How to Start an Online Marketing Campaign for Under $100

The influx of tools and free digital marketing platforms has made it incredibly easy to create and distribute content , reach out to your target audience, and build your business, even without in-person small business networking.

Huge brands with millions of marketing dollars are investing more and more in the digital space. They’re publishing content and using social media and other marketing channels to amplify their brand’s reach.

Fortunately, monetary constraints need not stop your internet marketing campaign. You don’t need expensive email marketing software or to purchase the most expensive keyword phrases.

1. Perform market research to find your ideal customer

Besides helping you create more relevant and engaging content that a search engine rewards, can such personas (with detailed audience definition) have a direct impact on your bottom line?

Step #1: Define Your Digital Marketing Campaign Goals

The common saying that you can’t manage what you don’t measure is particularly relevant when creating a digital marketing campaign. If you don’t know your goals, you don’t know your target and you can’t measure whether you’re successful or not.

Awareness

Brand awareness is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the overall level of awareness of your brand, particularly as it relates to your field of expertise. Building brand awareness involves strengthening the connection between your business and the products or services you provide.

A great example of brand awareness is Kleenex. Kleenex has become so associated with tissues that when a person says they need a Kleenex, they simply mean they need a tissue. Everyone knows what a Kleenex is and what it does.

The more you raise the general awareness of your brand, the more you’ll stand apart from the competition. Think about Google, for example. They have generated such awareness that they absolutely dominate the search engine industry.

Consideration

Consideration is another common digital marketing goal. Consideration is when a potential customer moves from simply being aware of your brand to considering your products or services.

However, your goal is to get them to move beyond simply being aware of your brand to actually considering it. In other words, you want to develop a deeper relationship with the potential prospect.

And so once they go to your website, you present them with free content that is related to your brand and educates them about your products or services. This content marketing strategy is designed to get prospects to more deeply consider your brand.

Conversion

When it comes to a digital marketing campaign, conversion simply means getting potential prospects to take a particular action. Often times this action is actually purchasing something from you, but that’s not always the case.

The action could be signing up for your email list, registering for a webinar, downloading a whitepaper, calling your business, or any other number of actions. Your goal is to get the prospect to actually do something.

If you’ve executed and fulfilled the first two goals effectively, conversions are much easier to generate. You’ve raised awareness of your brand and begun to develop a relationship with a potential customer. From there, the next step is often conversion.

Loyalty

When creating the digital marketing plan goals, you may want to focus on customer loyalty. In other words, you’re not trying to win new customers, you’re trying to retain the customers that you already have.

Some simple examples of ways to generate more customer loyalty are offering discounts to long-term customers, giving something to a customer on their birthday, etc. Your overall goal is to get the customer to become loyal to your company over every other company out there.

Advocacy

A final goal to consider in your internet marketing strategy is generating customer advocacy. This is when your customers are so passionate about your company that they’re not only loyal customers, but they’re also evangelists for your company.

Advocacy is usually the result of you delivering a superior product or service in one way or another. Customers become advocates when you wow and delight them. When you overdeliver on every promise you’ve made.

Consider Apple in the early days of the iPhone. They created hundreds of thousands of advocates for their company by creating the first true smartphone. They gave their customers something that could be found nowhere else. The result was a passionate customer base that promoted Apple products to everyone they knew.

Setting SMART Goals

• Specific – Your goal can’t be vague, like, “We want to increase the number of leads we generate online.” It must be highly specific, such as, “We want to generate 150 new leads.”
• Measurable – Your goal must also be measurable. If you can’t measure your goal, you’ll never know if you actually achieved it. For example, the vague goal of increasing the number of leads you generate isn’t readily measurable. Technically, you could generate a single lead more than before and hit your goal, but that’s not what you’re after. You want to attach specific, measurable numbers to your goals. A goal of generating 150 leads is easily measurable.
• Attainable – If a goal isn’t attainable, it’s not a reasonable goal. If the most leads you’ve ever generated is 7, setting a goal of generating 1,000 leads probably isn’t realistic. Your marketing objectives need to be within reach. If they’re not, you won’t hit them and you’ll become discouraged.
• Relevant – Relevant goals are those that will actually move the needle for your business. If you what you really need is new leads, setting a goal of increasing your overall Twitter followers isn’t a relevant goal. Set digital marketing goals that will actually make a difference in your business.
• Time-Based – Finally, your digital marketing goals must be time-based. In other words, they should have a start date and an end date. These constraints help you measure whether you were truly successful in achieving your goals. Goals that aren’t time-based can stretch out indefinitely.

Step #2: Determine Digital Marketing KPIs

Once you’ve established your SMART goals, it’s time to determine the Key Performance Indicators. KPIs are the measures that are most important and relevant to your campaign. You’ll measure your digital marketing campaign against these digital marketing KPIs to determine whether or not you’re successful.

For example, let’s say you’re running a social media campaign strategy. You’re going to use Facebook ads to drive traffic to a landing page. The landing page is promoting a free ebook that people can get if they sign up for your email list.

It’s critical to remember that your KPIs should be closely tied to your overall goals. If your social media campaign goal is to generate leads, don’t focus primarily on the number of clicks you generate. Focus on the number of leads from the campaign. Don’t get sidetracked by metrics that don’t really matter.

Are you ready to start using digital marketing strategies?

Digital marketing is one of the best ways to reach new customers and achieve your business goals. Plus, it offers a variety of strategies, from video to email to social, to reach your unique goals. Whether you’re looking to increase sales, revenue, awareness, or loyalty, digital marketing is the way.

The success of your digital marketing strategies, however, depends on the development and execution of them. That is why businesses partner with WebFX, a full-service digital strategy agency that provides custom, results-driven Internet marketing strategies.

Start choosing and building your personalized strategy by contacting our award-winning team of strategists today! Contact us online or give us a ring at 888-601-5359 to get a free quote for your next digital marketing strategy.

Sources:

https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-start-an-online-marketing-campaign-for-under-100/
https://cutthroatmarketing.com/6-steps-for-a-powerful-digital-marketing-strategy/
https://www.webfx.com/digital-marketing/learn/digital-marketing-strategies/