Source: www.TurfMagazine.com
It’s that time of year again when reports come out about the state of the industry. But have you considered the state of your business? What about the state of your online marketing plan?
If you’ve evaluated your marketing plan from the previous year, what have you found that worked well for your business? What brought more prospects to your door? What parts of your marketing plan need to be tweaked? And did you change how much money you budgeted for online marketing in next year?
Back in August, I published a post on my blog about how to get the most out of your marketing dollars and how to make smart choices when it comes to outsourcing your Internet marketing chores. Now, I want to challenge you to look back on this year and your Internet marketing efforts. Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you have new demographics coming to your website? Do you have a mix of millennials, senior citizens and working families (if these are the types of clients you want to work for) reading your blogs and then calling you for a free site evaluation?
- How many prospects did you convert into paying customers from your blog, website and other social media outlets? Now, compare those conversions with the number of sales you made from more traditional forms of marketing, such as door hangers and mailers. Is it time to invest more of your marketing dollars to Internet marketing or should the amount stay the same?
- How did social media’s word-of-mouth work for you this year? Did you have your Facebook or Houzz followers sharing your blogs or pictures of projects you did?
- Did you find that Internet marketing was a good investment of your hard-earned dollars or do you think it only plays a small part in your overall marketing plan?
- What areas didn’t work for you? What areas are you willing to try for the next year? For example, you may want to start a Houzz profile and upload your landscape design projects on it. Or, maybe Twitter isn’t working for your business, so you may want to open a YouTube profile to add videos.
- What other social media outlets can you use for your business? Is it time to invest in Google AdWords or Facebook Ads?
These questions should help you evaluate whether you felt your Internet marketing plan from last year actually worked, as well as helping you decide how much to invest in Internet marketing for the upcoming year.