27 Aug The Best Places Online to Invest Your Marketing Dollars Post COVID
Digital, digital, digital. COVID has moved how people communicate, work, learn and shop to the digital space. Your business needs to have a solid online presence, giving your customers options to connect with you (and buy) online. If your company is struggling to make this shift or new to the digital game, here are the best places to invest your marketing dollars online post-COVID.
Update Your Website
As the old saying goes, you never renovate a home you rent. Your website is the only place online you own and can fully control. So, when was your website last updated? Does it accurately reflect the changes to your business and the market since March 2020? Are users being funneled to offerings that are relevant to their needs right now? Do you have ways for people to buy your products on your website or easily get in touch with your team? Generally, you can plan on some updates to your website a few times a year, adjusting copy, promotions and funnels. With the significant market changes in the last few months, you may need to be updating your website weekly, depending on your industry. Or adding new features like chat or an online shop. Unless website design and development are something in your team’s wheelhouse, it a worthwhile investment to bring on a pro to make these tackle your website.
Improve Your SEO
On the topic of website updates, SEO is essential for increasing your website’s ranking, or position on search engine results pages. The better you rank the more likely you are to be seen and in an increasingly competitive market, being seen sets you apart. There’s a reason we say “The best place to hide a dead body is page 2 of Google”. SEO is an ongoing process and can be quite costly so it’s crucial that your website is optimized first (no point in showing up on the first page if your website is not ready to convert users). Once you have SEO foundations in place (meta description, website speed & updated copy for example), you can tackle the other layers of SEO with content creation, guest posts that create backlinks and online listings.
Build a Sales Funnel
A sales funnel is a step-by-step process that guides your potential customer towards buying your offer or service through a series of marketing actions. It’s an effective and passive method to generate sales and once in place, it runs automatically. It also builds a list of emails that you own – and can communicate with at any time. Sales funnels are especially important during a time of crisis (hello!) or market upheaval because you can always communicate with your customers. Read our recent blog to learn how to create an effective sales funnel!
Video
If a picture is worth a 1000 words, a video is an impactful way to communicate with our customers. Especially now, with in-person communication being limited by COVID, having a video is a great way to tell your story and connect to customers (remember, people buy from people they like and feel connected to). Candid videos are great for social media posts but take the time to maximize lighting, video quality and prepare a script for videos that will be featured on your website or shared with clients as part of an onboarding series.
Social Media & Digital Ads
One of the best areas to invest your marketing dollars are social media and digital ads. When done correctly, they are one of the most direct ways to channel people to your website – plus ad prices are much lower than they have been. Digital ads are a great way to maximize your newly created sales funnel, easily target key demographics and can quickly be increased or decreased base on your budget and capacity. It is easy to spend a lot of money on ads trying to find what connects with your audience. Pros in this space understand the best ways to streamline this process so hiring an expert to create an advertising campaign is a smart investment.
Want to get started on some easy website updates? Download our DIY Website Checklist in the form below. As always, our team is here to help with websites, SEO, sales funnel and more – give us a shout: inquiry@pathandcompass.com.