Digital Marketing FAQs
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a type of marketing that helps attract a certain type of website visitor with the goal of converting them into a lead or customer. Services that are typically used for inbound marketing include Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Marketing, and some Social Media Advertising tactics. Inbound Marketing is in contrast with traditional and/or non-traditional advertising such as TV advertising, billboards, print marketing, etc that places your brand in front of the consumer regardless of the consumer’s interest.
You typically find the use of Content Marketing , SEO, PPC, and Social Media. The concept is geared towards positioning your company in front of “in-market” consumers showing an interest in or actively searching for services you provide.
Digital Reporting
Website metrics to pay attention to include bounce rate, time on site, unique visitors, pageviews, conversion rates, and traffic sources. Which metrics are most important will depend on what you hope your website will accomplish in your marketing strategy. These metrics are best analyzed in Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a platform that enables you to track website activity in real time. Google analytics code is placed on your website so that visitors can be tracked and metrics can be analyzed. Many companies use Google Analytics to track the effectiveness of their marketing, analyze improvements to their website activity, and pinpoint areas for improvement.
Return on investment is calculated by taking the Gross Profit generated from your marketing investment, subtracting the cost of the marketing campaign and then divide this number by the cost of the marketing campaign. Here’s an example: you invested $4,000 in your marketing, you’re able to attribute $18,000 in Gross Profit ($25,000 – $7,000 (COGS)) to this marketing campaign. The equation would = ($18,000 – $4,000) / $4,000. Your ROI would be 350% for this marketing investment.
Understanding your value of a customer over a period of time helps you better calculate true ROI. First, start by calculating the average revenue per purchase. Then calculate the average frequency of a purchase (example: over a 1 year period how many purchases are made from the same customer). Next, calculate customer value by multiplying the average purchase value by the average purchase frequency. Then, calculate the average customer lifespan by averaging the number of years a customer continues purchasing from your company. Last, multiply customer value by the average lifespan. This should give you the total value of a customer over the life of the customer.
Website Conversions
A website conversion occurs when someone visiting your website take a high value action on your website. Conversions may be different depending on the company and industry they serve. The high value action may be submitting a lead form, clicking your phone number on your mobile website, conducting a live chat, visiting a certain number of pages and/or making a purchase on your website.
An assisted conversion happens when other channels (paid media, organic visit, referral visit, etc.) were part of the customer journey to conversion. When there is an assisted conversion, you’re able to attribute multiple website visits from other channels prior to the online conversion.
Marketing call tracking is simply placing specific phone numbers on your website (or other marketing channels) so that you can call record and attribute leads and new business to certain marketing initiatives. One example would be to have phone numbers on your website that show up based on where the visitor came from (paid ad, organic traffic, social media, et). You can then listen to the calls and see where the call came from. This helps to quantify your ROI. To successfully call track on your website, you’ll need to implement Dynamic Number Insertion.
Dynamic number insertion (or replacement) is a call tracking mechanism that will automatically swap (or change) the phone numbers on your website based on how the visitor got to your website. For example, if a visitor clicks on a paid ad and lands on your website, you can automatically “swap” the phone numbers on your website in order to attribute that visitor and inbound phone call to the paid ad.
Website Design
The typical website takes about 60 days to build. This can vary based on number of pages, complexity of the website and more.
Hiring a professional website design firm vs a freelancer (or your cousin!) will ensure there’s a defined process for success. The best websites are designed and developed after a thorough discovery process and a process driven execution ensures a timely delivery that’s painless.
Having a responsive website will ensure that your website will look nice and professional on all types of devices. Desktop, Mobile, Tablet, etc. No pinching to zoom in or out, just a seamless experience as a visitor moves from one device to another.
CTA stands for “Call-to-Action” and CTAs are placed on your website and online ads. Think of a CTA as the action you want your visitor or ad viewer to take. CTA examples might be “Call Now”, “Learn More”, “Read More”, “Chat with Us”, and more.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO includes optimizing on-site (your website) and off-site (business listings and more) assets to increase the quality and the quantity of website traffic to your website from search engines.
As optimizations are made to your website and business listings, you should start to see improvements in the quantity and quality of website traffic. The goal is to directly attribute more leads and new business to your website traffic through organic channels (search engines).
Technical SEO refers to improving the technical aspects of a website to help gain search engine visibility and quantity/quality of website traffic. Technical SEO can include making your website faster, schema mark-up, sitemap architecture, tag optimization, and many more. Technical SEO is done on your website and helps improve Google’s understanding of your website and the overall user experience.
Local SEO is about improving a website’s visibility on search engines when someone is looking for a company serving customers in their area (or local market). Important factors for Local SEO success include claiming and optimizing your business listings, generating online reviews, and ensuring NAP consistency.
A backlink is a link to your website from a different website. Why do backlinks play a part in SEO? If other websites are willing to place a link to your website from theirs, they must trust your website and believe the content on your website is valuable. The more links you have placed on legitimate high-traffic websites the more credibility your website holds in Google’s eyes. Google will likely reward you for this with more vibility and higher rankings.
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. It’s important that you have consistency with you name, address, and phone number throughout the internet. Over time, your business and it’s information will be added to directories (voluntarily and sometimes involuntarily). It not uncommon for there to be inconsistencies on these listings, which can negatively affect your Google rankings.
Pay Per Click Advertising
PPC stands for pay-per-click. PPC is an advertising channel that enables you to pay to generate traffic to your website. With PPC, you pay for each click that you receive. The goal is to generate clicks and website visits from prospects that are “in-market” for your services.
To drive success with PPC, campaigns need to reach the right audience, use the appropriate keywords and include messaging (ad copy) that hits the mark.
Content Marketing
Content marketing includes the creation and sharing of content such as blog posts, videos, white papers and more. The intent of content marketing is to attract and engage prospects to stimulate interest in your products and services.
Content can increase engagement on your website which drives greater time on site and page views. Improving these metrics can compel Google to improve your online rankings. In addition, robust content on your website can better educate Google on the services you offer and the value you deliver.
You’ll want to measure basic metrics like the time on site and page views. You’ll also want to monitor which pages are generating the most views and engagement to help you understand interest and messaging. As consumers move further down the sales funnel, you’ll want to monitor downloads, conversion rates and appointments set from content.