If you want to expand the reach of your small company’s marketing efforts, digital techniques are a smart way to go. Not only are they effective, they’re much less costly than old-school print and billboard strategies that include things like hard-copy flyers, business cards, direct mail pieces, and others. So, before you decide to rev up your next campaign with a new approach, it helps to know what’s in the entire digital toolbox. For most professionals, SEO and social media come to mind first, and they are indeed two of the main ways to leverage non-traditional selling techniques. But, there’s more, much more to the genre than that. Here’s a look at what’s in store for your organization if you decide to take advantage of all the tools in the box.
SEM and IM
Search engine marketing is just like SEO, but you pay for the honor of being listed high on a results page. SEM can cost money but for the right product or service, in the proper markets, it can deliver high-powered results. Instant message (IM) strategies are similar to email or direct mail methods. It works by sending targeted, very short IMs to a specific list of potential clients within your demographic. Messenger use has exploded in the past three years, so don’t neglect this new wrinkle in the sales pantheon.
TV and Radio
The old stalwarts of this category, television and radio are the good news and bad news twins of advertising: they are highly effective ways to focus a campaign, but they are also among the costliest types of advertising around. If your company is working on a tight budget, use these two approaches sparingly, if at all. Later, when you grow and have more funds to pour into marketing, they might represent a solid choice.
Social Media and SEO
It’s possible to conduct a pretty decent SM (social media) campaign on your own via Facebook, Twitter, and some of the other major outlets. But when it comes to SEO, don’t skimp and hire an SEO freelancer with confidence that entails improving traffic (site visitors) from organic, completely free search results. It’s all about optimizing your particular content so the major search engines see it and rank it at or near the top of the results page. An SEO freelancer can make it happen.
Email and Content
Targeted email was one of the first members of the digital marketing universe. It’s still around and is beloved by companies of all sizes. The reason professionals like it is because it’s easy to use and is relatively inexpensive. In fact, it’s free if you build your own lists rather than buy them. Content-based efforts are the backbone of many other techniques, particularly SEO. With excellent content on various online locations, like forums, high-authority websites, news outlets, and how-to sites, you can literally drive multitudes of eyes to your sales pages. Increasingly, content has become the champion of powerful marketing efforts and it brings excellent long-term results. A constant stream of good content focused on your topic, niche, product, or service can turn so-so sales figures into impressive ones.