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It can’t be denied that businesses are operating in an increasingly tough climate as a result of a poor economy. As such businesses need to take decisive actions to deliver more efficiency and usually this means cutting budgets. The first one to go is often the marketing investment, which is a testament to how ineffective some businesses are at tracking the investment they make in this vital discipline. Internet Marketing provides businesses with numerous techniques that can add value and competitiveness to your business during this crucial time.
Pulling your marketing budget in a tougher climate could be a costly mistake, after all surely now is the time to connect with and convert as many customers as possible to ensure that your business makes the most of whatever opportunity still exists. Using your marketing resources correctly now will give you an opportunity to grow your business significantly when times are better, succeed now and you can be comfortable that when things recover your business will be in a great position to capitalise.
Rather than cutting marketing budgets businesses need to refocus the investment on initiatives that can demonstrate an improved return. Start by asking some questions about the current tactics you have in play and how positively they are contributing to the performance of the business.
Here are four areas to start looking at.
1) Communicate with the right audience.
Be sure your media choices are targeting your most likely client base. A slow economy is the perfect time to make potential customers aware of your company through aggressive, yet relevant marketing. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t look for more economical marketing methods to squeeze as much value as possible out of your investment, in fact the opposite is true, your current targeting endeavors can be improved and here’s how:
Typically businesses advertise in particular publications to try and increase the visibility of their proposition to a target audience because they understand that a particular group of people, linked by either demographics or interests, have a higher propensity to buy their product or service. By having a presence alongside content that this group of people consume, businesses are improving their odds for success by delivering adverts that are more likely to reach that sub-group because that helps them to deliver a better ROI.
Sounds logical. However the problem with this method of trying to locate your customer is that there will inevitably be a level of wasted investment as the thinking is built on the assumption that people who share similar demographic profiles or interests will behave in the same way, which of course they won’t.
The most effective audience to target is the one that is already looking for your products and services, who knows how old they are, where they live, or what they do for a living… and at this stage who cares? By utilising Search Engine Marketing techniques businesses are able to take their marketing tactics beyond chasing audience types and ensure that investment is focused on only those people who are in the market for your products or services. By replying-to-interest a business is not taking the risk of presuming to know what type of person is interested in them, but instead they are converting the latent demand that already exists.
Once you have this pre-qualified audience on your website, you must look to engage them. In tougher economic conditions, people will seek out and engage with those businesses that offer increased value so look to capitalise on this by offering sustained incentives and value to people who subscribe to your newsletters or database. This could be as simple as volume purchasing discounts, access to additional information, or recommendations based on previous purchases.
2) Increase the value of your existing customer base.
You’ve demonstrated the value of being a member of your database and so you will now have the opportunity to up-sell and cross-sell relevant products or services and increase the revenue extracted from your customer base. A tough economy offers a fantastic opportunity to create or develop your customer relationship program. Why? Because consumers are hurting too and they want a conversation with anyone that can help alleviate the pain.
By adding value to your transactions and customer base now you’ll be is pole position when the purse strings open up and Internet marketing offers unprecedented opportunities to understand your customers more, which is crucial in building a meaningful relationship with them because the more you know about them the more value you can bring, and the more value you can bring, the more revenue you’ll generate.
For example, email marketing gives businesses the opportunity to deliver customised offers to target groups you know will respond. What’s more the measurable aspects of an email marketing campaign can drill down to granular levels, such as, the open rate of the emails sent out, the click through rate, the conversion rate, bounce rate and unsubscribe rate. Businesses can then analyse the campaign and generate insights around the return on investment, cost per sale, cost per response, cost per message, frequency and customer value.
3) Optimise your campaign.
There are multiple ways of connecting with and engaging an audience online and under pinning all Internet Marketing activity is the ability to track customer behaviour and preferences and then market to them accordingly. Businesses can generate powerful consumer insights that can be acted on almost immediately.
It is simple, find out what works and do more of it. By employing Internet Marketing techniques businesses don’t need to wait until a particular campaign is over, the ‘what’s working’ analysis and optimisation can happen in ‘real time’ while the campaign is still live. So, for example, you can fine tune your media ‘flights’ to ensure you are reaching high worth customers at the most effective times, or ensure that your business is appearing against the most relevant search phrases or that your emails are still generating a suitable response from your customer database.
4) Pay for performance.
Possibly the most powerful aspect to internet marketing is the opportunity to only paying when someone actually clicks through to your website from an ad. Although this payment model is available across a variety of internet marketing techniques, the most effective example to use is Search Engine Marketing.
Business selling or promoting products or services online can bid on search phrases related to their offering and when someone searches for any of those terms using a search engine the business’ listings are displayed. To help improve the relevancy of their communication, businesses can take advantage of the real time measurement and optimisation tools available, which will build an understanding of which terms generate transactions and alter their management of the campaign accordingly.
With the maturity of technology such as automated bid management and search engines testing new ways for businesses to dynamically stream offers into their communication, the reach of internet marketing campaigns can scale expansively and cost effectively.
Evaluate your current marketing initiatives
A slow economy offers a great opportunity for businesses to innovate and improve effectiveness and return from their marketing investment. The first step in getting involved is asking what your current marketing initiatives contribute? Do they minimise waste? Are they accountable and flexible? Do they get smarter?
Essentially, do they allow you to say ‘I’ll only pay if it works?’