Not sure where to start deciding on which strategy is right for your business? Check out our earlier article on the best questions to ask yourself when creating an effective marketing plan.
Researching each of the available strategies before you spend time and resources on them is crucial. However, your time is in high demand, so we’ve broken down the pros and cons of some of the most widely used marketing strategies in Australia.
Website Creation
With more than 40% of the world’s population using the internet (source: Internet Live Stats), and that figure climbing every day, having an online presence for your business is absolutely essential. Website creation is a good first step if you are new to digital marketing, as many of your other online platforms can direct your customers back here for more information. You can choose to create a free website, but a high-quality site built by professional writers and designers, like those at Localsearch, will provide a better user experience, and therefore produce more sales leads.
Allows customers to find you online
Can be personalised to your brand message
Provides eCommerce functionality
Can be integrated with your social media
Increases credibility & market reach
Accessible at all hours
Large cost at outset & ongoing hosting costs
Difficult to achieve results without professional help
Requires regular updating to keep up with SEO
Managing security threats & customer data
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Statistics show the main way a potential customer is going to find your business is through a search engine. More than 3.5 billion searches are completed every day on Google—that’s 40,000 per second! While you’re not going to have a customer base that big, you need to ensure you have a listing on the search engine results page (SERP) for key phrases that relate to your business. SEO professionals use various techniques to tweak any of your online content (a website, social media page etc.) to convince search engines that you have the most relevant solution.
Low cost compared to paid search engine advertising
Increased traffic
Targets customers ready to purchase/take action
Coordinates well with content marketing
Can help a business compete with bigger companies
Can be tailored to promote a specific service
Takes time to produce results
Algorithms affecting SEO change frequently
30% of clicks go to first-ranked result only
No guaranteed return on investment (ROI)
Search results favour businesses located close to the searcher
Email Marketing
While your first thought of email marketing is probably of the digital brochures and offers sent to by major brand names, it can also be used effectively by small business. If you’ve already built a list of emails from previous clients, you only need a platform to help send emails to your whole contact list at once. Remember to keep the content useful and relevant to your clients.
Promote new deals & offers
Maintain communication with clients
Cost-effective for contacting smaller client bases
Easily accessible
Can arrange contacts into groups for focused content
Time consuming to create & send
Emails can be marked as spam
Easy for receivers to ignore
Need to pay to send large quantities of emails
Events & Networking
Even in the age of digital marketing, it pays to get out and hit the pavement every now and again. Whether it’s at an industry expo or a charity golf day, you or your staff can generate a lot of leads using the personal touch. Often these leads are with fellow local businesses as well as customers. Of course, with everyone owning a camera phone, your efforts will make it to social media and other online mediums soon enough.
Increase brand visibility in local community
Can lead to business-to-business & referral deals
Some events are free or low-cost
Promote your business’ social responsibility
Good photo opportunities for sharing online
Get direct feedback from clients
Requires time & staff resources
Usually in direct competition with other businesses
Relies on staff to convey company message
Need public speaking & networking skills
Social Media
Alongside search engines, social media platforms play a huge part in how customers find a business that has the solution they require. Accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or whatever other platform is relevant to your business, act as an auxiliary to your website; offering a small amount of contact and service information as well as a timeline of news and events. You can build your audience organically, through recommendations and interesting content, or by paying the platform to promote your posts and advertising—making sure they are seen by more potential customers.
Variety of platforms to suit different business types
No cost to create a page/profile
Reaches clients instantly
Channel for customer queries & reviews
Paid advertisements are relatively inexpensive
Slow to build an audience without paid assistance
Followers can ‘unsubscribe’ from seeing your content
Without paying, your posts may not be seen at all
Significant investment of time to establish & maintain
Cannot control negative feedback
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
More often referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, search engine marketing (SEM) refers chiefly to paid listings at the top and bottom of a search engine results page (SERP). Most people think of Google Ads, but there are multiple companies with similar marketing platforms you can utilise. The process involves placing a bid on certain keywords, and if you are the highest bidder the system will show the advert to anyone who searches a relevant phrase. Keep in mind search engines will still try to show content which is considered high quality and close to the searcher, and this is taken into account when deciding on how and where to show your advert.
Only pay the bid amount when your advert is clicked
Automatically targeted to relevant audience
Easy to track results
Generates website traffic immediately
Synergises well with other marketing campaigns
Requires other online assets to be effective
Can be outbid by larger competitors
Has no effect on organic ranking for your website
Only targets clients in your local area
Online Directories
There are a number of companies out there, like Localsearch, who aim to assist customers in finding the right business for their needs. It’s simple and free to get listed on a directory site, and there is the option to pay to improve your placement and appearance on their sites. One of the most important listings you should create is for Google My Business (GMB). GMB shows business locations on a map of the area the person searched for, as well as contact information. This features very prominently on Google’s SERP, above the unpaid results. However, there is a verification process which must be completed before your business will be displayed.
Increases your online visibility
Free to create a listing
Targets local clients
Directs customers to all your other online assets
Collects & displays customer reviews
Greatly benefits SEO
Competitors are displayed in the same space
GMB requires a physical business address
Area specific
Information can be inconsistent between platforms
Content Marketing
If you’re looking to develop an engaged online audience, then producing free, quality content should be your main focus. According to data collected by SmartInsights, 18% of professional marketers said content marketing had the greatest commercial impact for their clients, second only to automation. This can vary from blog posts and media articles to webinars or an entire eBook. The idea is to provide useful information while simultaneously promoting your services in a way that doesn’t look like advertising. How much time and budget you dedicate to content is up to you, but used in conjunction with other marketing strategies, it can set your business apart from the competition.
Reduces bounce rate & improves user experience
Boosts SEO value of websites & social media
Attracts viewers beyond regular customer base
Most are free to create & self-publish
Encourages engagement of repeat clients
Can be adjusted to current social & search trends
High time demand
Views not guaranteed to become sales
Need writing or audio-visual skills
Has to be distributed through another platform
Local Media
While global news and media continues to increasingly dominate our waking lives, through search engines and social media, local news and community publications still have their place. Most major retailers still distribute catalogues and take out advertising in local newspapers and radio stations to some extent. This strategy is most effective for businesses servicing a specific area, or that need to inform customers about important information—such as a change of address. Many local organisations also have an online presence which you can leverage in order to engage a community audience.
Customers trust information from local sources more
Targets a specific area or niche audience
Less competition in the same space
Print & radio media costs are incredibly low
Effective when used in conjunction with digital campaigns
Often seen/heard multiple times
Some methods have printing & distribution costs
Only reaches a small number of customers
Can be ignored or thrown away
Difficult to track effectiveness
Influencer Marketing
In the past you might have paid a local celebrity for an endorsement. In 2018, influencer collaborations are on the rise. Instead of slowly building online followers, a business may leverage the audience that an influencer has already built in order to promote a particular product or service. As the viewers, listeners or readers are following a personality, they are more likely to view the content as a recommendation and not an advertisement and therefore trust it more. How you engage the influencer to create content is important in ensuring the message seems authentic.
Inspires brand loyalty & trust
Organically generates traffic
Fosters public conversation about your business
Can create a mutually beneficial deal with influencer
Exposure to new audiences outside your local area
Ideal for eCommerce businesses
May not be a suitable influencer for your industry
Lack of control over the message
Hard to track results
Not relevant to service-only businesses