Small businesses should stop thinking about online marketing as a wasted expenditure. It should be treated as an essential one, much like insurance. Moreover, it is surprising to know that most Australians do not have a strong grasp of online marketing.
Here are some key points:
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
• More than 50% of Australian business owners had not performed search engine optimisation (SEO) on their website or even audited it for the search engine rank effectiveness.
• Of those who had performed SEO, 53% didn’t know what amount of their traffic was attributable to their SEO efforts, which is staggering if you consider a recent Google study which found 73% of searchers use search to find out where products are sold. Moreover, 72% Internet users use search to make price comparisons and 63% use it to find promotional offers.
Pay Per Click (PPC) and Social Media Advertising (SMA)
• More than 71% businesses in Australia never run an online advertising campaign while 13% are currently running online advertising and 16% have run a campaign but aren’t anymore.
• Of all respondents, 68% will be increasing their online marketing spend, but more notably a whopping 29% won’t.
Social Media
• Social media has had the largest increase of all marketing forms by 73% of businesses having used Facebook for branding and sales.
Mobile
• A recent Google study found that 79% of smartphone users use their gadget before and during purchase decisions yet 45% of our survey respondents don’t have a mobile-friendly website.
The most interesting of all the above stats is how little small business is capitalising on SEO, PPC and SMA. So far, small business has really taken to utilise social media for branding and driving sales, but many of them are not even turning to social media advertising instead choosing to interact with fans and followers with posts, tweets, photos and competitions.
Many people say that online marketing costs too much. Is that true? A solid SEO campaign may set you back around $700 a month. However, just think about how many more people are going to be clicking through to your website, calling you or buying your products. If you are transacting and receiving more leads, and you can earn more than what you are spending. Yes, SEO isn’t right for everyone, particularly low cost items or businesses operating in highly saturated markets. PPC isn’t for everyone either. It’s a cost, yes, but try to attribute a value to it, much like you would any other expense you classify as “necessary”.
Conclusion
Online marketing is no longer something small businesses should do “if there is extra budget”. It is something they need to budget for and take as seriously as insurance. It’s imperative to reach customers and compete to win their business in a smart way. It comes down to shopping around and making sure the agency you entrust to push your rankings up or drive leads to your site has a solid reputation and can give you favourable terms. Remember also that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Low cost might seem appealing, but you could actually be damaging your ranking, either that or the agency is taking your money and doing absolutely nothing.
For a good quality SEO campaign, expect to spend around $650 a month or more. For that, you can expect to get a solid organic ranking within six months with a variety of different methods used to boost your rank. For a good quality PPC campaign, expect to spend around $400 a month or more. For that you can expect good quality reporting with individual comments and robust methodologies about refining your keywords to leverage ad spend. For a good quality SMA campaign, expect to spend around $350 a month or more. For that you can expect something very similar to PPC in terms of solid reporting and ongoing refinement in targeting and reach to get conversions.
courtesy of http://www.optimising.com.au/blog/australian-small-businesses-are-late-to-the-party