When chatting with business owners I’m often asked about providing a particular marketing service. Ranging from everything to posting on Facebook to setting up Tik Tok accounts.
The reasons for wanting the services often stray from the main goal of their business
The lifeblood of any business is profit. Not social media posts, search engine optimization or any other type of marketing.
Marketing is a means to an end.
If the marketing you’re considering isn’t focused on sales, it’s worthless.
Smoke and mirrors.
A waste of time and money.
Website traffic can be faked.
Social media followers can be purchased by the thousands for a few dollars.
Bots can mimic almost anything a human can do online.
What’s harder to fake? Conversions. Actual sales.
When considering any marketing effort the goal must always be on your return on investment.
Branding is very important IF it delivers a return on investment.
Social media followers are great IF they deliver a return on investment.
Press releases are recommended IF it delivers a return on investment.
What Is Return On Investment In Marketing?
Think like an investor with a focus on profitable results
Here’s a few insights based on my 20 years of marketing experience on what works and what doesn’t.
Gold Marketing Channels
{ marketing channels that focus on profitable results }
Conversion Focused Paid Advertising
( Facebook, Instagram, Google, ect. )
With very rare exceptions, every paid advertisement should be conversion focused.
Not traffic. Not views. Not likes.
Gaining social media followers or mailing list subscribers from these efforts can be an overflow benefit but the focus must always be on conversions.
Direct Mail
An old school marketing method that still delivers surprisingly profitable results.
Recommended only for business to business advertising or to your current customer base.
Not profitable for new customer acquisition.
Don’t be concerned with running email campaigns until your subscriber list is at least 5,000.
Until then, focus on conversion marketing efforts, which have the overflow benefit of new subscribers that have a high likelihood of making future purchases.
Affiliates
If done correctly, this can be a nice long term and fairly passive marketing stream.
I recommend looking at affiliates as a way to grow your brand, customer base and mailing list subscribers. Not as a profitable marketing channel.
Offer affiliates a commission right up to your profit margin. Ensuring quality affiliates sign on and promote your products.
While you won’t receive short term profit margins, the customers and subscribers you obtain can be used for future marketing efforts.
Overflow Marketing
{ Marketing that comes as a benefit from gold marketing. }
Branding
A living organism that grows and changes as your customer base grows and matures.
Remain completely objective when looking at branding.
The branding decisions you make should be made based on your customer demographics. Nothing else.
Social Media Followers
A follower isn’t a customer. Don’t focus on growing your following.
Instead, run conversion driven marketing campaigns. A percentage of those who see these ads will follow your social channels.
Growing Email Subscribers
Give your website visitors every opportunity to sign on to your mailing list with great offers and pop ups.
Then drive traffic to your website via conversion driven marketing campaigns.
Social Media Posting
Objectively look at the amount of effort, time and money it takes to produce social media content. Then look at the number of conversions it delivers.
Even with a large social media following, these efforts are rarely profitable.
Instead, create great looking paid ads. Even with a small daily budget, they’ll deliver much more profitable results.
Search Engine Optimization
Should only be a focus if your website is already ranking for profitable keywords.
Investing in search engine optimization won’t deliver profitable results for 8-12 months. And if the Google algorithm changes ( it will ) then these efforts may take longer.
Instead, focus on conversion driven website optimization and marketing efforts. These often deliver overflow search engine optimization benefits via traffic and links.
Once your ranking for profitable keywords, consider investing in search engine optimization.
Sponsored Content
Should only be done if it’s also used to develop your search engine optimization.
When considering websites, look at their current keyword placements and overall search engine optimization standing.
Influencers
Remember, social media can, and often are, faked.
Will probably deliver traffic but no or very little conversions.
Will probably deliver traffic but no or very little conversions.
Traffic
Means nothing unless it converts into sales, subscribers or other values.
It’s something to notice but the focus should remain the same. On conversions.
Want more marketing insights? Schedule a free consultation directly with me.
