Better Than Nothing Digital Marketing Starter Program
BUILD THE FOUNDATION FOR DIGITAL MARKETING WITH THE 5 COMPONENTS EVERY COMPANY NEEDS
This pre-packaged digital marketing program helps busy business owners and marketing directors quickly implement a basic digital marketing program without the typical costs associated with staffing and training an internal marketing department. Our program is facilitated by an in-house marketing strategist and consists of 5 primary components.
For less than the cost of a part-time junior-level resource, a small business can start building a professional digital marketing presence.
How It Works
A “BETTER THAN NOTHING” DIGITAL MARKETING STARTER PROGRAM CLIENT WILL TYPICALLY ALLOCATE 1-2 HOURS PER MONTH TO WORKING WITH US.
Onboarding
After a kick-off call with a marketing strategist, we construct a Content Development Guide specific to your company that ensures we are targeting the right keywords associated with your target buyer persona. Twice a year, we work with the client to prioritize blog topics and news items that our experienced writers use as inspiration to craft monthly articles. During the onboarding period, our digital marketing strategists work with the client to gain systems access, identify a compelling lead magnet, and construct a lead generating landing page.
Recurring
Each month, we select the next prioritized blog topic from the Content Development Guide and our experienced writers begin drafting content. Blog articles are optimized for SEO along with call-to-action buttons that invite readers to visit a landing page where they can gain access to a lead magnet (e-book, checklist, cheat sheet, training). Articles are promoted monthly via major social media channels (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) and submitted to major search engines for indexing.
Each quarter, we prepare and distribute a quarterly newsletter ensures you stay connected to your subscribers on a regular basis.
Our Process
- Step 1: Kick-Off Call
- Step 2: Buyer Persona & Keywords
- Step 3: Content Development Guide
- Step 4: Lead Magnet & Landing Page
- Recurring: Blog / News Article & SEO
- Recurring: Social Media Promotion
- Recurring: Search Engine Indexing
Recurring: Quarterly Newsletter
Pre-Built Digital Marketing Project Plan
DIGITAL MARKETING STARTER PROGRAM CORE SERVICE
A full-year plan that includes timelines for blog articles, email newsletters, lead magnets, landing pages, keyword research, buyer persona identification, basic social media promotion (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn).
Lead Magnet
DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM CORE SERVICE
A lead magnet is the (free) offer you make to get information from a visitor. The goal of a lead magnet is to try to capture some information (most often their email address) and to start forming a relationship. A lead magnet can most often take the form of one of the following digital assets:
- ebook
- whitepaper
- mini-course
- video series
- checklist
- how to guide
- cheat sheet
- free webinar
Landing Page
DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM CORE SERVICE
A lead-converting landing page (or squeeze page) using Touchline’s most basic landing page template invites users to access your lead magnet. The basic landing page is hosted with our leading landing page technology partner on a Touchline standard domain. A custom domain is available as an add-on.
Monthly Blog/News Article
DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM CORE SERVICE
Article content (images & copy) can be generated by our copyrighters or your company staff. Article topics are identified and prioritized yearly as part of strategy meetings with Touchline. Blog article may not exceed 600 words. Content may be search engine optimized based on a single key phrase and may include one call-to-action linked to your landing page. Curated content includes up to a single iteration.
Quarterly Newsletter
DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM CORE SERVICE
Quarterly newsletter is sent using a standard Starter Program newsletter template customized with company logos and colors. Each newsletter is an aggregation of the 3 previous blog articles/news items and a call-to-action linked to your landing page. Clients have the option to include a personalized message to the beginning of each newsletter.
Search Engine Index Submission
DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM CORE SERVICE
Using a client specific webmaster tools account (Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex Webmaster), Touchline ensures each article is properly to indexed by major search engines to maximize organic visibility.
Basic Social Media
DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM CORE SERVICE
Social media promotion includes 3 scheduled social media shares to promote the monthly blog/news item or landing page. Social media posts shared on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Social media channel setup and branding is available as an add-on service. Upgrading to the Social Media Accelerator add-on drastically increases the visibility of articles on social media channels.
What Does A Client Need To Get Started?
EACH BETTER THAN NOTHING DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM CLIENT MUST HAVE THE COMPONENTS LISTED BELOW. IF YOU ARE MISSING ANY OF THESE COMPONENTS, TOUCHLINE MARKETING CAN HELP GET YOU CONFIGURED QUICKLY THROUGH ADD-ON SERVICES.
- BLOG PLATFORM
- SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT
- EMAIL SERVICE PROVIDER (ESP)
- SEARCH ENGINE WEBMASTER TOOL ACCOUNT
Add-On Services For Required Components
ADDITIONAL SERVICES TO GET A CLIENT UP AND RUNNING WITH A DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM QUICKLY
Other Add-On Services
ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS TO ENHANCE THE VISIBILITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF THE BETTER THAN NOTHING DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM
“Better Than Nothing” Digital Marketing Program FAQ
ANSWERS TO SOME OF THE QUESTIONS WE MOST OFTEN HEAR ABOUT THE “BETTER THAN NOTHING” DIGITAL MARKETING PROGRAM FOR SMALL BUSINESS…
Your keywords are the key words and phrases in your web-related content that make it possible for people to find your site via search engines. A website that is well optimized for search engines “speaks the same language” as its targeted buyer persona with keywords that help connect searchers to the website. Keywords are one of the main components of SEO.
