Remember when getting organic traffic was easier and there was no such thing as a penalty? Early on with AdWords I could buy traffic for a nickel a click. I miss those days.
Look. Nothing converts like search. People search when they are ready to buy. Even for inexpensive impulse purchases they may come back several times before pulling out their wallets. They and your business used to count on searching each of those times.
Alas, those days only exist in your dreams now. If you want to get sales back to what they once were, you can not rely on search alone. It is time to get serious about learning multi-step marketing and developing multiple marketing channels.
Keeping Track of Multiple Marketing Channels
No one has limitless time and money, so you will need a solution to keep track of what is generating the most leads and sales. Kristi Hines did a review on SEW of what she called an “all-in-one business analytics tool”:
“Ever have trouble keeping up with everything when it comes to managing your clients – or even your own websites? If so, then Cyfe could be the answer to managing multiple SEO campaigns.
Cyfe is an all-in-one business analytics tool that allows you to create dashboards with multiple widgets connecting to everything from advertising to web analytics.”
Cyfe provides:
- SEO news dashboards
- client dashboards
- competitor dashboards
- brand monitoring
- gmail dashboards for multiple accounts
- advertising
- blogging
- monitoring
- analytics
Read Kristi’s very comprehensive review here. Cyfe does “all-in-one-monitoring”. It automatically monitors your social media accounts like Twitter on a daily basis and stores the data forever so you can go back and see trends (e.g. how many followers you or your competitors gained over time).
Multiple Marketing Channels
Many use only one or two marketing channels, often organic search and pay-per-click (AdWords and similar ad options). The higher the percentage of traffic you get from Google, the more at risk your income is. Start now to test additional marketing channels.
A diagram from OutsideSource.com shows typical traditional marketing channels plus some social media. Another graphic from The Moz Blog shows the “free” inbound marketing channels. There are many more available than these shown. Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, G+, Vine and other platforms can all be used to generate leads and sales.
Neil Patel at Quick Sprout specializes in finding profitable traffic. In How to Find and Test New Marketing Channels he recommends testing a new channel every week!
“What is marketing experimentation? It’s all about trying and testing new channels. You’ll never grow your marketing if you don’t constantly test new channels, whether they are paid, organic or partnership-based.” ~ Neil Patel
Additional Web Sites
Affiliate marketers have long used multiple Web sites and custom landing pages to increase conversions. Small businesses can build and test sites quickly using tools like IMCreator. Test out ideas for new sites. Build landing pages to capture leads onto your mailing list.
Unless your site is penalized and you do not intend to request reconsideration, do not link these test sites to your existing site. Google considers these doorway pages and may apply penalties.
Custom Landing Pages
Another way to build landing pages is in your email solution. Before you spend any more time on social media, creating content, or upgrading your site your #1 priority is to be building your list. You want to capture every visitor you can to start building a relationship with them.
Email solutions providers have improved their email templates. Recently, the GetResponse landing page was redesigned, for example.
Mobile Responsive Design
Be sure that whatever you use is 100 percent mobile responsive. Include social media following buttons and social sharing buttons. Test to make sure all of these buttons actually work on iPhones, Androids and tablets.
Look at the header of your site, images and videos. These should all change size to fit optimally on each device. If they do not you need to improve your design. You may need to change solutions or themes or add additional code or plugins.
Get Serious About eMail Marketing
Just building a list is not enough. Learn to segment it and follow up. Create different autoresponder series as incentives and for specific segments. Monitor your open rates. Test different titles, layouts, and schedules. Nothing is more important than how you use your list.
Too many have put their businesses at risk relying on Google traffic. The solution is to develop other sources of traffic and don’t forget offline methods as well as online. None of this is simple, so find a mentor or ask me questions on live chat at SocialImplications.com.
Inbound marketing photo via Shutterstock
As warren buffet said, “do not keep all eggs in one basket”. This saying goes true with business as well. I am a digital marketer by profession and see people working on one platform to get traffic and all but whenever the search engine comes up with the update they lose their hard-earned traffic and they would not have any substitute. So in my sense, different marketing channels and different traffic source is important for any business to success.
Hi Gail,
Glad to be here again.
I really missed this informative post, glad that I found it today. As usual you brought out yet another educational post. But sad to note that this post need an updation as some of the links are broken. Especially under the subtitle
Multiple Marketing Channels the are 2 links broken and the first comment author’s link too is broken. Please fix it.
Thanks for sharing this information.
Keep sharing.
Have a wonderful moth of July 2019.
Best Regards
~ Phil
With the ever-changing landscape of the social media marketing sphere, you never know when your go-to platform may be replaced by something else. That’s why it’s so important to remain flexible and knowledgeable when it comes to navigating the world of advertising and marketing. With the rumors of a paid version of Facebook looming, we must all stay up to date and be prepared to pivot if needed. Your post was incredibly helpful and reassuring. Thank you so much for sharing your insights and tools!
Absolutely! Leveraging multiple marketing channels is a strategic approach that can significantly boost sales. By diversifying your outreach through channels such as social media, email marketing, content marketing, and traditional advertising, you tap into a broader audience and increase brand visibility.