More and more CEOs and business owners have begun to realize that marketing methods that have been successful in the past are no longer bringing results. 

The cost of traditional marketing is on the rise. With businesses abandoning their old vendors, traditional marketing companies are charging their loyal customers more in order to stay in business.

So, what is a CEO to do in order to see ROI in marketing?

Many companies have begun to redirect funds away from traditional, or outbound, marketing efforts to implement digital, inbound marketing strategies.

The first step you can take is to bring your company into the digital era by developing an inbound marketing strategy.

1. Make a list of goals for your marketing plan. You need to determine what kind of results you’re looking for in order to gauge success.
2. Develop a customer persona—a profile of who is buying from your company and why—to determine what market your strategy should be targeting. 
3. Work with your accounting department and an inbound marketing specialist to determine what kind of investment your company will need to see a digital ROI. 

Once you’ve developed a strategy, begin to implement your plan in phases.

Phase 1: Get your website up-to-date. A site that is state of the art and visually appealing is more likely to produce leads. While you may cringe at the thought of dealing with a web designer again, you can rest easy. Web design isn’t as hard as it was when your site first went live.  The days of 10-20 thousand dollar websites are long past.  Reformatting or even developing a brand new site will cost you a fraction of that amount. 

The most effective redesigns make sure that your site is:

• Visually engaging with a clean and professional design
• Easy to navigate
• Search engine friendly
• Mobile ready

If you can get over the bad taste left by yesteryear’s exorbitantly expensive website that never got close to producing real, solid, and lasting revenue, you’ll find that your redesigned site gets visitors interested.

Phase 2: Get traffic to your website.  These days, most companies realize that they need to get traffic to their website, even if they’re still heavily invested in traditional marketing. Having a sleek website alone isn’t enough to draw in visitors.  Inbound marketing uses a number of methods to produce website traffic: 

• Get Optimized. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a must. It ensures that your site is pulling in traffic from searches that are relevant to your industry. But keep in mind that the keywords searchers use are constantly changing, so you need an SEO strategy that is reactive and constantly adapting to what works and what doesn’t. 
• Get a Blog. Did you know that, on average, websites that have a blog produce 55% more traffic than websites without one?  Blogs work together with your SEO strategy to keep you relevant in searches. They’re also a great way to establish your company as an expert in your field by communicating relevant and fresh content to your buying audience.
• Get on Social Media. By now, you probably know that social media is necessary for a real ROI in digital marketing. Social media provides a way to build a character for your company and engage with both current and potential clients without the pressure of having to make a sale.

Phase 3: Get results. Traffic is great, but it’s not going to bring ROI in marketing if it isn’t generating leads and sales.  

• Get Leads. Calls to Action (CTAs) provide a way to further cement your digital presence while also collecting actionable information on potential customers. Advanced content like whitepapers, eBooks, brochures, or even additional information on products or services can be hidden behind forms that customers must fill out to download. Capturing this information is the first step on the path from visitor to lead.
• Get Sales. You can convert leads into sales by creating great follow up engagement strategies.  Nurture campaigns allow you to stay in communication with a visitor who downloaded one of your advanced content pieces and woo them from interested party to customer.  A successful follow up email campaign, along with utilization of social media and engaging offers, is the ticket to digital ROI as long as your marketing and sales teams are working together.

As a CEO or business owner, you’re responsible for the bottom line of the company. Ditch your dated outbound techniques and go digital for better leads, higher conversion rates, lower expenses, and an improved ROI in marketing.

See how your digital marketing strategy stacks up with our free internet marketing evaluation.

Image Credit: 401 (K) 2013