campaign, you’ll reach a narrower market with fewer people, but that’s where you’ll get the most leverage. When running any kind of marketing campaign, you want a narrow market because then you can use specific messages that will speak directly to your market. General marketing messages might get you some conversions, but specific messages are far more effective. You have to know your market intimately to craft highly influential messages.
2. Split-Testing
Although it’s not a strategy to generate conversions directly, split-testing will help you fine-tune your web pages to generate more conversions. It’s one of the most fundamental components of digital marketing, but if you aren’t working with an agency you may not have it set up yet.
Here’s how it works in general terms. The idea is to test variations of specific web page elements to see which versions convert better. To accomplish this, you’ll make different versions of a given web page with only slight variations between them. For instance, one page might have a different lead magnet offer, a second page might have a different color scheme, and a third page might have action buttons in a different color.
With different variations of a web page published, you’ll be able to see which page converts the highest. If you’re only changing one element at a time on each page, you’ll know which element is contributing to higher conversions. From there, you can make that change to your original web page and continue testing variations of additional page elements to see which changes increase your conversion rate.
3. Cause-Oriented Marketing
In addition to marketing your products and services, you also want to market your business’ reputation. This is easily accomplished by aligning your organization with causes.
You may have noticed some of the world’s largest corporations supporting or promoting specific causes, like world hunger, poverty, social causes, etc. Some organizations even become involved in philanthropy that benefits specific causes. For example, Richard Branson is a well-known entrepreneur and philanthropist who supports numerous causes across the world. His businesses, like the Virgin Group, automatically have a positive reputation because of his work.
Businesses get involved with causes because it makes their organization look good. Sure, many businesses support causes they genuinely care about, but they do it out in the open as a way of building a positive reputation.
If you haven’t aligned your organization with a cause you care about, it’s worth considering. Businesses that support causes not only develop strong reputations in their community, but it helps them earn respect from customers and the general public. In essence, it’s a PR move that benefits more than just the business and that’s what makes it a successful technique.
Successful Marketing is More than a Task List
Marketing is more than a task list of items you check off for the day. To get more conversions, you need a plan that unifies your marketing efforts across all channels and platforms. However, you need to make sure you’re not spinning your wheels.
To get results, you need to know which components are worth pursuing in your industry. An organized marketing plan won’t get you many conversions without strategies that provide the most value for your time and money.
