There are so many marketing platforms online that it can feel overwhelming trying to decide where to spend your budget. You only have so many dollars, and you want to get the most bang for your buck—so which solutions do you choose, and in what proportions? You want your mix of marketing solutions to be diversified just like any other investment, so you should certainly choose a variety of platforms on which to market. Picking the optimal mix of solutions all depends on your business’s goals. For convenience’s sake, let’s break up your goals in to two categories: short term & long term success.
Short Term Success
Paid Ads (PPC)
If you are looking for success in the short term, you should allocate your budget towards various forms of paid advertising. Whether it’s Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, or any other paid advertising platform, pay-per-click advertising is one of the best ways to get business in your door quickly. Paid ads put you directly in users’ paths and capitalize on search intent and user psychographics. You don’t have to spend time and effort building up brand value or fostering a solid online presence. The caveat with paid advertising is that if you want to succeed, you have to be willing to spend the money to compete. The ROI is great, but there is a monetary barrier to entry because everyone is vying for the same space.
Long Term Success
There are a ton of options for the long term success of your business, but two of the most important are below. To be successful in the long run, you need to build your credibility online, and to do that, you need to allocate more of your budget towards SEO and reputation management than to paid search.
Organic Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the number one most important thing you can do for the long term success of your business online. The statistics are staggeringly in favor of organic search results relative to paid ads. People trust organic results and click on them at far higher rates than their paid counterparts. Virtually nobody is going past the first page of search, so if you can get your site onto the first SERP, you’re in business. Users trust the businesses that rank the highest—simple as that. If your business ranks for the keywords you want, you will get traffic to your site.
Reputation Management
People listen to online reviews—so much so that 84% of online consumers report trusting online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. If your business lacks positive reviews throughout the internet, you can kiss potential business goodbye. If you want your business to have long term success for your business, you need to build up your online reputation. Luckily, we have solutions to help you manage your reviews and help produce positive ones.
Our core competency at EMSC is deciding the best mix of digital marketing solutions to meet your needs within the constraints of whatever budget you may have. Ideally, you want both long term and short term success. You don’t have just one goal, so you shouldn’t have just one solution. Understanding your priorities will help us decide on an optimal allocation of your marketing budget.