Why the Easy Way is Not Good Enough when Marketing Online

If you scratch the surface on how to market a business online, you will find recommendations to focus on increasing subscribers, followers, views, and clicks but is that all there is to marketing online?

Those methods will work undoubtedly but it’s the easy way out, and often, not good enough if your goal is to beat your competition and corner a huge chunk of your target market.

Take a look at these figures:

• Twitter has an estimated 1.3 billion accounts but only 320 million are active users as of 2017 polls. A recent study on Twitter engagement reveals that using hashtags is not effective when compared to tweets with good content and no creative hashtag.
• About 87% of those who shop online prioritize a consistent customer experience and will become loyal because of the experience. The mindset is that it is very easy, relatively speaking, to find a similar product on the Internet so how a consumer is treated becomes more important.
• There is a growing trend towards digital hyperclutter, where online users are exposed to an average of 3,000 online ads daily
• Hacking is becoming a digital nightmare not just for large corporations and famous individuals but also for small to medium-sized companies and personal profiles. About 2/3 of Americans have experienced a hack on their social media accounts. Google says 20% of social media accounts are hacked

All these figures point to one thing: the importance of a comprehensive marketing plan that will address the typical aims of more followers, views, and clicks but with an eye towards targeted and secure marketing so that what you post is read and understood (not misinterpreted), and acted upon.

How to Execute a Comprehensive Online Marketing Plan

A comprehensive marketing plan should have the 8 critical elements: goals, quantified objectives, target market, research on competition, marketing channels, content, budget and resource allocation, and responsibilities.

This is a standard plan that you should get from all credible marketing services company. However, what separates those that can deliver outstanding results from the usual run-of-the-mill random spike is in the approach, expertise, exposure to different scenarios, and most important of all, a focused strategy with key metrics and analytics. You need to work with someone who can help you eliminate business challenges such as weaknesses, problems, and roadblocks like competition, and more importantly, constantly review and adapt the plan so it stays relevant to the fast-changing and evolving digital business world.

In a nutshell, online marketing is not just social media marketing strategies or online ads. It also includes factoring in your business personality, the people behind the business, their goals collectively and individually, performance, and desired outcome.

Internet marketing is like creating a Venn diagram to ensure that your strategy and plans are in tune with your goals and your budget is commensurate to the plan. You can have the grandest plan (who doesn’t) but if you can’t allocate resources, you will be wasting your time. Thus, your marketing team must find that sweet spot that can help you meet your goals and afford to meet those goals.