Is Digital Marketing a Fit for My Business?

Regardless of the type of business you run, from a flower shop to a manufacturer of high-end products, digital marketing (in any form) will help grow your online presence.

And you may have implemented some tactics already -- you’ve designed a website, whipped up a few blog posts, created a Facebook page, and even sprinkled in a few tweets here and there. You’re on the right track.

But something is missing. You're not pulling everything together, each piece is disjointed, making your efforts feel ineffective and time-consuming, leaving a bad taste in your mouth for digital marketing in general.

Rather than simply asking if digital marketing is a fit for your business, consider the following questions to determine if you need to take a step back:

• Do your business goals include generating more leads (or improving the quality of the leads you currently achieve), increasing sales, and enhancing awareness of your brand?
• Are your prospects currently doing research online -- comparing solutions, evaluating your company and your competition, and discussing your industry on social media?
• Have you gained a bit of traction generating more website traffic, but you don't have the know-how or tools to convert those visitors into leads and sales?
• Are you having a hard time proving the ROI of your current digital marketing efforts, or are you unsure of where to allocate your marketing budget?
• Have you been struggling to make traditional outbound methods of marketing work on their own (cold calling, broadcast and print advertising, etc.), or are you realizing that such methods stop working the minute you stop paying for them?

If you answered "yes" to a few or all of these, then a digital marketing strategy may be a fit for your business rather than disparate tactics.

Digital Marketing Strategy

To unleash the full power of digital marketing, you should start with a proven lead-generating strategy based on how buyers end up purchasing your product or service.

Today’s consumers are determined Research Hounds with a lot of questions. Tails up, noses down, they know where to hunt for information about your company and your offerings. If you aren’t providing them with answers to their questions in the form of educational content and social or third-party proof, they are likely to move on to another business that does.

Instead of throwing a handful of tactics into the online yard, it’s best to start with an overall marketing strategy focused on the buyer. We like to call it a blueprint. Doing this on your own, however, can be intimidating for both large and small businesses, B2B and B2C alike, even for experienced marketing managers, business owners, and sales directors.

The key is to have a dedicated understanding of your ideal customer, their pain points and paths to purchase. Once you do, you can start establishing trust with value-added content that resonates with Research Hounds.

That will get their attention. But you also need to entice website visitors back with additional information to keep them interested. In our biz, we call this lead nurturing, and it can be accomplished in a variety of ways, whether the leads started via traditional marketing or online methods.

This combination of lead generation and lead nurturing increases the likelihood of a Research Hound finding your site and eventually contacting your business and becoming a customer. It's important to consider because more than 70% of this research process is done online prior to any personal communication being established.

It seems as if buyers certainly hold the power these days.

So do businesses that have adopted new ways of connecting with people throughout the marketing and sales processes.

Successful businesses are using strategic digital marketing practices to align the way their marketers and sales teams interact with visitors, leads, and customers throughout the buyer's journey. And the results are measurable using today's content optimization systems.

But our business is unique, you may be thinking. So is the competition down the street, in the next state, and across the country. There are no exceptions when it comes to the buying habits and preferences of consumers. Research Hounds will continue to have questions and will continue to seek out information on their own terms, in their own ways, when and how it's convenient for them.

The question is, will they find you?

Are you wondering about developing a digital marketing strategy for your business? Contact us or download our Inbound Marketing Resource Pack.