Are you investing in the right marketing channels?

Defining what marketing channel to invest in is an ongoing conundrum for SMEs. Nobody has a magical everlasting pot of money so it’s important to make sure that you’re investing in the right resources for your budget and for your business.
 

The most important thing to bear in mind is that in order to know what marketing channel to invest in, you’ll need to be able to measure its success. Before investing, make sure you have a way of monitoring leads and sales from it. Else you’ll be throwing money into a bottomless pit without knowing whether it’s working.

Here are 4 marketing channels that every business should have in their strategy:

1. SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimisation and is a slow burning but vital channel. It’s the biggest driver of traffic to business websites as compared to other channels driving 51% of traffic on average¹ and can deliver a healthy ROI and a stable presence on the internet.

There are no quick wins to be had with SEO, but investment can reap high rewards in ‘free’ traffic being driven to your website in the long term.

To be successful with SEO, make sure your website is delivering a positive experience (does it answer all their questions?) as well as adding authority to your site through link building (adding links from other good websites to your own). In Google’s eyes, this gives them a big thumbs up and increases your ranking.

Having a good SEO presence requires investment, time and effort to maintain and improve your monthly organic visits.

2. PPC

PPC stands for ‘pay per click’ and is a form of advertising where you pay each time somebody clicks on your advert – which takes them to your website.

It’s great to get more exposure to your website in a short time frame. As soon as you set up your adverts and start paying, you’ll be attracting visitors.

It’s as quick as that.

It’s especially great if you’re not seen on the first page of Google for your preferred search term.

However, unlike SEO where changes can take a long time to come through, PPC adverts can be changed quickly. This provides a certain amount of flexibility to decide when you want to be seen and for what keywords.

Getting PPC right is all about making constant tweaks to your campaigns to increase your ROI.

Most businesses start off small in terms of budget and keywords and gradually grow out your account as you get used to it. This is perfect for small budgets as you can set the limit.

It’s about speed and expansiveness, but can obviously get expensive quickly!

3. Email marketing

Looking for repeat business? What business doesn’t? After all, it’s cheaper to retain a customer than it is to gain a new one.

Sending regular emails keeps your brand at the front of their minds so that when they are ready, they’ll be more likely to purchase with you again.

It’s also a great way of welcoming people to your business to provide them with more information about your business and the scope of products or services that you offer.

Give them a reason to love you and not to forget you and you could improve your customer retention.

Email can be inexpensive with plenty of free tools available. Just remember to opt-in your customers before sending them any emails to conform to data protection laws.

4. Face to face

Exhibiting, often referred to as face-to-face marketing has proven time and time again to have the best ROI. In fact 80% of people agree² that live events deliver a better ROI than other media. On top of that, 93% of marketers and directs feel face-to-face marketing to be the most persuasive media channel.

Impressive stats aren’t they?

Of course, that’s not saying it’s easy going – nothing rarely is. It’s all about finding the sweet spot in terms of the type of show you exhibit at, who you choose to staff it and of course the displays you use to grab attention. Take some time to think about your exhibiting strategy and you’re likely to get a good if not great ROI.

Lucky for you, we’ve pulled together some great event tips to get you started!

References:

1. “Channel Performance Report”. com. N.p., 2016. Web. 2 Sept. 2016.
2. Face-To-Face Marketing: The Business Generator. 1st ed. 2016. Web. 2 Sept. 2016.