How Can Internet Marketing Boost Sales?

How can internet marketing really boost sales?

To many new business owners, entrepreneurs, startup founders, nonprofit founders, and even experienced business owners, internet marketing is still relatively new.

Everyone uses the internet, everyone knows what it is. We all use Google every day, multiple times. Most people below the age of 50 either use Facebook, have used it, advertise on it, or are familiar with it. And yet the statistically overwhelming majority of small business owners (who make up the bulk of businesses in the United States) don't yet use internet marketing to its fullest potential to actively advertise and build revenue growth.

So, the question is that many small business owners simply don't see a causal relationship between digital marketing (or online marketing / internet marketing) and then getting direct results.

The full reality is that nobody in 2020 America needs a blank template website. They just don't. That's why empty generic do-it-yourself templates are offered online for free. By themselves, they have no value.

Business owners need their phones to ring. They need more office visits, more in-store shoppers or consumers. The theory is that any old website or template they can pop up on the internet will achieve that end. And the truth is that it isn't the case at all. Websites with incorrectly written or incomplete content don't help promote a business. Websites with no or incorrect Search Engine Optimization are not properly indexed by Google. Websites without proper security protocol can be hacked, those that don't work well on mobile devices are quickly abandoned by smartphone users, and on it goes.

There's a deep disconnect between using the internet and profiting from its use.

Here's how websites become money-making machines.

If your company website has (and is properly utilizing) correct targeted SEO (which is how you outrank competitors online), then combining that with PPC (paid online advertising), blogging (writing content your ideal consumers want to know about), modern responsive design, and coordinating that with what I used to call “boots on the ground” offline marketing practices it would effectively generate leads on an hourly basis.

But it first has to be set up like that. Most aren't. This is highly-technical work that needs to be organized, put into order, structured, and fulfilled with the business owners own specific interests in mind. This is why DIY doesn't work when it comes to digital marketing. DIY works fine if it's doing something you can afford to make mistakes with. It doesn't work if it's meant to promote a business within a limited amount of time.

Now, it’s a given that if someone is asking to be convinced of the value inherent in digital marketing, it's unlikely that they are using it properly or outsourcing adequately.

So the asking indicates it’s not being done simply because whomever is in charge of overseeing the “product selling” is not familiar with these practices as a standard operating procedure for reaching new audiences and ultimately attracting fresh faces.

So basically in a very summarized manner, you must first establish a digital marketing plan, one that explains what your goals and primary objectives are (with more meat on the bones than just “make a million dollars overnight”), who your ideal target audience is you’re should be trying to reach and why, sets a realistic budget for making changes, PPC (paid advertising campaigns), and how you intend to measure success (Key Performance Indicators or KPIs for short).

Most businesses, especially new ones, don’t know to start there at that step either, and then months to years pass with no new leads coming in and they wonder why digital marketing isn’t working for them, if digital marketing is somehow a over-hyped fad, what they're failing to see somehow, or just give up. Certainly it's not a fad if global corporations spend billions annually on marketing (both online and offline) while the online juggernaut continues to grow and build momentum, or conversely if small “mom and pop shops” can literally transform their lives through using marketing correctly. So you have to start from a place of being organized deliberately.

Once you put those wheels in motion, that your site has correct and appropriate SEO, that you’re doubling-up on that with PPC, that you’re reinforcing that with regularly schedule blogging and video marketing, that you’re networking as well, tying all those together as you do the above, and give it six months to gain momentum before readjusting (especially if this is completely new and was never implemented before in a similar way) without cutting corners, you will see growth in online exposure and new patronage if all efforts are coordinated.

Now, granted, much of this is more than one person can do, or more than even an established business can do on their own due to the technical nature of the work, the number of tools and processes involved, and the need to work cohesively from category to category; and that’ simply reason for outsourcing the work to a trusted, experienced digital marketing agency.

Do you agree or disagree? Do you have related questions? Reach me online at www.dms.blue or post your comments below.