How Much to Spend on Digital Marketing

by Justin Mayhall | May 24, 2021 | Content

We get the question all the time, “How much should we spend on our digital marketing budget?” So, we’ve put together an answer that will work for small companies and large corporations alike, based on actual data that is easily obtained, and  goals you want to achieve. We’ve outlined the exact steps to take to easily figure out the digital marketing budget you’ll need in order to see the results you want.

Figure Out the Website Conversion Rate

In order to effectively create a budget you first need to understand your website conversion ratio. This is the comparison of users that visit your website versus the number of visitors that take the action you are seeking (i.e. fill out a contact form, request a demo, complete a sale, etc.). This number will be imperative in establishing your overall budget because it will let you know how much web traffic you need to drive to your site in order to hit your goals.

For example, let’s say you have a website that sells headphones, and for every 100 people that visit your website 5 people purchase at least one pair. This means that you have a 5% conversion rate (please know that conversion rates vary widely based off of industries, products, and many other factors, and there isn’t a “ideal” conversion rate but you should always be testing ways to improve this metric).

(It’s also important to take into consideration that if you have a website that current customers visit, for instance to get support, you want to make sure you separate the traffic that exhibits current customer behavior from those that don’t, in order to truly understand your conversion rate. Also, monitor this metric on a fairly regular basis since it can change often.)

Establish Marketing Goals

Once you understand how effectively your website converts visitors, you can set more realistic goals and better understand just how much traffic you need to drive to your site each month. Using the example above, let’s say you sell headphones for $100.00, and you want to make $10,000/month. This means that you need to sell 100 pair of headphones, so you need to drive 2,000 people to your site every month to reach this goal (Web Traffic x Conversion Rate x Price = Total Sales).

Keep in mind this number can fluctuate if customers typically buy more than one product, but for illustration purposes we’ll just keep it simple here.

Research Marketing Channel Costs

There are quite a few ways for you to spend your marketing dollars online, and understanding where to put your money should involve an understanding of your target audience, their demographics and psychographics, and how you can use this information to target effectively (we’ll cover this topic in an upcoming article).

For now, let’s assume that you’ve chosen to use Google Search ads as your only channel of digital advertising and you want your ad to appear anytime someone searches for the keyword “headphones.”

The first thing you’ll need to do is set up a Google Ads account. From here you can research the keywords that you select and identify the cost-per-click (CPC). This is how much you will be charged by Google every time someone clicks on the ad that you set up for that particular keyword. To go along with the example we’ve been using, we’ll say that every time someone clicks on your ad for the “headphones” keyword, Google will charge you $1.00. 

Set Your Digital Marketing Budget

Now that you have the data you need to make an informed decision on how much you should spend on digital marketing, it’s time to come up with the budget. You know that you need to drive 2,000 people per month to your website in order to sell 100 headphones. At $1.00 per visitor, you would need to spend $2,000 per month in Google Ads.

What Do I Do If Your Can’t Afford to Drive the Traffic You Need to Meet Your Goals

Many times when performing the research to set your digital marketing budget, people quickly realize that they need to spend more money that makes sense, or then they are willing to, in order to hit their targets. Below are some things you can do to help reduce the amount of money you need to spend.

• Improve your website conversion rate
  • Quite simply the better your conversion rate is the less traffic you need to meet your goals. This is best accomplished by looking to see where people are exiting your site, how long they are staying on each page, and a/b testing.
• Research different platforms
  • Maybe Google Ads are too expensive, but ads on a social media platform could still work for you.
  • Think about using retargeting campaigns. These types of campaigns target people who have already been to your website but didn’t convert. They are useful in getting people who were already somewhat interested in your company back to your site for another shot at converting them. 
• Begin building your own email marketing distribution list
  • Try using interesting content, newsletters, or coupon codes and get visitors to input their email address in order to receive the discount or information. This way you can also connect with them via email campaigns.

Key Take-Aways

Digital marketing is a great way to drive website traffic, but understanding how much traffic you need in order to hit your goals is a key factor in setting your online marketing budget. Keep in mind that there are many ways to drive traffic to your site, some more expensive than others. Finally, above all else, constantly be evaluating and testing things you can do in order for your website to convert visitors to leads or better yet, customers! 

It is vitally important to understand these basic concepts early on if you are planning on incorporating any sort of digital marketing into your business. This will help you factor in how much you should charge in order to make your desired profit margin.

