4 opportunities narrow online marketing misses (number 2 will open your eyes)

As the old saying goes, “Half the money spent on advertising is wasted, but no one knows which half.”

That was definitely true for traditional advertising, but online marketing is continually making it easier to understand what’s working and what’s not. You can track your campaign spending and see results in real time. Many businesses use these insights to zero in on the campaign types that create the biggest return for every dollar spent and cut everything else.

But focusing solely on dollar signs isn’t always the best strategy — especially when we know that there are still holes in online marketing attribution. If you don’t diversify your online marketing approach with a healthy mix of campaigns that drive high ROI and campaigns that drive new customers, you can ultimately damage your business and stunt your growth.

Why a narrow strategy doesn’t work

Many companies with a narrow approach focus on one of three online marketing strategies: directing users who already know their brand to their website (branded search), reacquiring past visitors (remarketing), and messaging their current customer base (email).

These strategies may deliver great results per dollar, but they all focus on an audience already familiar with the brand. Directing all resources to connecting with people who already know about you causes several problems:

1. Missing the big picture

While digital channels are the most transparent forms of marketing we have in terms of spending and ROI, there are still a lot of holes in attribution. Conversion tracking and cross-device tracking is not 100% transparent, but understanding how your audience engages and responds to search-and-display campaigns across devices is vital in understanding what the right marketing mix is for your brand.

Solution: Implement sound analytics tagging across all your campaigns, and look to measure how campaigns that don’t perform well from a last-click attribution model impact overall ROI and performance. Switching your attribution model might change your perspective.

2. Missing potential customers
The most surefire campaigns are the ones that limit your marketing to your current customer base. Customers who haven’t heard of you aren’t going to do branded searches, and they’re not on your site or email list.

Solution: Use diverse tactics to reach new customers. Awareness campaigns fuel the systems that already have positive ROI and make them even better. Display and non-branded search campaigns help drive additional branded traffic and remarketing, which — in addition to the direct ROI they drive from clicks — makes them increasingly more attractive.

3. Missing Opportunities to Connect
If you limit your marketing mix to only desktop campaigns and search campaigns, you miss out on easy opportunities to engage and connect with an audience that’s interested in your product or service. For example, if you’re a retail store, customers should be able to easily find your business using their smartphones when researching the types of products you offer or niche stores in the area.

Solution: Meet potential customers where they are, whether that’s on mobile, blogs, niche sites, and/or social media. If your brand is more innovative or niche, you might have an affinity for Google Display Network campaigns that draw people in through blogs and other content-rich sites. Ani + Wren caters to women who don’t want to sacrifice fashion during pregnancy.

If people are reading blogs about finding fashionable maternity clothes, Ani + Wren can use those blogs to reach potential customers.

4. Missing new platforms and campaign types
With the breakneck pace of innovation, the potential to miss out on the technology and platforms your customers prefer is increasing. If you’re not willing to meet customers on the new social platforms and devices they’re using, you’ll miss out on the relationship and (ultimately) the sale.

Solution: Embrace an always-testing mentality. Venture into the unknown with the hope that a new marketing channel can prove effective. Odds are your competition will be there sooner or later, so try to beat them to the punch.

How to diversify effectively
When it comes to your marketing budget, there’s no perfect equation for diversification that applies to every business, but there is a perfect equation for you.

A great goal to work toward is putting 50 percent of your budget toward high-ROI campaigns and the other 50 percent toward funnel-building campaigns.

But this isn’t realistic or appropriate for every business. If you’re offering a brand-new product, you need to prioritise awareness more than an established business would. Likewise, if your current circumstances and ROI targets require you to be more cautious, it’s fine to allocate 10 to 20% for test and audience-building campaigns.

Tailor a plan to your goals and industry; be willing to scrap your original plans if they don’t work out the way you’d hoped. Test until you find a mix that works. If you’re in over your head, don’t hesitate to get help from a marketing professional.

However the numbers work for you, make sure you have these three components in your online marketing strategy:

1. Audience prospecting
Not only do you need to know where to place your advertising, but you also need to understand your customers so you can craft messaging that will resonate with them when they see your ad.

People care about themselves, their lives, and their problems. Target your messaging and strategy appropriately, and make it all about the customers. Learn what they look like, where they shop, and most importantly, what problems they have that your company can fix.

2. Category, product, and brand marketing
Understanding your category, products, and competitors is huge. If your category and product terms have a reasonable cost-per-click, you’ve found a great way to grow your brand and get in front of people who aren’t yet familiar with your company. If you can afford to buy your category terms without your brand name in them on search engines, it can still be a worthwhile endeavor.

3. Remarketing and email marketing
Not all users are going to make a purchase the first time they interact with your brand or site. You need to intelligently remarket to users who come to your site but don’t convert. Determine how far the user traveled down your site funnel, and use dynamic remarketing ads to glean as much information as possible based on key site pages or behavior.

Anyone who bids and budgets the same for users who were on their site 28 days ago as those who were on their site in the past 48 hours are doing it wrong. Target recent users more aggressively.

The same strategy works for email marketing. Users may come back by themselves, but many don’t. Make sure your customers know about all the great promotions and new products your company offers throughout the year.

The perfect equation for an effective online strategy is one that delivers the ROI you need to keep the lights on while still investing in brand awareness and growing your customer base. If you’re consistently hitting profitability and reaching new customers, you’ve hit your sweet spot.

What other strategies do you use to reach customers with your online marketing?

Image: Cristian Ştefănescu via Flickr.