If I build it… Will they come?
It’s just not that simple. No matter how great your idea, or how good your site looks, nobody knows you’re there if you don’t tell them…
It makes sense if you think about it, but you’d be surprised how many people think that if you build a website, people will just naturally find it. While that might be true if you’re offering unique content in a niche industry with a large potential audience and no competition, we find that’s a set of circumstances that rarely occurs. Fact is, if you want traffic, you need to be doing it bigger and better than the competition if you want to be seen.
But the key here, is not always bigger, but better.
At 21 Designs we can help you navigate the fickle world of online marketing. We’ll show you the techniques to ensure you’re doing it better, even if your budget can’t match those who are doing it bigger. This way you know you’re getting the best bang for your buck with the best long-term strategies that will keep you competitive, drive more traffic and convert more leads.
Should I pay for advertising?
Another common question we hear is “Should I do Adwords, Facebook or both?”. Well it differs for every business, but the principles are simple.
Paying for placement is nothing new, so it really comes down to two things – what are you looking to achieve from your advertising efforts, and how can a particular platform help you achieve that goal. Take Facebook for example. If you’re in the business of selling to other businesses, then it may not be the best platform to get your target market to buy your products or services. After all why do people get on Facebook in the first place? Is to do business or to kick back?
The same can be said for the Google Adwords platform.
Getting thousands of eyeballs on your advertisement using pay per click strategies is great, clicks even better, but how do you know their frame of mind or intent from a 3 word search term? We’ve seen thousands of dollars spent aimlessly on PPC advertising, usually due to a misunderstanding of intent or failure to identify the opportunities and goals that do exist.
It’s complicated, we know, so if you’d rather to speak to someone who can explain it in easy to understand terms then give us a call and see what we can do to help.
1300 662 492
Building brand awareness
Ever wondered why someone would advertise for no obvious return? Sometimes it’s the memory of a jingle that makes the sale, even if it’s a year down the road.
While many people see brand building as something for the big boys, it’s actually a fundamental principle of online marketing – increase awareness, build trust and in turn, you will most likely increase the returns from your future direct marketing efforts. For big business, combine a good public relations campaign or brand awareness strategy with a celebrity or industry leader and you’ve struck gold.
But for most small businesses this seems unattainable. The news is that it’s not! You don’t have to spend the earth to get prominent people and industry leaders to promote you, and while you may not know where to start, we can help. After all, it just makes good sense to do have important people talking about you – what is more powerful than word of mouth?
We can offer your business a variety of PR campaign ideas, media release opportunities, and other influential endorsements regardless of your industry. Imagine kick-starting your business with a tweet from a celebrity, articles from prominent bloggers and journalists, or simply having a successful, high traffic website linking to yours in such a fashion that suggests their readers should trust you?
There are numerous opportunities for cheap product placement, endorsements, not to mention social media marketing, because people have forgotten what makes people trust a brand in the first place – the recommendation of others. Let us show you how to leverage this technique to make your’s stand out from the crowd!
What about email marketing?
Still rated as the most powerful, dollar for dollar, bang for buck online marketing strategy around, email marketing should demand a regular spot on your agenda every month.
The beauty of email is that it’s quite passive, that is until someone opens it up of course. Sitting there in your Inbox, along with a bucket load of other spam is still a problem, but the fact that we’ve all become somewhat accustomed to this means most of us are now quite discerning with what we ditch and what we keep. So seeing a new email from someone you don’t know is nothing new, it’s more about the message you deliver. So figuring out how to avoid the “junk mail” folder, and how to persuade someone to open your message is the real challenge.
Once they do of course, your email is now a personal message that has the users full attention when they read it. It’s not intruding into their Facebook feed, it’s not costing you money every time someone clicks on it and it’s not getting lost in the swag of search engine results that all look the same.
Some analysts suggest that email is 5 times more efficient at delivering positive outcomes (or conversions) than any other alternative marketing strategy. Why is this? Well for starters, the low cost of sending an email means you can target thousands of users every day at a fraction of the cost of other platforms.
But we think it’s the ability to really engage a potential customer without all the noise that drives email marketing’s success. If you don’t have an email marketing strategy, let us help you get started with the tools to harvest potential clients, establish the right goals and deliver your campaigns with a real focus on the outcomes.