CHICAGO — It's hard to name a field that has evolved as rapidly as digital marketing. Many business owners are just getting the hang of email marketing and digital advertising, but new technologies such as artificial intelligence have come along and changed the game.
Donna Botti, president of Delos, Inc., says while it's difficult for small business owners to maintain the status quo, it's important to have a plan in place to connect with customers. Mr. Botti recently held a webinar called “Getting More Customers and Clients.” The Digital Marketing Success Plan He Will Achieve 2024” is sponsored by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB).
“We keep hearing from people, 'There's not enough time for marketing, things are changing too fast,'” Botti says. But she warns these people that they cannot afford to sit idly by.
“Today, all of our customers are online,” she says. “They expect us to provide them with the information and ways to interact online, even if they end up doing business in person. We all want to be researchers and love that convenience. But the pandemic has accelerated that.”
To master digital marketing, it is important to have a plan to use your resources (mainly money, effort, and time) to maximum effect.
“I tell people just say 'no' to random marketing practices,” she says. “Your random marketing actions will give you random results at best. The first thing you need to do is have a good strategy and plan and focus your efforts on the right things. Otherwise you will waste your time. It’s a waste of time.”
2024 trends
Before offering three key action steps that small business owners can take to get the most out of their digital marketing efforts, Botti explains what you need to understand to get a clear picture of the current state of the field. I have listed five realities.
- The noise is getting louder, and AI is making it worse. “I've seen people say, 'Give me a prompt, I'm going to enter some information, and I'll create 1,000 pages of content,'” Botti says. “It's not very good content, but it's competing with what's out there.”
- Advertising costs are rising — “Advertising, especially on social media, is an auction,” she says. “This is an election year, so more people are competing and promoting, which increases costs for everyone. Another thing to note is the volatility across all platforms. Twitter is now As a result, one of the things we noticed was that the cost of advertising on LinkedIn, for example, went down as people moved from Twitter platform to Twitter platform looking for ads. It means it's getting more expensive.”
- First-party data is more important than ever — “Much of the tracking that happens on the web is done using cookies, and in theory we are moving to a cookie-free future,” Bott says. “So it's more important than ever to reach the people you are and convert those who have already expressed interest in you. This is important because you have a firm grasp of who your customers and prospects are. It means that.”
- Customers want reliability and relationships — “One of the things I always tell people is that as a small business, you need to think about marketing as relationship building,” she says.
- video rules — Video content is especially helpful in getting to the top of online algorithms and cutting through some of the noise. “Video is actually getting the most attention everywhere,” Botti says.
Key Action 1 — Focus your efforts on the right clients
Before you build your campaign and craft your messages, it's important to understand who you're trying to reach.
“As you set your business goals for 2024, what parts of your business do you want to grow?” Botti asks. “Where do I want to get more customers? That's where the majority of your efforts on your website, search engine content, and social media should be focused. You're trying to do it all, but none of it is good.” I often can’t.”
Botti believes this is the first step to accomplish before moving on.
“We focus intensely on the clients we care about more, the businesses we care about more,” she says. “You can freely edit your message to suit the businesses you want to attract, and acquire other users along the way, without having to spend your limited time and effort trying to attract them.”
It's okay to say, “These are not my customers,'' Botti says. In fact, it's essential to your marketing efforts.
“Not everyone is going to be your customer,” she says. “One client we started working with changed a lot of their messaging and content, which caused the number of calls to drop significantly. However, the total number of new clients and the amount of revenue from those calls increased. Because more people are going to be clients anyway, and fewer people are going to kick the tires. That saves a lot of time having to talk to people who don't fit in.”
Botti believes that if your audience, message, and product or service are not aligned, you won't get the results you need.
“Think about the people you're trying to attract,” she says. “What problems do they have? What are they most interested in? Does your product address those products? If your message doesn't go directly to your audience. , viewers will ignore it.”
Interacting with existing customers can provide valuable leads for cleaning companies working to attract similar customers.
“Why did they buy from you?” Botti asks. “Which will bring me the most benefit, both financially and personally? You have to solve their problems. What are their goals and aspirations? Their challenges. And what's the problem? And use the language your customers use. If you're not using their language, you're not going to resonate with them.”
Despite the complexities of digital marketing, you don't have to define your target audience.
“These may sound obvious, but if you don't start doing this, everything you do after that will be harder and more random, because you're not actually focusing on the right customers. ,” says Botti.
We'll be back on Thursday for part two of this series. Here we look at the value of the content you already have, even if you don't know you have it.
