Essential Digital Marketing Points For Start-Ups

Start ups are popping up by the dozen in all the corners of the country. These small businesses have become the backbone of the Australian economy and employ a large number of our growing population. The new entrants in the market find it difficult to sustain themselves during the infancy of their business as competition is already well-established.

Marketing your products and services in the best possible manner is the key to surviving and carving a niche in the commercial world. Over the years, the marketing strategies have become more and more advanced, and the advertising platforms are expanding. With the advent of the digital medium, the focus has now shifted to new media as the consumers are glued to their Smartphones and social media and are reading, watching and searching for products and services online.

In the race to reach the top spot, making sure that your website has organic SEO and your social media is active and gaining an ROI have become important for gain market share for your business. So here are some pointers to help you start your business with the right digital footprint and right digital strategy, right from the start.

The Right Digital Footprint

Many people think about what business name they will call the business, but before you choose a business name, follow these steps:

1. Make a list of potential names,

2. Check business name availability on ABN Look up

3. Check which domain names are available for these business names like Crazy Domains, GoDaddy, etc…

4. Check social media handles for these business names (Facebook and Twitter are first in, first served, so make sure someone hasn’t got your Facebook name),

5. Once you are on your final 2-3 business names, do a final check with IP Australia to make sure they don’t have trademarks on them,

This will help you create the right digital footprint, while also potentially saving in legal and advertising costs in the future. This will also help you narrow down possible business names, helping you obtain the right digital strategy, right from the start.

Unique Domain Name

 

Domain name give you an identity which can affect the branding, click-through rate, social media searches, keyword traffic and much more. Thus you need to be careful while choosing a domain name for your website. The main thing to consider is that your domain name should be easy to type, remember and should sound like a reliable brand.

Therefore, you must avoid using hyphens and numerals in the domain name which can reduce a person’s ability to pronounce your business name correctly, thus reducing issues of finding your business when type it into search engines. Most people make the mistake of using exact keyword phrases in the domain name for higher search rankings. However, this doesn’t work anymore with the smart search engines.

For example, if you are selling jackets and the domain name of your website is CheapLeatherJackets.com, it is highly unlikely that Google will find you to be a reliable source. You can instead go for something like JacketGallery.com. You can use broad keywords sensibly and carefully if it helps people to understand the product or service being offered. In Australia, the internet domain names end in au.

You can now choose from a variety of second level domain options such as com.au, net.au, org.au, edu.au, and more. However, the most recognised extension is com.au and people can quickly associate with it. Another thing to remember is to check the name for trademark infringement to avoid legal issues before you go ahead and register it.

Digital Marketing Website

Your website is the most significant tool in your digital marketing arsenal when you are trying to connect and sell to an online audience. It is the best platform to communicate your message, create awareness, build your brand, engage customers, convert leads into sales, develop customer loyalty and collect feedback.

This is why it needs to be highly functional, user-friendly and offer an immersive experience which prompts them to take the desired action, also called Conversion Rate Optimization (CTO), things like Call To Action (CTA) sections and Buttons, Contact Details Easily visible and accessible with both desktop and mobile devices.

Your website is like a window to your business and the visitor will judge your credibility and authority on the basis of its architecture, the value of content, plug-ins, media, ease of use and navigation, features, quality of images, videos and user experience. A visually appealing and brand-boosting website will resonate with the target audience.

Additionally, it has to be responsive to fit into all screen sizes. We all know about the affinity of the target users with their Smartphones. With mobile searches going up globally, it has become imperative to own mobile-friendly sites which load quickly. SEO is another pre-requisite for small busineses  as it is the lifeblood of digital marketing.

It is vital to optimise your website for enhancing online visibility and ranking higher on SERPs. It brings qualified leads to your site and builds trust, while making you stand out among your competitors. Start-ups should consult with knowledgeable professional SEO consultants to get their SEO on the right track.

 Engaging Social Media Presence

 

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn are the social networks which have become the modern-day socialising channels and a means to stay connected with your target audience. The number of global social media users is expected to reach 2.77 billion in 2019, with the market leader being Facebook with 1.86 billion monthly active users.

If your business is not present on Facebook, you may not fit into the favourite brands’ list of your target audience. Besides these, you need to have your updated business information on Google My Business which plays a significant part in local SEO services.

Most people search for a product or service in their specific geographic location using search queries like ‘beauty salon near me’. If your brand name doesn’t pop up in this search, then you may lose many potential customers. As a start-up, you can leverage the social media networks to build your brand and create awareness through compelling content which is updated regularly.

Social media can bring enormous web traffic and help in better search engine rankings. Influencer marketing is yet another potent marketing tool for start-ups which allows them to use major players or influential people in the industry to market their products to a wider audience.

Pay Per Click Advertising

While driving traffic organically to your website can take some time, pay per click advertising makes this job easier by generating more qualified leads and traffic to your website. If you have an ad budget, you must take advantage of Google Ads to find more customers in less time.

You can also use Social Media campaigns to drive traffic to your website, which is a more proactive means of traffic generation and in many situations costs you less money for CPC.

Some social media platforms, like Facebook and LinkedIn, have lead forms which provide a direct method of generating leads through the platform without the requirement for the user to go to a landing page and offering the added benefit for the user to have their personal details populated in the form from their social media account, saving them time and the hassle of manually entering these into a landing page. This makes it faster and easier for the user to enquire, resulting in more leads and a better conversion rate (i.e. reducing Cost per lead or CPL).

Social Media and Google Pay Per Click Advertising allows you to reach the buyers who are looking for your products or services, thus bring more interest from customers to your website, with the potential of conversions into clients. You should talk to a Digital Marketing company, like Netvision, who understands both Social Media and Google AdWords campaigns who can put together the right PPC strategy for your business.

You can also use remarketing/retargeting PPC, where can either show Social Media adverts or Banner Ads to people who have visited your website, but didn’t perform a specific task, i.e. purchase, enquiry, etc…

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is essential for tracking information about your website and website visitors. It can tell you if people think that your website contains relevant and valuable information for them (bounce rate, average number page visits and average time on website), through the demographics of who is visiting your website (age, gender, location, etc…), plus much more.

Without this information, your digital marketing campaigns are just a stab in the dark, so it is essential for both you and your digital marketing team to have this information, but you have to have this set up and have essential tracking codes in the website. Once you have this information, you can then customise your content on this information and give your audience what they want.

Conclusion

Establishing a start up is a huge task unto itself, while sustaining the business through marketing, leads and sales is essential in this highly competitive market. So, to make things easier, you must rely on essential digital marketing tools which can help your business grow and help to make the challenge of running a small business, a little easier and lead to a more successful business.