Digital marketing is more than just paying to run Google or Facebook ads, Barry Alt, a digital strategist specializing in restoration, performance and race shops and contributor to THE SHOP says. And to maximize your return on investment, you must constantly evaluate and improve your digital marketing.
In THE SHOP’s December issue, Alt offers up some tips to help your shop get the most out of your digital marketing.
Reviewing for Maximum ROI
There’s no point in doing online marketing if what you’re promoting isn’t built to convert casual visitors into loyal customers. Your website needs to be built with customer conversion in mind—otherwise, you’re not going to hit your maximum return on investment.
Start the assessment by looking at the journey your visitors take when they land on your website. Are you giving them what they’re looking for? Is your website built with conversion in mind? Does it focus on the customer’s needs?
Assessing Your Audience
For a marketing strategy to work effectively, you must know your audience. The best way to understand your audience is by creating customer personas and using them to understand the wants and needs of your customers. Customer personas are basically a fictional profile of what your ideal customers look like and often include things like age, income, marital status and more. These profiles can help you assess your customer’s needs and wants.
Your Digital Marketing Plan
When it comes to digital marketing, a strategic plan is a necessity and will help your business succeed online. Start by establishing all of the objectives and goals for your business.
Any good marketing strategy should focus on reaching your audience, so narrow your target market using your customer persona. By narrowing down your audience and niche to a particular area, you can then connect with your audience on a more personal level.
Analyzing numbers is the key to measuring the success of any digital marketing strategy. Some key responses to track if you’re sending traffic to a landing page, relying on social media posts or using email marketing include number of ad clicks, pageviews, time on page and more.
A Successful Landing Page
One of the most common mistakes in marketing campaigns, Alt says, is directing traffic to a homepage, contact page or random product category. Because you want your customers to make a conversion (take action with a purchase, form fill or call), your ads should send them straight to the page that corresponds with what was advertised, creating a higher chance that the customer will make a purchase or reach out.
To gain real traction in your market and get the maximum ROI, look at your current efforts critically and constantly.
Check out the Digital Version of THE SHOP Magazine’s December issue to read the full article.
