My company Captivate Designs is in its fifth year of business and I have consistently experienced double digit growth for each year I have been in business. I started this business while working another job and within three months of leaving, I was able to double the salary my old job was paying me. I live in New York City, and I have worked with clients in just about every state throughout the U.S, London and Canada. Although, I do have an office in NYC, I meet clients by appointment only. My website is my storefront, and besides my referrals I market my business online solely!
I am very proud to say that I run a successful six figure business while 90% of businesses fail within their first year, I consider my growth an achievement, but I am always looking for new ways to grow and improve and keep up with the times and technology.
Why am I telling you all this? Well while many of you are running six figure businesses and beyond, some of my clients are not that fortunate, in fact some are stagnant, their revenue is falling and they are overwhelmed and frustrated. Others are generating revenue from other means and missing out on the revenue that they could be getting from their website and online marketing that will propel their business to the next level. I want to share my marketing strategy that helps me to constantly grow my business, so that you can take control of yours by implementing these simple strategies that I use.
First off, do you know how much traffic your website gets? Do you know how many leads come from your website? Do you know what percentage of your leads you convert into sales? Do you know what your average sale is? Do you have a revenue goal set per month or per year? These are all important data that you must know in order to plan ahead and grow your business.
Ok, here is my blueprint for marketing my business.
I use my website tirelessly
Since my website is my storefront, everyone comes to me via my website. First they find me online, they go to my website and either they call or fill out a form or sign up for my newsletter.
I run pay per click
I am guilty of admitting for most of the years I have been in business I have used pay per click marketing, because it provided me with instant gratification. It allowed me to control my positioning on search engines and it provided me instant results. But my industry is becoming more and more competitive every day. The cost per click keeps going up, and click fraud is rampant. Therefore, my cost per lead and cost per sale were growing rapidly and I needed a backup plan. That’s when I turned to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which has now allowed me to wean off my pay per click addiction. It’s really the best thing since slice bread, because it’s like an annuity, you can keep expecting payouts.
I optimized my site
I stayed away from SEO, because as someone who markets their business solely online, I didn’t have the luxury of waiting three to six months for my keywords to get to the top, that’s how long it took about four years ago, so I disregarded it, you can get to the top in as little as 30 days now. Today, I consider it the Holy Grail, because I now realize it is a long term strategy, and unlike pay per click, I don’t stop showing up once my ad runs out. Once I get to the top page, all I have to do is maintain my position. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
I write two articles per week
As part of my SEO strategy, I need to build links to climb to the top for my keywords. Article submission, provides quality back links that is highly regarded and rewarded by the search engines.
I submit those articles to over 200 article directories weekly
The benefits of writing articles and submitting them to article directories are twofold. Not only do I climb the ranks each time I write articles and submit them to directories, but I also get traffic from the people who are reading the articles, because they are relevant to what people are searching for and they contain the keywords that I am optimizing for.
I post the same articles on my blog
I get a lot of mileage out of my articles, because I then post it to my blog, which has subscribers, so those people are also getting an update from me on a weekly basis which leads to more sales. In addition, by posting the article on my blog, I create more pages, and as we all know Google loves fresh content, so each time I post a new article, Google re-indexes my website which leads to getting a boost to my seo as well. I also create additional links within my website using the keywords in the article that I have posted on my blog.
I post the same articles on Twitter
I then re-tweet the article on twitter for which I have over 1000 followers. These people in turn read my article, and even share it with others. Again, I am able to generate more leads from this effort and sales. For some businesses, created a Facebook fan page may be better, than others. If you’re not sure, feel free to email me.
I post the same articles in my newsletter
I then use the same article in my newsletter, to over 5000 people on my list that I have amassed over my almost 5 years in business. These are all the people who had inquired or purchased my service at one point or another. By doing this I usually get new sales or up sell another service.
Because of all my efforts my website gets over 1600 unique visitors per month, it’s up about 48% from last year, my conversion rate is around 2.2% and my close rate varies between 33% and 50% and I generate between 10-20 sales each month depending on the size of the project. I like staying small so I can work closely with my clients and give them one on one personal attention, so as long as I hit my monthly revenue goal, I focus on my projects and catch up on other stuff instead of selling.
How much traffic is your website getting? How much new business could you bring in if your website got 1600 visits per month? How much new business could you bring in if you could double your website traffic? How much would you be able to save if you can get all this traffic from SEO instead of pay per click?
It’s time to take marketing your business seriously. It’s time to take advantage of the growth potential a website and the internet offers you. It is time for you to grow your business. I can help! Give me a call at 877-877-4936 for a free consultation and strategy session.