If you want to be able to generate more leads it is important to understand that online marketing is one of the essential tools for a company; to stand out on the internet and create more leads.
Your prospects don’t want their attention bought; they want it earned. The way to achieve this is online marketing. Regardless of the size of your business, this is crucial for you to get done right.
The industry in this day and age is extensive and gives us an abundance of choices. It has become more difficult for businesses to stand out from the plethora of options. So, you must be able to adapt to everything that is happening while considering all the surrounding factors, to do this you need a solid online marketing plan.
Before you begin your journey to create the right online marketing strategy for your business ask yourself a few questions.
Where are you now? Where do you want to be? What do you need to do to reach where you want to be?
The answers to these questions will help you create a base and focus on what you want to achieve and how you will strategize your online marketing plan. These would also be a part of the goals for your company.
The following steps are essential for you to be able to create an effective online marketing plan and generate leads.
1. Analyze your goals
If you’re not setting goals, you won’t be able to answer critical questions such as
Was I successful in my efforts? What can I do to optimize my strategies?
If you don’t know where you want to go, how will you know how to get there? Goal setting is fundamental as it not only gives your content specific actions to progress towards, but also helps provide alignment internally; between your marketing and sales teams.
While setting your goals make sure they are SMART goals specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely. This will help you stay focused and stick to the right path and achieve maximum positive results.
2. In-depth analysis of your current situation and market opportunity
Your first step should be to evaluate where you are, where you’re coming from. Also, you need to go over your products, services, competition and potential clients with a fine-tooth comb and be aware of all variables that affect these factors. Conduct Market analysis, define everything your company offers and mark down how the benefits you are providing differs from your competitors.
It is not enough to merely know everything about your product or service. It is crucial to know everything you can about your competitors as well, this aids you in adding value to your business that would differentiate you from them and make prospects come to you instead.
This is an entire process known as the SWOT analysis. Using this method, you can evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Once you assess the following, you can then use them to your advantage while also being prepared for any potential risks that may come your way. It gives you a head start and is the foundation of where your online marketing strategy will develop from.
3. Ascertain your target audience
Create a marketing persona of your potential client based on market research as well as data on your existing consumers. Your persona will ideally comprise of a variety of goals, needs and observed behavioral patterns. The more detailed you are, the better.
For example: If you are in the magazine industry for health and fitness one of your buyer personas may be a soccer coach Samuel. You will use your market research, interviews, and any other related data to create an ideal profile for him. Essentially the profile will consist of a background, his goals, the challenges he faces and how you can help him.
This way you are building your strategies and content around the needs of your ideal lead. This step also aids you in allocating your scarce resources – time and money, appropriately. It helps to identify your target market, define the scope of your project plan, and create a more effective marketing plan. It sets the path for you to connect with your consumers on a more personal level which is what customers look for in the current market.
Furthermore, it assists you in developing solutions to problems you may face.
As a result, you will be able to attract the most valuable visitors, leads, and customers to your business.
4. Develop an effective strategy
Now that your base is prepared you have your goals set and target audience distinguished you can start developing strategies to reach these goals. Knowing your target audience prepares part of your marketing strategy. You already know, what they want, where you can find them, and what will capture their attention, you just need an effective plan in place.
Distinguish what tactic works best for your business while keeping a backup plan at hand in case your initial plan doesn’t work as expected. This will prevent you from falling back on your marketing efforts. Make sure you implement, test and adjust your strategy for best results.
5. An action plan and timeline for execution
Once you have your strategy in place, you need to produce an action plan and timeline for execution. Here you will strategize when and how you will execute your marketing strategy, who will be assigned to these specific tasks and the costs that you may incur.
This step is essential so that your strategies take place in a coordinated and organized manner. Furthermore, having a timeline for execution in place will ensure that you are carrying out.
6. Resources and Budget
To be able to conduct an online marketing plan you need resources such as investment, money, and technology. Once you have produced your marketing strategy you need to plan how you are going to carry it out, it is vital to set budgets so that you are not putting your business at a loss, but it should also be enough to carry out your plan successfully.
This is an investment towards the growth of your company, generating new leads and increasing revenue. Keeping a check on your ROI’s will let you know how successful your plan is and show you that your investment was worth it. This also helps you understand what is working and what’s not, or what you can do to improve your ROI further.
7. Monitor the progress & results of your marketing plan
Now that your marketing plan is in action it is critical that you monitor it very closely. This is an essential step so that you can detect any possible problems as soon as possible and solve them before you incur any loss.
Key performance indicators help quantify your work; you can use this to improve the productivity of your business and to make sure your company is working in the best possible way.
Make sure you’re using analytics as it allows you to gain a more in-depth and better understanding regarding the behavior and patterns of your visitors, leads or consumers. Analytics can help prove your hypothesis right or wrong and create a base for effective marketing strategies. Making sure that you are correctly and efficiently utilizing the capabilities of your reports and analytics ensures the continued success of your optimization efforts.
Marketers who have adopted these steps have reported success in their marketing efforts
At the end of the day, you need to step back and think strategically about your customers, their behaviors and then develop a plan. To be able to generate leads and not just get visitors content is key however you need to make sure your content is of high quality, just putting out lots of material that may not be relevant will result in the loss of your leads, in turn, harming your profitability. Every step mentioned above is crucial in building a robust marketing strategy that will help you optimize your lead generation.
If you want to target the CFOs of manufacturing companies based in the GTA that have annual revenue between 20 million to 50 million. You need to think of what pain points of that CFO your solution can solve or how else you can help the CFO so that you can build empathy and trust with him.
