What do Toyotas, Restaurants and Elementary School Reading Groups have in common?
Levels, my friend… levels.
Everyone knew the "Butterfly Group," was the place for struggling readers, who could only feebly hope that one day they'd make it into the "Soaring Eagle" level.
Restaurants? We like to know what to expect, so off we go to Yelp or other review sites in an attempt to choose between good, better and best.
A Toyota Camry comes in L, LE, SE, and XLE flavors, each one sporting more or upgraded features than the one below it.
We're quite used to differing levels of service, quality, or quantity. Our social groups have levels. Hot sauce has levels, measured in "Scoville Heat Units." A green bell pepper has a score of 0. A vial of Blair's 16 Million Reserve comes in at - you guessed it - 16,000,000.
The same is true for Digital Marketing Strategies. The gusto with which you get your business out there and participating in the internet marketing revolution can be broken down into tiers.
As anyone in the business can tell you, every set of marketing needs is unique, making the cookie-cutter approach a no-go. This is where your digital marketer flexes her artistic side more than her scientific side. What works for your business is entirely unique from what will work for another business.
That's why a good Internet Marketing pro will listen to each client to understand their market, their history, their competitors, their capabilities, their brand, their culture, and whatever else should inform any decisions on future digital marketing strategies.
That said (and we know it might be premature to start talking about a long-term relationship) we know that you want to learn enough to get started. So here's some idea of what to expect when thinking about the levels of internet marketing there are, what's involved in each one, and approximately how much they cost.
Disclaimer: we kept the numbers here exceptionally vague but at least you'll know what's approximately normal for businesses to spend when they get serious about more and better leads from the online world.
Basic
- An optimized website that serves as the flagship of your brand.
- An email marketing program
- A weekly blog
Better
- The Good (website + email marketing + blog) PLUS
- Calls-to-Action that integrate with all your online content
- A Social Media strategy
Best
- The Basic plus the Better PLUS:
- Ongoing CTA management - dynamic testing, refining and retargeting over time
- Segmented, targeted email campaigns
- Pay-per-click campaigns
- Use of a high quality CRM
Now, let's zero in for a closer look at the Basic level. These are typical and basic one-time fees that reflect the fact that you take the handoff and maintain all or most of this yourself.
Basic Digital Marketing Strategies
Make your current website shine. Optimizing each page means knowing how Google and other search engines treat written text, graphics and the metadata underneath it all. This could mean creating a new site, but if not, then there's usually some work to do on branding, language, functionality and search engine visibility.
Establishing space and providing content for a weekly blog attached to your website, on topics that attract your core target audience and set you up as an expert in your field of commerce.
Regular email campaigns that are invitingly crafted and targeted to your customers. And no, email is not dead. In fact it's very much alive and effective. You're in for a surprise if you haven't kept up with the state of the art.
Prices differ among companies, and the phrase "you get what you pay for" is as true here as it is anywhere else. A basic internet marketing strategy like can cost between $750 and $2000 a month, depending on both your company's needs and the caliber of internet marketing company you hire.
Better Digital Marketing Strategies
Adding on to the Basic level, a Better internet marketing strategy might also include some help with lead generation through Calls to Action. These are clickable offers that can (and should) be integrated into any and all content on your website. CTA's are lead magnets that allow every website visitor the opportunity to interact further with you and your product. Click on a CTA and you are whisked away to a "Landing Page" that delivers what the CTA promises.
As the reader nears the end of a piece of content, a relevant offer is made for an e-book on the topic, a checklist, a white paper, a newsletter subscription, a coupon, a way to try out your product or service, or [insert your idea here]. Anything you know your customers might ask for. After providing their name and email address, the digital offer is released.
Lead-generating CTA's need testing, analysis and adjustment. Also, creating new ones consistently keeps your content fresh and your visitors' options numerous. In the Better tier of internet marketing, you can expect some help with CTA's, Landing Pages and Offers.
Setting up and optimizing your social media accounts. This includes giving you ways to stay on top of conversations that are happening in your industry and cleverly adding your voice to those conversations. We're talking about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and Vimeo.
Why use social media to promote your business? It is social media after all, a possibly tricky space to introduce a sales pitch. See what Forbes has to say about the benefits of using social media. Now, it takes savvy and dedication to make your social media effective, which requires someone's direct attention over time. A Digital Marketing Strategy professional will leverage your investment.
This better, intermediate digital marketing strategy could run in the range of $2000 to $3500 per month. Again, these numbers are estimates and depend entirely on your custom marketing plan and the quality of the company you choose to work with.
The Best Digital Marketing Strategy
One again, your actual package will probably vary from the menu. To recap, to go full-out in your commitment to Digital Marketing, you might sign up for:
- A fully optimized website
- Segmented email marketing campaigns
- Routine blogging
- Some Calls-to-Action, landing pages and digital offers
- PPC Management
- Retargetting Management
- Social Media management
PLUS:
- CTA / Landing Page management - with dynamic testing, refining and retargeting over time, composition and design of new CTA / Landing Page combinations as your business changes.
- Segmented, targeted email campaigns.
- Pay-per-click campaigns- These are the paid ads you see on Google search returns. This gets a bit complicated, but can be a very effective part of your overall digital marketing strategy.
- Use of a high quality CRM. HubSpot is one of our favorites, although there are many to choose from. Most operate on a subscription per user or number of contacts. We find that embedding your website, social media traffic, CTA's / landing pages and blog in a marketing automation management system gives companies a big edge in consolidating and coordinating all online efforts.
Another advantage of using a robust CRM is the ability to bring together all your business information from marketing to sales to lead nurturing to customer service. There are a few that even handle financial and human resource functions.
The price of a full-fledged internet marketing strategy like this is obviously going to be higher than the Basic or Better tiers of marketing for your business, and will often cost upwards of $3500 per month.
At United WebWorks, we're keenly aware that you're not interested in a nice website unless it works for you. Why pay for something that has no impact on the bottom line? You're only interested in Digital Marketing Strategies that can bring in enough revenue to pay for themselves - and frankly, that's all we're interested in selling. Contact us today if you're ready to bring in new customers in 2016.