This week on The Start Marketing Podcast, Joe Sanders welcomes Jillian Kernats to discuss what are some realistic digital marketing goals for businesses? Learn how platforms like Facebook, Google & YouTube can benefit a business’s bottom line by applying a strategic approach. The goals range from driving revenue, creating awareness, developing leads, and keeping up with your competition. Not sure what your digital marketing goals are – then start here with The Start Marketing Podcast!
Goal #1 – Driving Revenue
Driving revenue is the fundamental, number one digital marketing goal for almost all businesses. The biggest reason that most companies fail at this is that they don’t have the right call to action. When you’re trying to drive revenue, you need to know who your audience is and have a simple way for them to complete a call to action. If you are selling a specific widget, then link your posts or ads to a page about that specific widget, and how to buy it. That’s all. Nothing more is needed. If your store offers other products as well, that’s fine, but keep your campaigns targeted to one specific call to action.
Driving revenue properly will also require a budget. You will need to figure out how much money you’ll need to spend in order to penetrate your specific audience. Knowing how much money you have to spend will help determine the scope of your digital marketing campaigns. This will also give you realistic expectations for your digital marketing goals. Remember, digital marketing is fundamentally no different than any other kind of marketing. It will require resources to produce results. You can learn more about this in the book Stop Posting! Start Marketing! by Joe Sanders.
Goal #2 – Build Awarness
Sometimes you market things that people can’t buy. For example, marketing a restaurant that is not open yet can’t drive revenue. Is this type of marketing worthwhile? Absolutely! Social media marketing is a great way to get eyeballs on any product or service. This is called awareness. Building awareness campaigns work the same way as driving revenue campaigns, but with a different call to action. In this case, you might ask for someone to sign up for a newsletter or follow you on Twitter instead of a purchase.
Analyzing a successful awareness campaign requires deeper analytical tools. While a revenue-driving campaign can be measured by how much money was spent, awareness campaigns are measured in views, reach, engagement and shares. They are of course set up to aid in driving revenue, but that comes later. Measuring the success may come with the revenue that is driven after the product or service is launched.
Goal #3 – Lead Generation
Generating a lead from social media is a great digital marketing goal. If you sell a higher-end, more expensive product that requires a longer sales cycle, then social media lead generation is for you. Simply create a lead form and collect a user’s information. The campaigns are designed to intrigue your audience enough to want to request more information. Once you have collected the information, you reach out to the user and begin the sales cycle.
Instead of using lead forms, you can also send a user to a landing page. A landing page is a one-page website where you collect the users’ information. This takes place off of the digital marketing platform and somewhere on the web.
Goal #4 – Keeping Up With Your Competetion
Many companies dive into marketing because of what they see others doing. While there’s nothing wrong with this, just be sure to have a strategy and purpose. Marketing for Marketing’s sake will usually get you nowhere. Using a strategic approach to digital marketing will not only give you a reason to market but will also provide you with a way to measure success. If you don’t have a defined goal, you might want to re-think your approach.
Understanding why your competition is doing what they’re doing, and how it is affecting their business is a much better approach. Remember, you’re not going to win any points just by having the best-looking social media accounts. It’s all about how it affects your bottom line.
Goal #5 – Replacement of Traditional Advertising
Many fear, as they should, the day when traditional marketing dies. I am referring to radio, anything print, tv, etc. Most companies want to convert most of their marketing to digital before it’s too late. While this is a good idea, I would again warn against doing something you don’t understand. If traditional marketing efforts are working, then why stop? Take your time when diving into digital marketing, making sure you have a solid foundation of understanding what you’re getting into.
Many traditional advertising outlets can be replaced by digital ones. There are, however, a vast amount of options when it comes to digital marketing. Much more than traditional. Therefore, having a strategy and plan will help make this transition smoother, and give it a purpose.
Closing Thoughts
This week’s episode of The Start Marketing Podcast was all about choosing the right digital marketing goals for your business. Hopefully, this gave you a lot to think about before diving headfirst into digital marketing. To learn more about The Start Marketing Podcast, Joe Sanders, or the digital marketing book Stop Posting! Start Marketing! visit relevantelephant.net.
