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Articles
Include Marketing in Your Strategic Plan
For many New Hampshire companies, the third and fourth quarters of the fiscal year are often the busiest. This is also the time that many companies start to increase their marketing spend. For most, it represents a list of tasks; a tradeshow or seminar to attend, or a website update. And, although these may be important tactical items, they are often not connected to a company’s strategic plan.
A company’s strategic plan should be the play book for the entire organization including marketing. We recently did some strategy work for a company that was planning to be sold. After some initial interviews, it was clear that the finance and legal teams were busy preparing to sell the company, yet marketing, the one piece of the organization that can impact valuation was not in sync.
By working with the marketing team, we refocused efforts away from traditional marketing tasks and realigned seventy percent of their efforts on positioning the company as an industry leader. This included, ramping up online and lead generation activities to increase the sales pipeline. The company website was revamped and a full court public relations offensive was launched which subsequently landed the company in several national publications. These combined efforts resulted in a higher valuation and a quicker sale. By refocusing your company’s marketing efforts to be synchronized with a strategic plan, you too can realize your goals quicker and more profitably.
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“Google it”
We have all heard the term, “Just Google it.” It is how most people research the things they need, whether it be vacation accommodations or a service for their business. And, it is those businesses and services that appear on the first page of our search that customers are most likely to investigate further.
Businesses can show up in two ways on the first page of an internet search, organically or paid. Organic searches show results based on the relevancy of the search word or search phrase. Search engine algorithms are continually changing, but as a business, there are three easy steps you can take to help rank your business higher on organic searches.
Link Your Site
Establishing links from your web site to that of your partners and vice versa will increase the number of places that your content appears on the web, thus increasing your rankings.
Public Relations (PR)
PR can be an effective way to get your company’s name recognized, but one of it’s most important functions today is that by issuing a press release your company’s content will populate thousands of news sites, increasing your relevancy and ranking.
Blogs
Blogs, if integrated into your site can serve as a valuable portal for relevant content. By having more industry specific content on your site, you have a great chance of ranking higher on organic searches.
But, before making any of these changes to a company’s website, benchmarks should be established on current site traffic, time spent on the site and number of direct inquiries. Using metrics will allow your organization to effectively measure how each change positively or negatively affects the website traffic and search placement.
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“Key Word Buys”
Last month we talked about the importance of Google in helping prospects find your company. In addition to the optimization of certain key words, you may also want to augment this with paid key word ads. These ads appear on the right hand column of most search engines when a phrase or word is searched for. Until a few years ago, getting first page placement of a paid key word ad was easy. However, today there is fierce competition for most key words and with limited advertising space getting top placement is difficult. To increase your paid key word ranking here are a few tips to lower your cost while increasing your ranking.
Make Each Word Count
Ads are generally limited to 1024 characters so you need to make every character count. Use contractions and symbols. For example use the symbol “&” instead of spelling “and.”
Use Key Words in the Ad
If you use keywords that closely match your company’s product or service your click-through rate will increase. For example, if you are bidding on the term “automobile” and your ad contains that same term, your response will be higher than without the key word.
Create an Active or Action-Oriented Ad
When creating ads, don’t use passive language, instead use action words like “Buy today.”
Use Specifics in Your Ad
Particularly if you are in a consumer business, offer specific benefits of your service such as “Offer ends this month”
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