This is a great article written by ROI, a leading digital marketing company in Australia but is relevant anywhere. Business owners take a few minutes to know where to invest your dollars this year!

Cut It………

1. LinkedIn cold selling

Treating your LinkedIn contacts or any other social network’s connections as a database for email campaigns is a bad idea. Instead, concentrate on using LinkedIn the way it was intended, by having meaningful discussions.

2. Yellow Pages There’s a very good reason that in the last five years, the Yellow Pages paper version has shrunk by 75% in weight. Don’t waste your time and money.  Unless you can inject some serious dollars into it and stand out from your competitors then it simply doesn’t work.  Talk about poor return on investment….

MORE: Is Yellow Pages Still Worth It In 2015?

3. Google AdWords Waste

Ultimately, if you are not converting visitors, you are wasting your budget. This comes as a result of either attracting irrelevant clicks and / or providing a poor user experience. This typically happens when:

• You are targeting irrelevant keywords
• The messaging in your ads and does not match your landing pages
• Your ad extensions and sitelinks are not relevant to the search query

4. Social media for the sake of it

If your business is doing an internal social media marketing “just because businesses should”, it’s probably a waste of time.  Even if your business has thousands of Likes of followers, it’s unlikely that your posts are making it to your customers’ news feeds.

5. Newspaper Advertising

If you like wasting money on marketing that’s not targeted and is more expensive, then keep advertising in newspapers.

Keep It……..

1. Remarketing

Remarketing is advertising to users who have already been to your website. This can be through either the Google display network, the search network or social media.

• Boosts conversion rates
• Targets the exact people who are closest to do business with you
• Allows your brand to be seen on major websites

MORE: Ultimate Guide To Remarketing In 2015

2. Next Generation SEO

Keeping up with the constant pace of Google algorithm updates makes SEO in 2015 a much harder game to play. But businesses producing high-quality branded content have the edge in terms of search visibility.

• Update your website’s static copy
• Target long-tail keywords
• SEO remains the most powerful way to drive traffic

MORE: Next Generation SEO: Latest Tips and Techniques

3. Search Engine Marketing with Conversion

When you think about how you search when you are about to “buy” something,  you probably use words such as “professional”,  suburb name, reviews, best, deals etc. This is called “long tail” keywording, at ROI.com.au we call it reaching qualified buyers.  Understanding the “buying” keywords in your search engine marketing together with targeted landing pages remains the most effective way to connect with people “ready to buy”.

• Each time your ad is clicked, you pay the search engine a small fee
• The better your ads, the greater your click-through rates and the lower your costs
• People click on paid search ads more than any other form of digital advertising

4. Facebook Remarketing

 

Take your paid Facebook campaigns a step further by tracking your website visitors, and then serving your ads to their news feeds.

• Higher conversion rates
• Lower costs per click
• Create lookalike audiences to expand reach

5. Local Mobile Campaigns

We all know most people would feel lost without their Smartphones. But more Australians are now using mobile phones to help navigate their local shopping experience. By narrowing your national campaign focus to a number of target audience pockets, instead of a broad sprinkling of impressions, advertising dollars can actually go further.

• Search interest in the term “near me” has increased a whopping 3400% since 2011
• More than 78% of shoppers research a product or service on mobile phones before they buy
• Almost half of Australia’s Smartphone owners have made a purchase on mobiles and almost 60% of these have done it in the past month

MORE: Australian Mobile Use Fast Facts 2015

6. Integrated Content Marketing

Content Marketing means creating and sharing free content (such as a blog) to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share relates to what you sell – in other words, you’re educating people so that they know, like, and trust you enough to want to do business with you.

• Builds affinity with your target market
• Improves search engine rankings
• Shows you are experts in your field

Source: Robert Somers of ROI, June 2015
Text and photos copyright ROI.
If you’re looking to get a better return on your marketing budget, talk to an ROI.com.au expert today.