Here’s How Your Business Can Get The Maximum ROI From Digital Marketing

When it comes to return on investment (ROI) from digital marketing, there isn’t a one size fits all approach. ROI differs depending upon many things, including your business type or model (e.g. local, e-commerce, SAAS), vertical (e.g. finance, fashion, electronics), marketing channel (e.g. PPC, SEO, social media) to name a few.  

Here are some actionable solutions that can generally be to increase your returns.

1. Build trust and reassurance

Whatever action you want a visitor to make when they reach your website, whether you want them to buy, contact or even share your content, they are much more likely to do so if they trust your website. When it comes to e-commerce, a staggering 50% of people abandoned their purchase because they didn’t trust the site.

There are some simple but effective ways to to increase conversion rates and your ROI, such as:

• Display your contact details such as your address and phone number on every page of your site
• Feature customer reviews or testimonials. Try to include real names or a photo to give them a sense of authenticity
• Showcase any logos of awards you have won
• Display “as featured in” logos of any publications that you’ve been mentioned in
• If you’re selling a product, prominently display your payment method logos (Paypal, Visa, etc.) or site security features.

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2. Obtain data and insights

The internet has changed how we do marketing. We have significantly more data available compared to traditional marketing methods, meaning marketing activity can be measured much more easily.

On a basic level, this means data can let you know how users found your site, what customers are looking for, or which keywords from Google are converting best or not converting at all. You can .

On a more advanced level it’s finding out through testing that adding an image of a smiling person to a site increased sign-ups by 102%.

There are a few ways you can obtain data:

• Add an analytics solution such as Google Analytics to your site
• Implement Google search console so you can get a better understanding of what keywords your site is appearing for in organic search results
• Survey customers for feedback to find out how you could improve your website/service/product offerings
• If you offer live chat support, look through the transcripts to see if you can identify problem points on your website which can be fixed

Data allows us to make more informed business decisions, and increase returns for your company. However, data is only useful if it can be understood, interpreted and acted upon.

3. Consider using an exact match domain

If you’re yet to start your online business or are in the process of choosing your domain name, consider choosing an exact match domain for an increased ROI.

An exact match domain (EMD) is a domain name that exactly matches the searched keyword phrase of a user. For example, if a user searches for “credit cards” in Google, then an exact match domain for this query would be creditcards.com. EMDs can increase ROI in the following ways:

• SEO benefits when it comes to SEO (ranking in Google) because Google takes into account the keywords used within the domain
• Trust and conversion benefits It can also help your website to gain almost instant trust and authority. Consider creditcard.com vs. brandnamecreditcard.com: users are psychologically more likely to find the former more credible because people tend to believe that the best companies own EMDs. This can often translate into higher conversion rates, and increased revenue.
• PPC benefits When it comes to paying for clicks in the sponsored section at the top of the Google search results (known as PPC, or pay per click), using an EMD can increase your click-through rate, which helps to lower your cost per click. Over time, this can add up to a substantial saving depending on the search volume and average cost per clicks.

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4. Brand presence on search engines

If you have an online presence, and you do not appear highly on search engines such as Google for your brand name, then you’re essentially burning money. People are looking for you for whatever reason, and you’re not making it easy for them to find you.

This is especially problematic if you’re running offline marketing campaigns to . When users search for your brand off the back of this activity and are unable to find you, you’ve potentially lost a sale.

Many businesses can increase their returns by making sure they appear at the top of Google for their brand name by implementing pay-per-click (PPC) ads using Google Adwords.

5. Execution and expertise

When it comes to digital marketing, the biggest challenge that most businesses face is to to successfully execute campaigns.

Almost anyone can “do” marketing, the same way anyone can throw a basketball, or hit a golf ball with a club. But not everyone can execute those anywhere near the standard that Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods could.

The most significant returns businesses can see from their digital marketing efforts are from hiring the right expertise to deliver and drive those campaigns.

Hire internally, hire a freelancer or appoint a digital marketing agency. Make sure you get somebody who knows what they are doing.

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