As the pandemic stretches on globally, and Texans face yet another difficult time with our unprecedented winter storms and power outages, the continued need for businesses to learn to adapt and move forward grows. When businesses are faced with difficult times, they may have very little time to make necessary adjustments to their business strategy in order to survive. This can mean coming up with new marketing strategies, transitioning your company into a new structure, and much more. Many business owners are looking for online marketing solutions in Houston that fit their current needs and allow them the opportunity to reach their audience and move forward successfully.
Forbes.com shares:
Three tips for adjusting your strategy no matter what the challenge is you are facing.
Tip 1: Quickly adjust your marketing channel without changing your message.
Your marketing strategy is a culmination of activities that propel your business closer to your short-term and long-term revenue goals. Your revenue goals will and should adjust, but your goal of marketing should be to profitably reach the customers you want to target with the right message during the right time in the purchasing process.
While the buying process can be longer for some and shorter for others, there are usually a few critical needs that should be met before a customer is willing to buy from you. Once you identify what those critical needs are and what pain points your ideal customers have to overcome throughout the purchase cycle, you can pivot your marketing strategy and focus on the channels that will help you reach the right people at the right time.
Tip 2: Interpret the data; don’t guess.
Data-driven marketing is the approach to optimize efforts based on reducing the customer acquisition cost. To do that, you need to understand things such as how good the acquisition strategy is, what content is converting versus what content is making people bounce or leave the site, and what your funnel conversion rate is from add to carts through completed purchases.
All of this data should be used to tell how customers are finding, navigating, and ultimately purchasing products on the site. You can use the following steps to quickly audit the customer journey:
Step 1: Visit your website, and note what objectives you want your customers to accomplish, how your customers should interact with and navigate your site, and what parts of your site hinder your intended customer experience from the beginning to the completed purchase.
Step 2: Assess how strong your acquisition strategy is. Utilize your traffic source report to see how people are getting to the site.
Step 3: Identify what content makes the most money, leads to the most conversions or has the highest conversion rates. Layer on traffic sources to see which channels are driving current conversions.
Step 4: Determine your cost per acquisition (CPA) per channel and per landing page. By understanding which channels are driving traffic and conversions, you can use that as a benchmark as you test other channels.
Step 5: Can your marketing budget be optimized? Review your campaign conversion rates. Are they making money, or are they making noise? Meaning, are certain pages driving a lot of traffic but not converting? Find ways to maximize your current pages driving traffic for conversions.
If you understand which channel has the lowest cost per acquisition, you can know where you can double down on your marketing spend for the largest return.
Once you understand how people are getting to the site, interacting with it and moving through the conversion process, you can start to look at more advanced data such as lifetime value.
Tip 3: Gauge how consumers’ needs will impact your marketing strategies.
It’s impossible to predict how your customers will react to each of your products, so it is paramount businesses learn how to pivot their marketing strategies and product offerings for different customer expectations. Companies need to have a pulse on how their customers are engaging with their brands.
If you have not done so, you should set up a private Facebook group for select customers in order to get a better sense of this. Private Facebook groups are easy, free and highly effective at reaching your prospective audience organically. According to Facebook, its algorithm prioritizes content from groups that your audience reacts to, views or posts content on themselves.
Brands can utilize this feature to build meaningful relationships with their brand ambassadors. They can get firsthand knowledge from their customers on what pain points they are experiencing, what products they are attracted to and what they would like to see from the company in the future. Building private groups not only creates a community, but it also provides an invaluable direct line of communication to your customers.
Conclusion
Marketing today requires a business to be more agile than ever. Algorithm changes are occurring constantly, and new technologies that promote products to users are being developed at hyper speed. When faced with a challenge, you must be prepared to pivot your plan so you can meet your customers where they are shopping.
Don’t overcommit to a strategy that makes it impossible to pivot when needed. Instead, change the steps you need to take to reach your desired end result.
At Houston Small Business Marketing, we understand how difficult it can be to stay on top of all of the fast-paced changes your business is experiencing, let alone try to stay current with online algorithms that determine how visible your website is. Utilizing online marketing is an excellent way to stand out among your competitors and cement yourself as an industry leader. Without visibility, your brand will be forgotten and you will not reach your greatest potential. Our team is dedicated to helping you achieve the highest level of success with our proven online marketing strategies. Contact us today to learn more about the services we provide and how we can help increase your visibility online.
