If your business has recently taken a sabbatical or reduced its activities for a month or so but is now getting back into the swing of things, it’s a good idea to take a fresh look at your marketing plan.
Does it still make sense in the current economy? Should you decide to invest the marketing budget differently to get the best return from it in a world with altered priorities? We certainly believe that it’s worth reassessing it at the very least.
In this article, we make suggestions about taking more than one approach to get marketing results in short order and for the longer term too.
Not All Marketing Delivers in Short Order
While we’d love it to be the case, the reality is that marketing methods don’t all instantly provide a collection of new customers through the door. Indeed, some marketing strategies don’t bear fruit for a few months or a year plus after they’ve been initially undertaken.
However, other ones like paid advertising deliver almost immediately once an active campaign is underway.
Updating SEO Strategies to Drive Relevant Traffic
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a longer strategy that requires a solid plan, hard work, and some degree of patience before meaningful results are realized. Indeed, marketing online through guest posting, infographic marketing, and building a collection of inbound backlinks to the site to improve search engine ranking requires considerable time (usually months) to get results.
It’s also useful when aiming for SEO strategies to consider adjusting search analysis based on the changing interests of likely buyers. It’s fair to say that what interests potential customers today isn’t the same as it was 3-6 months ago. Therefore, when seeking SEO services in Minneapolis, ensure the firm will consider the changing tastes of the target audience when selecting search terms to target.
Paid Traffic for a Quicker Return on Investment
On the flip side, paid traffic through online advertising holds open the possibility of driving new visitors to a landing page almost immediately.
The goal of advertising might be to get new subscribers to a newsletter. This is common when the company’s products require multiple touchpoints before someone will consider making a purchase.
Alternatively, if the company’s products or services are easily understood and convert well, then product-related landing pages are ideal to drive up sales.
When wanting to rev up the engine of growth for the business, then investing in an ad campaign should deliver results the fastest.
Promote Locally and In-person
For businesses where there’s a storefront and/or delivery capabilities, then driving positive word of mouth is important to push up orders. Once the neighborhood is once again talking about the brand, it becomes a far easier sell.
This can be done through offer giveaways, competitions, or offering discounts to new customers. It costs a little in the short-term but for businesses that know repeat customers drive their revenue, it’s necessary to invest at the front-end to get improved results in subsequent quarters.
By taking a short and long approach to marketing, it allows sufficient time for different strategies to bear fruit. It also permits time to fine-tune marketing efforts in the pursuit of better results.
