There are many moving parts to digital marketing. It’s important to focus your resources in the most effective directions. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin and try to do everything at once. You want to identify what will produce the best results rather than on what’s simply trendy this year. Here are five crucial areas to prioritize when creating your digital marketing budget.
1. Your Website
Your website is the digital headquarters of your business. Most of your potential customers will form their first impression of you and your business based on the appearance and functionality of your website. That’s why you can’t afford to skimp when it comes to creating an attractive, informative website that’s easy to navigate.
Make sure your site is updated with your latest products and services and that items are easy for visitors to find. If you sell products directly, you need a simple and user-friendly checkout process. If your website design is outdated or is lacking when it comes to UX, it may be time to redesign it. You may also need to reassess your hosting plan. Does it provide you with adequate resources, features and security?
2. Think Mobile-first
While it may seem obvious in 2020 that mobile is crucial, many businesses still haven’t gotten the message. Check your analytics and find out what percentage of your business comes through mobile. Keep in mind that this number is likely to steadily increase. Make sure your website design is responsive so that mobile users can access all of your features.
Be sure to test all pages and features using a variety of mobile devices. Beyond everything working, you want people to be able to read fonts easily, navigate pages, and access key features such as opt-in and checkout pages. Compress images so they load quickly for mobile users.
3. Lead Generation and Sales
Capturing leads is crucial for expanding your business. Review your entire lead generation and sales process and identify areas that could use improvement. For example, if your website is your primary lead generating tool, be sure that you have appealing opt-in pages. Perhaps you need to offer visitors more enticement to sign up for your list. You could arrange to offer a more valuable lead magnet such as a white paper or free gift.
It may be time to create or update a series of emails or create a more professional looking newsletter. The right calls-to-action can make a big difference as well. Keep testing your landing pages, CTA, opt-in offers and every aspect of your sales funnel.
4. Your Advertising Budget
Paid advertising can easily take up the biggest portion of a company’s marketing budget. Make sure you set aside funds for remarketing campaigns, as this provides you with some of the most targeted traffic available. You should also, test display, social media, and display networks. It’s especially important to track your results and spend wisely.
Before you invest in ads, be sure that you’re clear about your goals. These will determine how you measure the success of your ads. Are you trying to build brand awareness? Sell products? Generate leads? Once you’ve identified clear objectives you can accurately measure the results of each campaign.
5. Images and Photography
Visuals play an extremely important role in marketing today, especially on social media. It’s worthwhile to invest in images that are relevant and high-quality. Custom photography is always a way to set yourself apart and display images that stand out. You can also benefit by using other types of images such as memes and infographics. These can help make your content more original.
If you rely on stock photographs, always make sure you have the right to use them. Never steal images. When in doubt, don’t use images you find on sites such as Google Images as they may be copyrighted. Watermarked photos should be avoided as these suggest you aren’t making an effort at branding yourself. It’s worth it to purchase the full rights to any image you use.
To make the most of your digital marketing budget, you want to be aware of how each dollar is allocated and what you expect to accomplish with every action. With some investments, such as paid advertising, you can measure the results fairly quickly. Others, such as website design and images are more about building your brand and increasing credibility. When setting up your budget, be sure to prioritize so you have at least the fundamentals covered.
