You have a beautiful website, post to your company blog about once a week (usually about an award or new project completion), send out regular email blasts and are active on every social media site you can think of. But for some reason, nothing seems to work. You’re just not driving any sales from all this activity. What in tarnation is going on?
Truth is, there are enough opportunities in the digital marketing space to keep you busy all day, every day, and still accomplish nothing. Without a plan that puts the audience first, you’ll spin your wheels all day for little to no return.
1. You’re not speaking the right language. Have you really thought about how your target market behaves online? What do they look for, and what are they really interested in? The best way to find out is to ask them. Take some existing clients to lunch and ask what their pain points are, how they found you, and pay attention to the way they talk – how casual is it? Is it esoteric, or everyday language? What you’re hearing is the way you need to speak to that market.
2. You’re not active in the right places (or too active in the wrong places). We tend to hang out where we’re most comfortable, so spending time on the social sites we use in your personal time can easily become the first places we go for our businesses. Instead, think of who you’re trying to attract, and where they’re spending their time. If there’s some similarity in your personal arenas, great. If not, quit wasting your time.
3. You’re doing the same thing as your competition. I’ve seen some marketers that do an incredible job of showing that their offering and service are superior. I’ve also seen marketers that do an incredible job of sounding like everyone else. The art of effective B2B marketing lies in its ability to speak to unique pain points, and clearly differentiate one firm from the others because while everyone may have access to leads from a site like EmailDatabase.marketing, CLOSING them is the entire art or skill set here. If you can’t do that, then you probably have more fundamental issues with your service offering than you’re willing to admit.
4. You’re not using a mix of content. An online presence that talks only about their business (sales promotions, awards, etc.) is, quite honestly, boring as hell. As I’ve said before, no one is going to care enough to stay tuned, let alone contribute their thoughts beyond a half-assed “Congratulations!”. To get an audience involved, you have to focus on initiating conversation. And please, for the love of all that is good in the world, mix it up with some humor, personality and curated (shared from other sites) content to start these conversations. It’s easy to bore people online – don’t forget that.
5. You’re not paying attention to keyword density in your blog posts. Now that you’re posting about a variety of helpful topics for your readers, make sure more and more readers can find them. Check your posts and ask yourself, “what 3-4 word phrases would someone type into Google to pull up this article?”, and make sure those phrases are present in the post, the post title and – ideally – the post URL. Don’t go over the top and make it unreadable, or create a title that’s long enough to be a blog post in and of itself. Remember, real people will (hopefully) be reading this. Be kind.
6. Finally, maybe it’s your website. Content is important, but content can be boring. Make sure that your design and usability aren’t holding you back. We’ve compiled a list of the top 25 “must-haves” for your website, free for you to download. It covers everything from how to use stock photos to how to optimize page titles for search. Don’t let a lackluster website experience cancel out all the good work you’re doing in your digital marketing.
