There are nearly 30 million small businesses in the United States alone, which makes it understandable why business owners are constantly looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage. And when you think of the fact that 80% of businesses fail within the first 18 months, the stakes are even higher.
One of the best ways to get an advantage over your competitors is by leveraging the power of digital marketing, which has become the most important advertising channel out there. We all live on the internet now, so why not be as close as you can to your consumers?
Digital marketing brings a ton of benefits for businesses, but in order to properly develop a winning strategy, you need some powerful tools to aid you. While there are plenty of tools available online, we chose three we believe are enough to kickstart your internet marketing strategy and gain that competitive edge you’ve been looking for.
1. Google Analytics
At first glance, Google Analytics can be an intimidating tool to use, especially for those less skilled in online marketing. However, if you want to get an accurate idea of how your website performs, then you have to know your way around this tool.
Google Analytics has both a free and premium version, but small and medium businesses can get all the features they need without having to upgrade. However, enterprise businesses who want advanced reports and dedicated support should be upgrading to the paid version.
To start using GA, you will need to create a Google account and then dive into the various layers of this tool, which are displayed hierarchically. These layers are called organization, account, property, and view.
To get your GA set up, after you created your account, you need to add a property, which is the website you will be monitoring. You can then add up to 25 views on each property and set up traffic configurations for each view. It is recommended to filter your IP address, so that traffic from within your company is not added up, and you can get a better perspective over organic views. Look online for tutorials on how to set up your GA account, and you should be able to do it yourself in no time.
Google Analytics has tons of metrics and dimensions you can check to observe how your website is doing. These include types of browsers users prefer, location, device used to access your website, page views, bounce rate, and session duration.
2. DotCom Secrets
While this may not be one of the most popular online marketing tools, it sure does hold some very valuable information. At its core, DotCom Secrets is a playbook that helps entrepreneurs grow their business through effective marketing strategies.
Because everything in the online environment changes constantly, this playbook wants to give its readers some strategies that are everlasting and won’t be affected by these changes. The author, Russell Brunson, used his experience to develop these strategies that stand the pass of time.
So, what should those who use DotCom Secrets expect to learn?
The book is broken up into five main chapters, each exploring ways you can use digital marketing to increase your sales.
You will start by learning what ladders and funnels are, as well as the most common aspects of digital marketing. Each chapter is divided into “secrets”, which teach you through both theoretical and practical ways how to create, understand, and improve your strategy. You will learn how to identify your ideal customers, how to establish trust, what traffic is, and how to build a funnel that converts.
The next chapter will explain how to attract the attention of your online audience, how to engage them, and how to communicate effectively. This way, you will be able to get your customers to trust you and establish a good relationship with them.
DotCom Secrets is a top tool used by marketers, not only to increase sales but also to generate traffic for a website or to expand their network. As you continue to explore the playbook, you will also learn about how to create a sales funnel, what it represents and how it can be used to really put your product out there for the world to see.
3. Canva
Because not everyone can afford to hire a graphic designer, we present to you a tool that will help you create beautiful visual content to share on your website or social media. Canva’s tagline is “Amazingly simple graphic design software”, and we think it suits the tool very well because that’s exactly what Canva is. You have plenty of free templates and elements to choose from, but if you want to upgrade to the premium version, it will cost you $12.95 a month.
So, what does Canva do?
For starters, you need to sign up on their website by using your Google account or an email address. Then, you can go ahead and start creating. Canva lets you choose the type of graphic you want to create, then it will start suggesting template visuals that you can choose from.
Once you decided on a template, you can start customizing it, and this is where the fun part starts. This tool is probably easier to use than Microsoft Paint, especially thanks to its drag-and-drop features. You can position items where you want them and edit texts the same way you would with a professional graphic design software.
One of the biggest advantages of using Canva is its immense gallery of free stock photography and graphic elements. You can access them easily and then just drag them on your template. It allows you to play around with those elements in any way you like and design a unique image to use with your digital campaign. All the images you use will then be saved to your account, so that you don’t have to search for them again next time.
