Jeff Harrison breaks down a three-part digital marketing strategy for local businesses: a compelling offer that goes beyond discounts, targeted traffic through Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Google, and a clean checkout page. A major brand homepage had 54 distractions. Single tactics leave holes.
What do you mean I don't have a digital marketing strategy? I mean I run Facebook ads. Isn't that a digital marketing strategy? As a local business owner or entrepreneur, running Facebook ads feels like a digital marketing strategy. But in truth, it's like having a four legged table with one leg. It's a bit wobbly.
Hey, welcome to five Minute Marketing Friday. I am Jeff Harrison and today we are talking about digital marketing strategies for businesses. One that is manageable and effective. So let's jump in. We've discovered over the years building marketing strategies for our customers. Having just one digital piece in place often leaves large holes in their marketing program. So let's lay out a simple and easy to remember formula when it comes to marketing, whether it's traditional or digital. Although traditional marketing lacks the tools to really create an end to end solution. Now, assuming you already have a product or service defined you want to offer your ideal customer, let's lay out the key elements you need for an effective digital marketing strategy. Now the first item is your offer. Now when I say offer, I'm talking beyond your product or service. I'm referring more to are you offering a reduction of your normal fees or are you adding additional benefits when someone purchases, the offer typically needs to be something that will get people off the couch or at least get them to pause Netflix long enough to consider your offer worthy. I'm not a fan of discounting. Let me go on record right now saying this, but if you're going to create an offer that will create hand turning excitement, you're going to need to make it special. Honestly, 10% off usually is a waste of effort. A Bogo or a buy one and get a second one free is something that is more effective. Now stay with me. As near the end of today's video, I'll show you how giving such a discount will pay big dividends. The next thing you will need is of course, traffic. You need people who are likely to want your product or service. Now this may be from Facebook, but it could be Google or LinkedIn ads depending on your ideal customer. In the days when 100% of our buying activity was done in person and we would go into the mall, a business could rely on foot traffic. Today, with most of us using our devices to shop, walk in or walk by, traffic has shrunk or is gone completely. So we must replace this with digital sources. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google are all great sources in which to do that. The next digital piece you need for your strategy is a checkout. Now this can be done anymore, right on platforms like Facebook. But typically, you will have someone click on your digital offer and they will be taken to a specific landing page where you collect their payment information and complete the sale. Now, please, please do not send these people who have stopped, consumed your ad and your offer and now click to buy to your website. And you may say, but Jeff, this is where I have everything and it makes sense to have them come to my website. I say, no, there's too many distractions. And in a heartbeat, they forgot why they came. Here's a quick side story. We were presenting to the PGA of America, and we selected one big brand here in our local area where we live to see what happens when we click their ad to make and book a tee time, it took us to their homepage. Now, while we were in the presentation, we asked the audience to count how many distractions there were on the homepage that had nothing to do with completing our transaction.
54 was the number. 54 total distractions. We must eliminate the distractions. Now, to do this, you want to create a specific page on your website that when clicked on, this is where they're taken. This may be the name of your website.
Special offer. And when they arrive, the only thing on that page, it has to do with your offer and to gather the information and complete the deal. So what have we talked about today? Creating a digital marketing strategy, knowing we have only scratched the surface. I mean, this is like 101. But because many local business owners are jumping into online advertising to try to recover or build their lost sales, I wanted to start here. Now, I promised I had a little bonus that would make the buy one, get one free deal, not sting so bad. Another hidden piece of digital marketing is that when you do your transactions online, you collect data that is extremely valuable to future revenues. You get names, emails, and sometimes shipping addresses and phone numbers. I want to focus here on just the email addresses. Building a database has never been more critical. Why? Because the advertising noise is so loud and so crowded that we as consumers are doing everything we can touch to reduce the noise. I mean, we're turning on ad blockers, spam filters, and more. We pay a premium so we don't have to watch commercials. By creating a database of potential customers and another customers who you have done business with allows you to cut through the noise and interact with them directly in their inbox. Now, special note here, if you make the mistake of sending only, I need you to buy my stuff right now because I'm the greatest emails. Well, you're going to fail. But if you create value based content that your audience loves and enjoys receiving, you can be like our clients who regularly get immediate same day sales every time we send out a new email. One client sells products that are over $20,000. Another one has services that are about $350. Both now have a strong enough database they rarely if ever need to run paid ads. For the business that offers services at $350. Could they afford to discount their services the first time by $100? It's a loaded question because you don't know the frequency of his customers. His customers use a service once every four to six months and stay with him for an average of five years. So for a $100 discount, something to get them off the couch to create a lifetime value for each customer of approximately $3,500. I asked you, would you spend $100 to make $3,500? He typically gets between five and nine bookings every time we send out an email for his company. Alright, so my time is up. Go create your digital marketing strategy. Create an irresistible offer. Generate traffic of your ideal audience through paid traffic and then send them to a specific page to convert them into into paid customers. Now here's a little bonus. Create a consistent email delivery strategy that delivers referrals and repeat customers. Hey, if you are struggling creating and implementing a digital marketing strategy, this is what we do for our clients here at Swingpoint Media. If we can help. My information is on the screen. Until next time. I'm Jeff Harrison. Have a great weekend.
