There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all digital marketing solution. When it comes to creating solutions and strategies for web-based businesses, your first task should be to identify what problems and pain points you have. 

Once you understand your problems, you can then start the process of finding a digital marketing solutions company who can put together a strategy to meet your needs and specifically address problems unique to your business, or start to work on them on your own. 

As digital marketing experts, we’ve identified a list of common problems that many online businesses face at different points in their company growth trajectory. So we’ve put together a quick guide of marketing strategies and solutions that will help remedy and solve those pain points. 

List of Possible Digital Business Pain Points

Don’t worry! We’ll go in depth to each of these pain points in the recipes below. Before that, we also want to provide a list of digital marketing solutions (and brief definitions) that we’ll use to help address these problems:

List of Potential Digital Marketing Solutions

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

  • Technical SEO – technical optimization of your site so that it functions properly and can be easily crawled and indexed by search engines
  • Fundamental On Page SEO – title tags, descriptions, URLs, on page content, alt tags, and any other HTML element that search engines crawl and index on your actual site
  • Content Strategy – broader content strategy for your business that can include blogging, resource articles, guides, and anything your customers might find appealing as related to your business/brand
  • Link Building & PR – off page SEO designed to help boost your site’s domain authority and drive referral traffic

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

  • Social Media Profile Management – essential optimization of your social profiles, the content you publish, and basic interaction with your various communities
  • Social Profile Engagement – a more in depth social media tactic designed to increase engagement on your existing content and get your content in front of more social users
  • Influencer Outreach – building partnerships with influencers who can help elevate visibility of your business
  • Social Content Production – custom post design and content production for any/all social media profiles you are currently using
  • Social Media Advertising – management of ads, campaigns, and budget on social media advertising platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram

Paid Advertising (SEM)

  • Pay Per Click Advertising – management of advertising campaigns for text ads that are displayed in search platforms like Google and Bing
  • Digital Remarketing – graphic ads that users see on 3rd party sites designed to reinforce your brand as the leave your site, focusing on return visitors and abandon carts
  • Shopping Feeds (Comparison Shopping Engine) – ecommerce product-specific advertising

Digital Web Design & Development

  • Branding Update/Refresh – redesign of your online businesses digital branding from logo to key imagery on the site
  • Website Redesign – redesign of the visual look and layout of your website
  • Custom Graphics/Images – development of custom digital imagery and assets

There are (obviously) a lot more potential digital marketing solutions out there, but for the purposes of this post – and to ensure that it is as usable as possible – we’re going to keep it focused on common or essential digital marketing strategies.

Let’s get cooking!

Pain Point: Loss in Site Traffic

For online businesses who have been around for some time, there’s nothing more concerning that seeing those traffic comparison metrics in the red. Whether you’re looking at organic traffic, traffic from social media, or referral traffic, it’s important to ensure you’re showing consistent and healthy growth in your site traffic.

First of all, you need to determine whether your traffic loss is sudden or gradual. A sudden loss likely points to something technical with your site architecture, changes in search algorithms, or changs in social and paid campaigns. Gradual loss over several months points to a different set of considerations, including increased competition, degradation of your site’s authority, and a growing presence of technical issues. 

Strategy Recommendation

This is digital marketing’s sweet spot. Traffic loss implies that something has changed on your site, how your site is indexed, or competitive landscape. That’s a lot of variables to tease out so make sure that your strategy addresses any underlying issues first and then starts working to regain traffic afterwards.

  • Technical SEO
  • Foundational On Page SEO
  • Content Strategy
  • Link Building & PR
  • Social Media Profile Management
  • Shopping Feeds (Comparison Shopping Engine)
  • Website Redesign

Pain Point: Online Reputation Issues

For local businesses with an online presence and established national brands, your online reputation can make or break a sale. Let’s say someone has found a product or service that they need and liked the price point. Then they go and look at pitiful reviews about poor quality, late delivery, and more. That’s going to change their purchase decision and possibly look at competitors. 

First of all, you should try to remedy everything you can on the business side of things. There’s not a lot that digital marketing can do to overcome shoddy business practices. Once you’ve got that worked out, there are several digital marketing strategies that can help improve and repair lingering online reputation issues.

Strategy Recommendation

You’ll want a strategy that focuses on boosting your brand touch points across the web, including organic and social. You’ll also want to ensure you’re reaching new customers so that you can generate newer, more positive reviews and interactions with your business.

  • Link Building & PR
  • Social Media Profile Management
  • Influencer Outreach
  • Social Content Production
  • Digital Remarketing
  • Branding Update/Refresh

Pain Point: Getting Site Visitors, But No Conversions

All too often we hear clients say, “we get lots of traffic but no one seems to be checking out.” This means that you’ve got a conversion problem. 

Sometimes, these problems are hard to diagnose. Problems with completing a site goal like buying a product or submitting a form can be caused at a lot of different points along the customer journey, so outside of the strategies we list below, you’ll want to figure out a way to see what isn’t working about your site.

Strategy Recommendation

Let’s assume that you’re generating a healthy amount of traffic in the scenario. That means getting people to your site isn’t an issue. We’re really more focused on what they do when they’re on your site, what associations they have with your brand, and how easy it is for customers to do what you want them to once they’re there.

In order to fix a conversion issue, you should look at the following strategies:

  • Website Redesign
  • Pay Per Click Advertising
  • Shopping Feeds (Comparison Shopping Engine)
  • Technical SEO

Pain Point: Increased Competition in Your Industry

Whether you’re entering a highly competitive market, or you’re feeling the pinch with new competitors entering the market, increased competition is one of the biggest threats that an online business can face. For service-based online businesses, local competition in reviews and ratings can make or break your performance. For ecommerce businesses, big box stores, Amazon, and similar independent retailers keep you on your toes.