A buyer persona is a semi-fictional, generalized, representation of an ideal customer. The most valuable buyer personas are based on a combination of internal insight, market research, and interviews and surveys of actual customers. Why is it important? – Even a basic buyer persona will help an organization determine where to focus investment and will drive consistent messaging across the organization.
Through tangible profiles, they help you understand your customers and prospective customers better. With a defined portrait in place, it becomes easier for you to tailor content to the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of different groups. As a result, you will be able to attract the most valuable visitors, leads, and customers to your business.
At Touchline, our mission is to help companies like yours customize your marketing to cater to your buyer personas. We can help align a content strategy to the path of specific buyer personas as they travel through the awareness, consideration, and decision phases of the buyer’s journey.
A one-time client onboarding fee is applicable to all new accounts. Client onboarding includes a kick-off strategy meeting, landing page setup, email notification configuration for new leads, lead magnet creation, Touchline Client Cloud account creation, social media account access, webmaster tool account access, email service provider account access, creation of a Content Development Guide and development of initial content ideas specific to your company’s buyer persona, target keywords, and phases of the buyers journey.
Clients can cancel at any time. A 30-day notice is required to discontinue services.
The time it takes for your website to appear on page one of Google depends on a number of factors. It depends on the search phrase people are using to find your website and the number of other websites that are also available for those search phrases. Nobody can truly say how long it will take for your website to appear at the top of search engine results pages (including people who actually work for Google), however, there are a number of factors that can improve your chances. Building your website on WordPress is a good start as WordPress has some great Search Engine Optimization fundamentals built-in. Creating unique and interesting content on a regular basis for your website is also critical to increase your visibility amongst search engines. Launching your website and then forgetting about it is a surefire way to get lost amongst the noise. We are happy to talk to more about your search engine strategy if we haven’t already.
As an initial attempt to become involved with an approach to modern marketing for your organization, the recommendation is to develop a recurring monthly newsletter to support list building and basic lead nurturing. Development of a recurring eNewsletter is a basic core component to any organization’s marketing strategy. Touchline has developed a repeatable and scalable process for construction of a company eNewsletter that is focused around efficiency and effectiveness.
If your company is looking to generate leads from your online marketing, has a sales team to work those leads, and is willing to think creatively, we’re probably a good fit for you. We have experience working with all types of companies, including B2B technology companies, professional services, consulting companies, and real estate firms. We understand that we’re not a fit for everyone, and if we’re not completely confident that we can help you succeed with inbound marketing, we’ll let you know that upfront.
A blog is now a fundamental component of a modern marketing mix. With a best practice implementation of a blog, small and medium-sized businesses get 55% more web visitors, 102% more Twitter followers, and 126% higher lead growth. Search engine ranking algorithms also rely heavily on fresh web content and blogging is an effective way to continually inject fresh content into your site. Blogs can also establish credibility and ensure that you are participating in the discussion about your company. Businesses that post multiple times per day are significantly more likely to generate customers from their blog than those who post only on a monthly basis.
Touchline helps each client establish a unique strategy for their blog and producing content. This may include identifying a process to produce content with subject matter experts at the company and/or supplementing the content generation for the blog with our network of writers, using a strategically defined list of subjects with keywords and phrases.
On-page search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing individual web pages in order to rank higher and earn more relevant traffic in search engines. On-page refers to both the content and HTML source code of a page that can be optimized, as opposed to off-page SEO that refers to links and other external signals.
On-page SEO continues to change every year, so it’s important to keep up with the latest practices. Touchline uses a handy checklist that helps map buyer persona and associated keywords and phrases to each page. Each page is evaluated for mobile device responsiveness, page length, links, phrase density, use of markup tags <HTML>, intrusive linking, calls-to-action (CTAs), and more.
More than 95% of your visitors won’t buy anything or contact you based on their first visit. They’re typically still in the awareness phase of their buyers journey and just looking for information to help research their problem. It takes time to build trust, instill confidence and build a relationship.
To start this process of relationship building, we can benefit from knowing how we can reach our visitors. A lead magnet is the (free) offer you make to get information from a visitor. The goal of a lead magnet is to try to capture some information (most often their email address) and to start forming a relationship.
Touchline helps clients create compelling lead magnets that appeal to their buyer persona’s pain paints, challenges, and goals to maximize conversion rates and kick-start the lead nurturing process. A lead magnet can most often take the form of an ebook, whitepaper, mini-course, video series, audio recording, checklist, guide, cheat sheet, free webinar, survey, or assessment.
1. A blog – The client required to host an active website with blog capabilities. Blog setup is available as an add-on service.
2.A social media channel – The client is required to own at least one social channel on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Social media channel setup and branding is available as an add-on service.
3.An email service provider – The client is required to host an active account with an email service provider (ESP) to receive newsletter services. Supported ESP providers include MailChimp and Constant Contact. MailChimp setup is available as an add-on service.
4.A webmaster tools account – the client is required to provide access to their webmaster tools account to receive search engine index submission services. Webmaster Tools Account Setup (Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex Webmaster) is available as an add-on service.
5.About 1 hour per month – We request that clients attend scheduled meetings, provide us access to the systems, people, and materials we need to complete quality work, and review work in a timely manner. A typical Touchline client in this program will allocate 1-2 hours per month to working with us.