Left Behind by Tech: Does This Sound Like Anyone You Know?
Sandy’s a landscape designer. She started her own business twelve years ago after she got divorced. It provided some flexibility while she cared for her two young boys. She had always struggled with her marketing and relied on great word of mouth to grow her business. It got her through the recession and Covid, but now she’s lost. The demands of kids, house and clients suck up her time, and technology has completely left her behind.
How to compete with her competitors’ clever social campaigns?
While her competitors are creating clever graphics and videos that are part of successful marketing campaigns, Sandy’s sporadic posts to Facebook and Twitter are a feeble shotgun effort. She isn’t monitoring her activity or generating metrics. Her Google ad campaign was a dismal failure. She’s spent thousands of dollars and has no idea how to manage it. Her monthly MailChimp blast is now a tired quarterly.
Many of us don’t place enough importance on social media
We don’t think our clients are on social. While that may have been the case a year or so ago, we can’t assume that anymore. Blame it on Covid. Millions of people with too much time on their hands spent idle hours exploring social channels.
Do any Google search and you’ll see that most of the results on the search engine results pages (SERP) are paid/sponsored results–not organic results. The truth is that it’s becoming nearly impossible to rank with just organic SEO. We can be doing everything right—generating and publishing lots of great content and doing exhaustive keyword research–but it’s not enough anymore. Being on social media—and doing online advertising–has become an essential part every marketing plan.
The biggest problem: Lack of a strategy
Without a strategy, we’re just posting, hoping for good results. It starts with the basics. Identify your audience. I know. You think you know your audience. But spend some time and really think about your audience. Build a persona. Age, interests, family, how they spend their free time and money and where they vacation. What they do for a living and what they read. If you’re doing Google or Facebook ads, you’re going to need this information as you build out fields.
Tracking results is critical
What’s great about online marketing campaigns is that we can test and correct our campaigns as we go along. You likely won’t get amazing results from your first campaign or post, but you will be generating valuable data. From here, you can change your keywords or audience preferences. The best part is that platforms provide a means to track and correct performance through their metrics.
A common key performance indicator (KPI) in social media marketing strategies is to generate more engagement, and responding to comments and questions is critical. Let people know you’re engaged.
Is it time to harness technology, include social media campaigns and pay-per-click advertising to help grow your business?
Contact Top of Mind Marketing to help grow your business.