What are your company’s marketing goals? Do you want to grow your small essay coaching service by 10%? Do you want to increase the number of customers for your photography business by at least 15 senior graduation portraits? Do you need to list at least two more houses a month to meet the real estate sales incentive bonus?
Once you have established your goals, what are your plans for reaching them? Do you need to consult with an email marketing company to find out the best way to find a larger potential customer list? Do you need to work with a search engine optimization (SEO) company to find out how you can drive more traffic to your website? Do you need to learn how a social media marketing company can increase the frequency of the posts that you make?
An email marketing company. Search engine optimization tools. Branding your business. They are pretty glitzy sounding terms for a pretty old fashioned business, aren’t they? When you really think about it, all of these digital marketing, branding, and search engine optimization goals are really the newest lingo for what everyone used to call advertising. A review of those advertising basics then will help you stay close to the goals that have always been a part of every advertising plan, whether it be print, digital or social media:

• Always remember your audience. The key to all advertising and marketing is knowing who you are talking to, who you are trying to reach. No matter who is in your audience, the latest statistics show that nearly 70% to 80% of all internet users have gotten to the point that they ignore paid ads entirely. In addition, 70% of all of the links search users click on are organic posts.
• Direct marketing. Once you understand your audience, it is important to direct your message to that specific group, rather than a broad appeal to a large random group.
• Views count. Did you know, for example, that articles with images get 94% more views than articles with no images? So, if views count, pictures multiply those views.
• Email still works. An email marketing company knows that their product delivers the the highest Return on Investment (ROI). In fact, email marketing returns on average $44 per dollar spent. SEO brings in the second highest ROI and banner ads have the lowest ROI.
• Returning customers mean profits. Encouraging your current customers and clients to follow your social media sites means that you can keep them involved with your business on a day to day basis. Posting specials, new product announcements, and upcoming events will create a buzz about your company and what it is doing.
• Tips for social media sites. The best marketing firms can help you understand the secret tips to growing your social media followers. Making multiple posts a day at the most advantageous times make a difference.
• It takes exposure. Did you know that it can take as many as five to seven brand impressions before a potential customer will remember your brand? The best website designs and the best email marketing company campaigns make sure that your company brand is constantly being presented.
• SEO strategies. It should come as no surprise that 93% of online searches begin with a search engine. The largest search engines frequently change their keywords to reflect the most current searches. The best SEO companies can help your business stay on top of these changing trends and changing keywords. If you cannot find a way to make it to the top of the search engine requests for your products and services, you are losing customers. Research shows that the majority of internet users never look past the first page of results.
• Everything counts. In today’s digital world, everything counts toward the success of your business. Your emails, your branding, your website’s ability to transfer from a laptop size format to a phone size format. Are you doing everything you can to drive customers to your business? If not, it may be time to seek out the marketing professionals who can get you and your company up to date on the latest advertising trends. The methods are new, but the advertising goal is still the same.