The Four “E” Social Media Posting Strategy

by Justin Mayhall | May 16, 2021 | Content

Every business knows that a strong presence on social media can be a powerful tool to enhance brand awareness, boost sales and improve overall business performance. What’s lesser known, however, is how to build and implement an effective social media strategy. This is especially true for a lot of small businesses or marketing teams with limited resources. That’s why we want to share with you an easy and practical way to boost your social media presence by using what we call, “The 4 Es of Social Media Strategy.”

Entertain

The first and most important goal of your social media strategy should be to make sure that a portion of the content you post is entertaining to your audience. For the most part, perhaps with the exception of LinkedIn, people go on social media for enjoyment. They spend hours scrolling through the posts because they are following people and brands that post things they are interested in. Let me assure you that if you are only posting content that promotes your business you are missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your following and your business.

So what exactly do entertaining social posts look like? Below are some examples:

• Memes & GIFs 
  • Posting funny or cute content related to your industry is a great way to get shares and gain followers.
• Posts featuring staff members or customers
  • This also adds a touch of humanization to your page and can make followers feel more connected with your brand.
• Holiday Posts 
  • Think outside the box on this one. Try searching for random/weird holidays like National Science Fiction Day, which is January 2nd by the way. Bonus points if you can somehow spin the holiday to apply to your business.
• Historical Events
  • These can range from commonly known to more obscure events.  

Educate

Another great way to bolster your social media is to be a source of information for people to let them know that your business is an expert in the industry. For these types of posts, try to mix up the length and medium of the content. For example, mix in articles, videos, text-based images, etc. Here’s some more specific post types to help you out:

• News Articles and Blog Posts
  • Share recent industry related news with a link to the article or blog.
• How-To Videos
  • Video content typically performs very well across all social platforms.
• Tips & Tricks
  • Short , easy to digest content that people can easily remember works great.
• FAQs
  • You’re already answering these questions all the time anyway. Might as well put them to good use.

Engage

Interacting with your followers is perhaps the best way to convert them to customers if they aren’t already and build brand loyalty for current customers. Not only should your social media strategy include posts that encourage your followers to engage with you but you should also make sure you’re responding to anyone that comments on your posts. Of course we’ve got some ideas to help you out with getting engagement:

• AMA (Ask Me Anything)
  • This is very popular, especially on Reddit, and can be particularly successful if you can get a senior level team member to participate.
• Questions & Surveys
  • Not only is this a great way to get follower engagement but this can be a very effective tool for conducting market research.
• Tag a Friend
  • This is one way to increase brand awareness on all channels and remember if you want your followers to take an action (like subscribing or liking content) make sure you ask them directly.
• Photo in the Comments
  • What better way to interact with your followers than to have them post pictures they’ve taken. 

Endorse

Technically this should probably be labeled “Promote,” but that doesn’t start with an “E” and “The 3 Es and a P of Social Media Strategy” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. That being said, this is the strategy that most businesses seem to have down. However, that doesn’t mean that this has to be boring. As a matter of fact, this can be a very powerful tool to gain followers and new customers. Take a look at some of the post types you can use to your advantage:

• Testimonials
  • Don’t tell people how awesome you are, let someone else do it for you.
• Product Give Away
  • Do you have some samples you can give away, or how about a free consultation? If not, offer some gift cards for coffee or something. Just make sure the prize matches the effort of what you are asking people to do.
• Exclusive Deals for Followers
  • Why not reward the people who follow you? If you do this often enough word will start to get out and you’ll see a nice spike in followers and customers.
• Co-Marketing
  • If you can find another business in the same general industry, team up to cross promote each other. This will put your business in front of their followers and visa versa. Just make sure you both have a similar number of followers so it’s fair to both parties.

Final Thoughts

With each of the 4 Es it is always better to post your own content, if you can. That being said, most people who run social media accounts for small businesses wear multiple hats and don’t always have the luxury of curating original content on a regular basis. To help with this, set up some Google Alerts to help you easily find interesting articles to share and don’t be afraid to repost from other people and businesses you follow.

Another thing to keep in mind is that consistency is the key to success with social media and marketing in general. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you will have time or remember to post everyday. Layout a social media calendar and stick to it. It also helps if you can schedule posts out in advance.

Finally, get creative and bring it all together. Believe it or not, building a social media following can actually be a lot of fun. Don’t think that you have to just stick to one type of post mentioned above either. You can hit multiple categories in a single post. For example, ask your followers to post pictures of their dogs on National Dog Day.