Digital marketing
Four channels, different time horizons.
Most of these get sold as though they compete. They don't — they pay off on different schedules, and which one you should start with depends entirely on how soon you need the phone to ring.
Traffic is not the goal
It is easy to buy visitors and much harder to turn them into customers. A campaign that doubles your traffic and changes nothing about your revenue has cost you money, and it is a common outcome when the ads are bought by one company and the site they point at is somebody else's problem.
We build and host the site, so the destination is not out of our hands. If the page the traffic lands on is the weak link, we can fix it rather than report it.
Where we would usually start
- Google Business Profile and reviews first. For a local business this is nearly always the cheapest lead source available, and it is usually neglected.
- Then the conversion path. A working form, a visible phone number, and a page that asks for one thing.
- Then paid, if you need speed. Ads while the slower work compounds underneath.
We will tell you to skip things
Not every business needs all four of these, and some need none of them — if your leads come from referrals and your site cannot take a phone call properly, marketing spend is not the problem to solve first.
Compare
How soon each one pays.
Months
Search engine optimization
Compounds over time and keeps working after you stop paying. The local map pack is usually the highest-return part, and most of it is not on your website.
Days
Pay per click
Buys traffic immediately and stops the moment the budget does. The right first move when you need leads this month rather than next quarter.
Days
Social advertising
Good at reaching people who match a profile but were not searching for you. Better for awareness and retargeting than for capturing intent.
Ongoing
Email marketing
The only channel where you own the list. Cheapest per conversion of anything here, and the most often neglected.
Start here
Not sure which of these you need?
Tell us what your leads look like now. The answer is often 'fix the site first', and we'd rather say that than sell a campaign.