Haphazard Marketing – Are You Preparing to Fail Online?
Author: Jamie | Filed under: GeneralAs the old saying goes, if you fail to prepare then prepare to fail.
Taking a haphazard approach to your small business online marketing is only going to result in one thing; FAILURE
I know that no small business owner or entrepreneur sets out with failure as an objective but a lack of structure and planning can deliver it.
Every business is different so there’s no magic plan that will work in every case, however, if you keep reading I’ll give you some general pointers.
- SEO is a journey not a destination
Even if you manage to achieve first place page one Google rankings for all your main keywords and phrases, do you think your competitors will sit back and do nothing?
Taking your foot off the SEO pedal is a common mistake and could result in a lot of stop-start activity rather than an even spread.
- Are you marketing in busy periods?
If you’ve got a seasonal business, it’s easy to think you don’t need to promote yourself when you’re busy anyway.
Depending on what service you offer or product you sell, people may not necessarily buy from you right away. Let’s say you own guest houses, do you think everyone who looks at your website in the summer wants to come and stay with you straight away?
- Have you worked out a monthly budget?
Haphazard marketing is often a result of failing to plan an online marketing budget.
Many small business owners go at their marketing with great gusto initially, only to realise they can’t sustain that level of activity over the period of a year and have to cut back considerably.
Working out a consistent monthly budget is vital to ensure you’re always visible online.
- Are you measuring your online marketing return?
If you don’t measure what online marketing activities work and don’t work, how can you figure out a good strategy?
Failing to know what’s making you money and what’s losing it can also lead to haphazard marketing where you just try a combination of things such as pay per click, email marketing and social media every month.
If you want to steer your business clear of the hazard of online failure, you need to prepare a plan and stick to it.
Think of your online presence as an Olympic athlete; do you think you’ll win a gold medal by training inconsistently?
Image credit: St_A_Sh
There are some really interesting points here, especially the comment about SEO. It’s imperative that businesses see this as an on-going process and not a process where they get ranked and you can stop working.
Worked with a lot of businesses in the past who cut back huge amounts of budget once they have achieved some good rankings, its hard to convince none SEO experts the importance of on-going work. They usually saw it as a sales technique to keep them spending.
#2 is widely overlooked. Marketing has to be a year round experience. Being experienced in direct sales, the one thing I see all the time, is marketing only right before holidays and special occasions.a huge mistake on several levels.
Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing recently posted..Google 1- The Plugin is Out
Glad someone agrees with me Dennis! Typically lots of markets get saturated before holidays and special occasions so if that’s all you do, it’s very easy to get lost amongst all the other advertisers.
Hi Ryan, thanks for commenting. I’ve had the same experience myself with a company in a hugely competitive market. They sat back once I’d help them achieve their desired rankings (against my advice) only to see their rankings fall again shortly afterwards.
Quite often you have to keep a consistent SEO campaign going just to maintain a ranking never mind improve it.
Not only that Jamie, but lets take Christmas for example. If you want good positioning, especially in the search engines, you better get your mojo on in the summer at the latest.
Dennis Edell | Direct Sales Marketing recently posted..WordPress 32 is on it’s Way! Do You Meet the Minimum System Requirements
Hi Dennis, that’s a great example. Whether we like it or not, Christmas marketing often starts many months before, I remember getting bombarded with menus for office Christmas lunches in July and August in one of my previous jobs.