The Tortoise and the Hare
You’ve made it this far through the year with your marketing strategy, you’ve gained some customers and you’ve lost some. Now you want more customers.
What are you going to do to get them?
Well you can either be a tortoise or a hare in this situation, but which one are you?
To put a spin on the classic tale these are the two methods you can use to increase your customer base.
The Tortoise
Tortoises are those business owners who are in now particular hurry to gain new customers. As a tortoise you rely on your website hitting the top of the Google rankings to generate new customers for your business. The choice which will require the least amount of money.
A heavy reliance on SEO (search engine optimisation) puts you in a reactionary position in that you’re always waiting for your customers to come to you.
There is also a huge risk in that you have to stay at the top of the organic rankings of relevant Google searches. This is emphasised by the way that Google will change the algorithms which govern ranking.
You need to be able to keep up with those changes as they come about otherwise the online presence of your business will get sucked into a black hole. That is until you’re able to catch up once again, at which point the next set of changes are already being lined up.
Never settle for being on the second page of Google either. It’s the first page or bust.
This can, of course, all be managed by making sure you have the best possible website within your industry. It’s not hugely convoluted, you just have to be the best.
To be the best you have to have content of the highest quality, offer the best value to any visitors and you need high quality people linking to your site. If you can achieve and maintain the above then you’ll be guaranteed a spot on the first page of Google because you’ll check all the important ranking boxes.
The Hare
There are undoubtedly those among you who take a different stance towards marketing and business. These are the hares. As a hare you want your leads as soon as possible, even better would be before you’ve realised you need more.
To be a hare you have to have set aside a larger budget for your marketing as this is the more expensive method in comparison to the tortoise.
It’s not all about throwing money out, you have to spend is wisely. The fastest way to generate traffic is to buy it and you have to advertise in a number of ways.
Your objective with any online advertising is to drive people to your landing page. Your landing page has to be easy to read and result in visitors given you their details for you to then tend to their enquiry.
The key here is to make sure that you’re getting a return on your investment (ROI) because any marketing you do has to make more money than it costs. Here’s what you have to consider:
- What are you promoting? You have to be offering your visitors some kind of deal or a sufficiently valuable report in order for people to be convinced to hand over their details to you.
- The landing page is next on your list. Make sure it’s clear as to what’s being offered and it grabs the attention of your visitors so they’ll give you their contact details and sign up.
- Once they’re signed up you have to begin building trust and credibility with them. By the time they’re ready to buy you must be their first port of call.
- Consider where you’re going to place your ads. With the rise of pay per click advertising the online choices are staggering so choose carefully. Never be afraid to do some offline marketing if your budget will allow it.
Now that the foundation has been laid you can begin designing your ad and let it loose into the big wide business world.
Think about the method you use and ask yourself, are you a tortoise or a hare? Either way make sure that you’re doing the best you can whichever route you choose to pursue.