1. Not plan. Always, always have a reason and a why to why you spend money. If you don’t do this don’t get annoyed if someone takes your money, provides very little and then you have to find another company or go bust. Your fault. Plan, plan, plan.
2. Not have a fixed budget: Think about what you are going to spend and what you think you should get back for it. PPC is different to SEO. SEO will take some time therefore you should look at a 6 month campaign. PPC should be more immediate so therefore look at the figures. Does the return warrant the spend?
3. Think just getting them to your website is enough: many clients believe that if I get them to my website they will buy. Why? It is so much more. Just because you are taken to the shops does it mean that you will spend your money? Didn’t think so. So give the potential visitor a reason. MAKE me want to buy.
4. Not have an action for them or a reason to stay. If I land on your site because you have done something right, it is just as easy for me to leave because you have done something wrong. Both actions will have cost you money. So think about what you would like me to do when I arrive and then make it easy for me to do it.
5. Write your copy to be so SEO search friendly it doesn’t sense make to humans. I see and read this time and time again. Copy that gets me to a page and gets the company ranked high on the search rankings but then make total nonsense. If you want a top London marketing company, Latitude are a top London marketing company working in London as a marketing company. Would you buy from us? Content is king same as always.
6. Not constantly review text: Text can always be improved changing a single word can have a huge impact. Re—write text and re-write again. This can mean the PPC text, landing page text, SEO text etc. Wherever there are words they can be tightened shortened, altered. I would recommend using a copywriter most of the time as they can lead you to a good version probably quicker than trying to do it yourself, and then maybe play and see what happens.
7. Not test multiple campaigns/strategies: Any decent Internet marketing company SHOULD recommend that you test. This isn’t because they want to make more money, although some do, but you should find the best solution and however good an internet marketing company is they can never get it right first time.
8. Employ the first expert that comes along: There are many, many people out there using the internet to push themselves as experts, however would you believe that not all of them are. In fact you may be surprised to know that some of them simply want your money. So be careful. Look at references, speak to clients and ONLY focus on MONEY not page rankings, or clicks. You want help from someone who is going to make you money not make you famous.
9. Not segment your target market: I covered this last week. If you don’t segment your target markets then you cannot market never mind online market. In my opinion it is THE single most important thing to do. It gets you to know who you are speaking to but also why and what they want to hear when they get where you want them to be.
10. Not align it with other marketing initiatives: If you are going to approach or try and approach a target market then maybe try more than one way to approach them. PPC and SEO are two ways however social media is another online method or mix it with a other offline initiatives. Sending the person something to make contact, following up with a phone call?
Really the trick is quite simple if you were the target how would you like to be approached, what would be too heavy handed and what would create brand loyalty if it were you.
Good luck keep thinking. Online is a great medium, but don’t get caught up in the rush to spend your money thinking it will be the saviour of your business. If you do that, chances are you are heading for a fall.