Staying ahead of the competition is all about ensuring that you’re on top of best practices and consistently utilizing the latest strategies, platforms, and methods to get in front of more customers.

Strategy Recommendation

For competition concerns, we recommend that you utilize strategies that will consistently keep you in front new customers, target a diverse set of keyword targets, and reinforce what your site is already doing well.

  • Foundational On Page SEO
  • Content Strategy
  • Link Building & PR
  • Social Media Advertising
  • Influencer Outreach
  • Digital Remarketing
  • Pay Per Click Advertising
  • Custom Graphics/Images
  • Branding Update/Refresh

Pain Point: Stalled Growth

Online businesses at all levels are looking for consistent and reliable growth. When you see a flat trend line over a period of months, it’s probably time to shake things up. 

Depending on where you were when growth began to stagnate will dictate the type of strategy you need, but a safe assumption is that you have the fundamentals taken care of and need a strategy that goes a level deeper. 

Strategy Recommendation

Stalled growth can come in many different forms. Digital marketing can help turn around a flat trendline by creating more awareness, bringing new customers to the site and improving the potential of an existing customer base.

  • Content Strategy
  • Link Building & PR
  • Social Profile Engagement
  • Digital Remarketing
  • Branding Update/Refresh
  • Website Redesign

Pain Point: Large, Unmanageable Site or Large Product Catalog

If you’re overwhelmed by how big your site is, how many pages you have to optimize, and how to make sure all of your products can be seen by customers, you’re not alone. Massive web sites can leave site owners not knowing where to start with their marketing. If you have a technical issue across 10,000 product pages, or 800 articles, it can be daunting to wrap your head around. 

Just as large sites have more pages to market, they also have a huge potential to rank for a more diverse set of keywords than smaller sites and they present social media and paid ads experts endless opportunities to market products to potential customers. 

Strategy Recommendation

Large sites have to be analyzed from the ground up. Any digital marketing strategy should work to accomplish as much as they can in bulk the fastest and then move on to specific strategies once things are sound from a foundational standpoint. 

  • Technical SEO
  • Foundational On Page SEO
  • Content Strategy
  • Shopping Feeds (Comparison Shopping Engine)
  • Website Redesign

Pain Point: No Budget for In-house Marketing Staff

This is a pain point that we see quite often from solo entrepreneurs, to small shops, to bootstrapped SMBs. 

Many online businesses only budget for the bare essentials and don’t see the need to take on a whole additional salary’s worth of debt and risk to succeed. We get it! In most cases, it’s cheaper and lower risk for a business owner to outsource marketing services to experts on a contract or retainer basis as opposed to hiring, training, and paying for someone in house. 

Unfortunately, there’s no tried and true demographic for this pain point. Companies without in-house marketing can run the gamut in size and profitability. But they all have one thing in common: they see the value in marketing. They may have taken on some of the responsibility themselves but need a team to help take it to the next level. 

Strategy Recommendation

For these types of businesses the strategy would traditionally depend on what they’re already doing on their own (how effective it is) and where digital marketing experts can come in and help improve. Seek out a strategy that incorporates the basics as well as some long-term, technical aspects that you (the business owner) didn’t know you needed. This is perhaps the most broad and unspecific pain point on the list so our digital marketing recipe covers all the basics.

  • Fundamental On Page SEO
  • Content Strategy
  • Social Profile Engagement
  • Pay Per Click Advertising
  • Custom Graphics/Images

Pain Point: Bad Experience with a Previous Marketing Agency/Expert

Not too long ago, gaming Google was easy to get away with and thousands of so-called marketing experts and agencies would farm out low-quality linking, keyword stuffing, and other black and grey hat strategies to get their clients to rank at the top of Google. 

Once Google caught up and began updating their algorithm to thwart spammers, honest businesses were the ones who suffered. Many who have since rebuilt their site and their rankings have an inherent distrust of web marketers. 

Not all agencies are created equal! That’s why it’s important to vet any marketing professional you’re planning on paying to help improve your site: ask questions about their strategies, get references, and double check their rates (chances are if you’re paying $300/month for a full-service agency, your work is being outsourced).

Strategy Recommendation

Once you’ve vetted your marketing agency/expert to ensure that they’re above board and trustworthy, look for a strategy that addresses any uncouth tactics that still may be at play and focuses on foundational, healthy optimization. In most of these cases, the agency performed black hat SEO on behalf of a website, so our recommendation would undo anything they did and then ensure you’ve got something good to build on going forward.

  • Technical SEO
  • Foundational On Page SEO
  • Link Building & PR

Pain Point: Lack of Technical Knowledge/Expertise

Online businesses succeed when owners are experts in their field and can address their customers’ wants and needs with products and/or services. It takes years and years to become an industry expert in a field, and it’s common to find business owners who are leaders in their specific industry, but don’t even know where to start with digital marketing for their business. 

This knowledge gap is all too common. 9 times out of 10, that is solved by working with someone who is an expert in digital marketing, leveraging their experience, expertise, and passion to help your online business succeed within your industry.

Strategy Recommendation

Bottom line: you should lean on a team that fills in your knowledge gaps and can help you understand what they’re doing along the way. You should look at your digital marketing agency as a member of your team.

  • Technical SEO
  • Foundational On Page SEO
  • Link Building & PR
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