How much of your marketing budget should be Digital vs other forms of marketing?

Your marketing budget should be 6 to 10% of your gross revenue. Digital should be 50% of of your budget. (New businesses should allocate 12-20% of their gross revenue).

Can I use all digital marketing?

No, it doesn’t matter how perfect your digital marketing plan is, you should also be seen in other ways to really build your brand. This is especially true when you are a local company selling to a local target market. You need your potential clients to see you as a local community resource. Stress that you are locally owned and operated – people want to support local business.

All business need to take their marketing full circle. You can’t just do one part of marketing and expected to work for you. Remember, it takes 6 to 8 touches before a person makes a buying decision

Some other marketing strategies to add into your marketing plan

Vehicle Lettering – Vehicle lettering is like a mobile billboard. Your vehicles are driving all through your target area, take advantage of this great exposure and it will also help to strengthen your brand recognition.

Yard signs – Depending on your business, yard signs are a great way to get your business recognized and remembered. This is one of the least inexpensive form of advertising and helps to build your brand. The more your logo is seen, the more it will be remembered.

Apparel – Have your employees wear shirts with your company name – In addition to knowing that they look professional when they are representing your company, they will be walking billboards for your company.

• Promo items should also be part of your marketing arsenal. When you do a job, you should leave behind a promotional item, something to keep your name in their mind after you leave the job site.

Yard Signs are inexpensive and another great way for people to see your name.

Door Hangers – Again, depending on your business, you may want to add door hangers to your marketing plan. When an installer is doing a job, have them drop off a door hanger on a few houses on each side of the home you are working on. If the homeowner saw your vehicle and saw the yard sign, now they see your information on their door it is a third touch!

Print Ads – Find a magazine that is a good fit for your business – if you decide to do magazine ads, make sure you commit to at least 6 issues to give it a chance.

Radio Ads – local radio ads are another great way to build your brand locally

Billboards – again depending on your business, this may be a great way to be seen

Every Door Direct Mail – this is a much less expensive option than direct mail. You can target the neighbors on a street you are working on or that you would like to be working on (you choose a postal carrier route – no mailing list is needed). If you use this with a yard sign and a door hanger and vehicle lettering, you have just had 4 touches! Now you are becoming familiar.

• Direct Mail is another great way to get your name out there. Depending on your business I would suggest either a small mailing so you can follow up, or send a larger mailing that goes to the people who receive the magazine that you choose to advertise in. They’ve already seen your name once, now it’s a second hit.

The Most Important Part of Marketing…

Remember when you’re doing any form of advertising the content is the most important piece to your marketing strategy, don’t just tell them who you are and what you can do. Tell the reader you understand them and their problems and how you will solve their problem for them, how you are the solution.

This is the perfect time to look at you marketing mix and make sure you take it full circle!

If you have a question about your marketing or design, email Askjoey@joeyknowsmarketing.com

Email Marketing

Let’s talk about email marketing. This is a great, inexpensive way to market your business and stay in touch with your contact list. Best of all, you can schedule your email blasts so you can create your marketing for the next week, month or year and schedule it to be delivered when you want it delivered!

A few of the main email marketing companies are: Constant Contact, Get Response and Mail Chimp. Handouts has used Get Response for many years and we are very happy with their products and services. These companies do much more than simply providing an email service, they offer landing pages, auto responders, funnels, website forms and more. Most of the companies offer a free trial so you can be sure you like the way they work before paying for their services.

WHY NOT JUST SEND FROM YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT

We feel it is important to use an email marketing company rather than just sending your email account because they will supply you with analytics on each email so you can tell what is working and what is not. The analytics will include things like: how many people opened your email, how many clicked, how many bounced, what your open rate was. Email marketing companies also supply you with templates which make it easier for you to create professional looking emails that are mobile friendly. Remember always stay true to your company colors and your company image when creating any type of marketing piece.

HOW DO I TRACK MY RESULTS

The email marketing companies will supply you with analytics, but you should create a spreadsheet so that you make sure that you are taking your marketing full circle – mail, email, social, etc. We have created a very simple to use spreadsheet to help you. Click the button below to download a copy. Remember you should color code in the TYPE column (email, mail, Facebook, etc.) so you can see at a glance that you are using all forms of marketing. If you see too much of one color, make adjustments.

Another benefit to using an email marketing company, you will be able set up different campaigns so you can track other forms of your marketing as well. Ex. if you do a facebook ad with a click through for information, it will capture the email address for you. If you set it up as a separate campaign, you can see how many people sign up through Facebook vs. through your email. When you send an email blast, you can choose to send it to one of your list or more than one. It will check for duplicates and send the message just once.

HOW DO I GET AN EMAIL LIST

If you have your customers in an Excel file, you can import that file. Please remember do not spam. You can add people that you do business with to your email list, you can have people sign up for your email list, you cannot add people without a prior business relationship unless you have their approval.

List Building Program