Do you want to increase brand awareness, market share, profits and even customer loyalty? How? Well, as most companies are looking to slash their marketing budgets, those that are defiant can end up as winners.
With a little planning, creativity and commitment you can raise the profile of your business using a medium that starts conversations quicker and allows purchasing decisions to be made sooner.
Digital marketing allows your business to reach targeted consumers and promote offers at speed and with greater clarity. Although traditional marketing is far from buried, digital will for most businesses grow in importance throughout 2009 as the return on investment can be far quicker and clearly measurable.
 
Do you know how many visitors you have to your site each day, month or year? What pages do they scan the most or how long do they spend on your site. Useful information such as this can be obtained by implementing a tracking system on to your website. At Preface Studios we use Google Analytics to help our clients achieve this. You can then use this information to check where, if any, the drop off points are. These are moments where people visiting your site to purchase a product but don't quite make it to the check out.
Many large firms who implement banner campaigns as part of their marketing mix might want to track the return on their investment. With Advertising Tracking, using companies like DoubleClick, advertisers can track the path a customer takes from the moment they click on a banner advert. If your banners offer social network forwarding, you can also track how users are spreading your messages virally.
Pay per click allows you to see almost instant results in the form of new visitors to your sites, but as we all know, new visitors doesn't always translate to paying customers. Be careful on how you spend here, but ensure you do it as this can provide a quicker return on your investment than your average print campaign.
With the world and the economy changing on a daily basis you need to ensure that you are always on top of your marketing with the latest information to enable you to react to changes. Not only will you be seen as innovate but also decisive and authoritative.
Believe it or not, but current affairs, either positive or negative, can give rise to new marketing angles and opportunities. How many of you made use of the current weather climate to promote your business in a unique and creative way or the financial crisis as a way of affirming your commitment to service, price and quality to your customers?
In downturns your regular customers who are suddenly feeling the pinch will naturally want to start looking else where for similar products or services at reduced prices. Why not devise a simple digital survey to a) understand why your customers chose you in the first place and b) give them opportunity to provide constructive feedback to help improve your product or service.
What are your customers looking for - are they looking for discounts or offers, or should your copy be pushing sales. Tiny but key differences to your copy can impact whether you get a click through to your website or a response to your email campaign.
Consider investing in organic SEO. The effects of this can be very, very rewarding although it will take time and a level of investment. Doing such things as listing your site on directories, building relevant and themed inbound links as well as frequently updating your website content will get you along the way. Google loves new news.
Customer Relationship Management activity should be considered by any business of any size. This allows you to listen to what your customers want and start a two way conversation rather then a typical one way dialogue. Don't send generic messages, tailor it to their requirements.
Again, we have touched on this point in the past, but if you care about your business and have gone to lengths to create a database that stores your most vital information, why not spend some time communicating to your current customers? Email marketing, sometimes referred to as an EDM (electronic direct marketing) will help forge new sales and
re-establish relationships.
Tough times like these often present an ideal opportunity to gain market share. What will you do to gain or even take over your competitors when the market returns to normal? One thing we are doing, as you can probably tell, is that we are communicating more. We are sharing our experiences and knowledge with the people that matter most to us. We believe that the better educated you are on emerging technological trends, the faster
you can react to improve your bottom line.
Why not get involved and start a conversation with us?
If you would like further advice or wish to discuss your marketing for 2009 and beyond, please contact us on 01483 414354 or email info@prefacestudios.com
Visit our website... www.prefacestudios.com
Visit our blog... www.prefacestudios.com/blog
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