One of the advantages of digital marketing is that it is relatively easy to scale campaigns that are effective. However, if you have a small- to medium-sized business, you may not have a lot of money in your budget for marketing. Inbound marketing gives you opportunities to market effectively without spending a bundle. Here are some tactics that you can scale for a minimum investment.
1. Optimize for the Long Tail
Search engine optimization (SEO) used in conjunction with content marketing are a proven method of driving traffic to landing pages, a website or video. However, many smaller companies find the competition too high for their preferred keywords. And it is. For most industries the big companies drive competition high for popular keywords. But, you can compete for long-tail keywords. Think phrases or sentences for your long-tail keywords. Here are some examples:
- Costume jewelry in Shaker Heights
- Halloween costumes for toddlers size 4
- 9th century wooden chairs cheap antique
As you can see each phrase narrows down the category for search but gives you a long-tail search term that you can compete on. You can search with Google to see what comes up when you create long-tail keywords for your company. Start with the keywords that most people use when reaching your content. Search volume is lower for long-tail keywords than shorter ones, but you can target long-tail keywords by creating content for them. With time, the cumulative traffic you get from these keywords will be more than for the short-tail keyword. They will give you an ROI you like as long as your content is high-quality.
2. Use the Facebook Pixel
Facebook has a tool that works well for converting called the Pixel. You can install the Pixel on your website or landing page, and then set up Custom Conversions. Facebook is a good site for conversions which can be filling out a form, buying a product or whatever you wish. When you optimize ads for Facebook, select the custom conversion as the goal. If you let Facebook know who converts, their system will optimize the ads by showing them to a select audience who are more likely to convert.
3. Use Google’s Dynamic Search Ads
When you run search or display ads on Google, it’s difficult to run ads for every page of your website. However, you can use Google’s Dynamic Search Ads to pick up titles and URLs from your website’s organic search results, and the system will make ads to match your criteria. Google automatically picks up pages with the highest-quality score to drive traffic to those pages. Paid search ads will drive high-quality traffic to your low-ranking pages, moving them up in rankings. CPC will be low for these clicks because the ad rank will be high for content-filled pages.
4. Create a Follow-Up Funnel
Generating leads only drives revenues if you follow up with the leads. But, it’s hard to follow up on every lead in person. This is where marketing automation comes in. Create an email follow-up sequence using drip marketing to engage the leads. The emails can contain information about your company’s reputation, story behind the brand, valuable content, products and customer testimonials.
If you use multiple channels to follow up with leads, instead of just one, you will be ahead of your competitors. You can use SMS, Facebook Messenger, retargeting, Whatsapp, App push notifications or direct mail. With a sequence using multiple channels to follow up, you will reach more people from an audience who’s opted in.
5. Create Lead Magnets
A lead magnet is the item you give away in return for a lead (contact information). The lead magnet is then followed up by your funnel. Many brands only create one lead magnet, but you can create multiple lead magnets, each with its own follow-up sequence. Multiple lead magnets attract different groups of people. You can aim each lead magnet to a specific audience. This marketing will continue to run on automation while you follow up other leads in person.
