It’s time to shake off some bad habits and stubbornness with our marketing strategies. Let’s face it. Over the past decade, we have all built some bad habits of, “this is the way we always do things”, which have kept us from adapting to the new marketing standards. Some of us are so busy looking for the next shiny object, that we have lost site of strategies that continue to work year after year. Whatever column you fall under, there’s a strong chance that you could use a marketing makeover to help you rethink your current strategy and moves. Here are 3 simple mid year marketing maneuvers to help you shape up!
Mid Year Internet Marketing Practices
Want to refresh your marketing strategy? Stop doing these things:
- Not paying for social reach – I know, you’re feelings are hurt because Facebook got you hooked on free reach. However, these social networks need to pay the bills, and they need to make money for giving you direct access to their customer base. You wouldn’t expect to have free advertising on ABC would you? The good news is that advertising on social media is fairly cheap right now. If you’re advertising in Facebook and Instagram, you have probably the best targeting tool available at your fingertips to help you connect with your customers. If you feel like you can’t afford to pay $1 a day to reach your customers, go find ways to save that money somewhere else. Paying to promote your content is smart business.
- Ignoring search engines – With all of the new social networks popping up everywhere, it’s easy to forget the largest driver of traffic to your website; social engines like Google and Bing. They’re not the shiny new thing, but they have certainly engrained themselves in our daily lives. The path to search has become somewhat different in recent years. These days, we go to search engines to discover (a parent might search for “kids birthday parties in Orlando, FL”), investigate (a friend suggests a new restaurant), and hunt (find directions, phone numbers, etc). Properly optimizing your web presence helps Internet users discover information about your business.
- Not owning your website – Renting your website isn’t a new idea. Geocities, Lycos, and many others offered similar services years ago as the Internet boomed. Today, we have site builders like SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly, and more. Some of these sites offer premium models, which is more like leasing a car. Unlike a car, your owned web presence appreciates year after year, which is why it is important to own your own domain (example.com), host your own site, the content that you create, and own the software or code that was used to build your site. Your website is one of the few things that you can actually own and control on the Internet. This should be the foundation of your online marketing, and it should be secured as something that you control.
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