How Well Does My Business Rank Online?
Online marketing has been pushed into the direction of SEO-focused (search engine optimization) strategies that help businesses rank high online. So, what does it mean to rank high? Have you ever done a Google search for a business near you? Maybe you were not sure which company you wanted to use, just knew you needed a service. For instance, say last week during the winter storm, you had a pipe burst in your home. You may end up on your phone or computer to do a quick search for, “plumbers near me”. Whenever you do this search, a list of plumbing companies near you will come up, the order of these results is directly related to online marketing strategies.
When you do a search for your industry, typically, you will see a Google Map that highlights 3 businesses, this is called the Google 3-Pack. In addition to the Google 3-Pack, you will find when you scroll different websites listed that Google has paired you with based on your search. If your business is not highlighted in the Google 3-Pack or near the top of the Google Search Results, this shows your competitors are outranking you.
How often have you gone to the second, third, or even fourth page of Google search results in order to find a company or resource for your needs? The facts are, most people make a selection on the first page, if not immediately from the Google 3-Pack. This is why it is important to keep a focus with online marketing solutions in Houston. Our team of highly knowledgeable digital marketing experts stay up to date with the latest developments in online marketing in order to avoid your competitors outranking you. Good online marketing requires continued efforts in order to stay relevant and to maintain a top ranking.
What are keywords?
Keywords are ideas and topics that define what your content is about. In terms of SEO, they’re the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines, also called “search queries.” If you boil everything on your page — all the images, video, copy, etc. — down to simple words and phrases, those are your primary keywords.
As a website owner and content creator, you want the keywords on your page to be relevant to what people are searching for so they have a better chance of finding your content among the results.
Why are keywords important?
Keywords are important because they are the linchpin between what people are searching for and the content you are providing to fill that need. Your goal in ranking on search engines is to drive organic traffic to your site from the search engine result pages (SERPs), and the keywords you choose to target (meaning, among other things, the ones you choose to include in your content) will determine what kind of traffic you get. If you own a golf shop, for example, you might want to rank for “new clubs” — but if you’re not careful, you might end up attracting traffic that’s interested in finding a new place to dance after dark.
Keywords are as much about your audience as they are about your content because you might describe what you offer in a slightly different way than some people ask for it. To create content that ranks well organically and drives visitors to your site, you need to understand the needs of those visitors — the language they use and the type of content they seek. You can do this by talking to your customers, frequenting forums and community groups, and doing your own keyword research with a tool like Keyword Explorer.
At Houston Small Business Marketing, we work hard to make your business thrive! We research your industry in order to hand-select the best keywords for your business and local area. We understand every business is different and we want to showcase what it is that makes your company stand out from the competition. We carefully select everything that is placed onto your website in order to ensure you are getting the most SEO value available for your business. Whether you are a brand new small business looking to make a name for yourself among established competitors, or you are an established business looking to take your company to the next level, we can help you!
Staying on top of the always-changing online marketing trends, while also finding new ways to incorporate them effectively for your own brand is time-consuming and difficult. Navigating this during a pandemic can feel impossible! Unfortunately, for many small businesses in Houston, the industry they work in is highly competitive. By failing to stay on top of online marketing trends, you run the risk of losing business to your competitors who are actively working to market their company online. Do not let a business with an inferior product or service outrank you online. Instead, contact Houston Small Business Marketing today! Our team will work with you every step of the way to ensure your business is standing out online and reaching new customers. We pride ourselves on your success and make customized marketing strategies that fit your specific business needs.
SEO Marketing Experts in Houston
Stop missing out on potential customers and become a force within your industry! From excellent web design and social media management to Google Business Listing optimization and a weekly-updated blog, the team at Houston Small Business Marketing is here to help you get to the next level. Grow your business when you expand your reach online. If you are tired of giving away potential customers to your competitors, contact us today! We dedicate ourselves to working closely with business owners to come up with a marketing plan that helps them succeed. We provide each customer with a free consultation for your website and social media to let you know how you can improve your placement online and grow your engagement with local potential customers looking for your services. Contact us today to learn more about the services we offer.
Houston Small Business Marketing
713-492-0025
1415 North Loop West #950
Houston, TX 77008
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