The world of digital marketing is ever-growing, changing, and evolving- but that’s not news to any of us. As the marketing world grows, marketing budgets need to bend and stretch and figure out where the most worthwhile investments are to help businesses achieve success. 

Hubspot reported in a late 2020 article that digital leaders across all industries plan to spend 25% more on digital marketing. Now, we’re not suggesting that in order to be successful this year, you also need to increase your budget by that much. What we do want to focus on is *where* you are investing, and what the best strategies are for your digital marketing plan to make sure your business is successful. We put together a list of the most beneficial investments that are long term, sustainable, and will encourage growth for your business.

1.) Invest in SEO Plans

One of the best investments that you can make for your digital marketing strategy is working with a team to develop a long-term SEO plan. SEO is ever-growing and changing, and the search engines are always updating and improving their algorithms. Working with a team that focuses on staying up to date with those changes and continuously optimizing your website for the search engines can help establish long-term success for your business. 

Investing in SEO can help you to boost traffic to your website, help people find you, target the people who are most likely to convert, and give them a user experience that guides them to conversions. We have so many wonderful success stories of clients who have invested in us for their long term SEO, and here’s a great example:

This graph shows a client who was able to grow their 2020 website traffic (blue) by 500% compared to 2019 (orange). 2019 = 1,000 visitors vs. 2020 = 8,000. Their long-term SEO investment helped them to:

• Improved amount organic website traffic
• Increase leads and form submissions
• Grew Revenue
• Generate ROI
• Improve brand authority

When choosing a company to help you with your SEO, it’s important to find one (like webFEAT) that offers comprehensive plans that are catered towards your long term success. 

2.) Invest in a new website

Another great investment that we will always recommend is a new website. Your website is the face of your business online, a 24-hour salesperson. You want to be sure that all the information is up to date and that the first impression people have of your business is a good one.

Think about it, if it’s been even a few years since you last made any changes to your website, it’s out of date. You want the people who find your website to have a good experience interacting with your brand, and your website can become an extremely powerful sales tool to guide people through your sales funnel. If you have broken or out of date images, broken links, fonts that are difficult to read, missing pages, or out of date information- that’s another hurdle prospects have to leap before they make a conversion. 

If you’re looking for an investment to make this year in digital marketing- take a look at your website. Test all of your pages, links, images. Double-check your content to be sure it is accurate and up to date. Review all of your images to be sure they are the best ones to be on your website. If anything is old, missing, or broken- it may be time to upgrade. 

Check out a few of the transformations we’ve been able to accomplish for our clients:

3. Build or expand your ecommerce capabilities

This next suggestion falls along the same lines of updating your website: adding ecommerce capabilities to your website. Selling online isn’t just for B2C goods anymore. More and more businesses are finding ways to generate revenue through online sales by integrating ecommerce options onto their sites. Manufacturers can sell online to businesses that buy from them. Service industries can book appointments and collect fees online. Restaurants can allow people to order and pay for their food through their websites.

The focus of the world shifting online breeds innovation for online sales as we’ve never seen before. Now is a great time for your business to jump onto the trend if you have the capability to. Investing in developing your ecommerce capabilities can help propel sales forward throughout the year. 

Take a look at a couple of our favorite ecommerce developments we’ve had the pleasure to work on:

4.) Consider implementing paid advertising methods

PPC offers many benefits for enhancing your digital marketing strategy. First and foremost, it has a great ROI. The average ROI for PPC campaigns is $2 for every $1 spent, which is a great return for digital marketing investment. Through targeted PPC campaigns, you can help meet people at the end of the sales funnel by targeting buyer intent search phrases.  Brands who invest in PPC campaigns also help build brand awareness and put your business directly in front of your target audience. 

Driving traffic to your website (remember, your 24/hr salesperson?) is always a good thing. By using PPC, you are encouraging the people who are most likely to buy from you to browse what you have to offer. Even if they don’t convert right away, it is helping increase the chance that they convert in the future. 

When diving into the world of PPC, it’s a smart decision to work with a team of experts. Our team has seen great success for businesses with PPC ads for the clients we work with, one example is as follows:

Our experts were able to increase this business’s clicks by 5x, decrease the cost per click by 50% and increase conversions by almost 4x. It pays to work with a team that is knowledgeable on the technique and committed to helping you achieve success. 

5.) Build your social media awareness

Last but not least, we want to highlight the opportunity to invest in building your social media platforms. Social media allows all people to connect at all times. It also gives brands an opportunity to thrive among their followers and their competitors. With social media usage constantly increasing, brands have the opportunity to increase awareness and sales. 

In a study done by Digital Commerce 360, it was found that (82%) of {survey} respondents indicated that social media is the most common channel from which they get information about a brand and its products. If your brand isn’t active on social media, it absolutely should be. Managing, maintaining, optimizing, and getting creative with social media is a game-changer for brands. It’s worth the investment of hiring an employee or a digital marketing agency to take it to the next level. 

These are just a few of the many investment options for your digital marketing budget for this year. Our team is happy to provide guidance on what would be most beneficial for your business’s needs. Feel free to reach out for a free consultation!
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