When people think of Canadian cities, they imagine fierce winters and stifling summers. But Victoria enjoys the mildest climate in the country, thanks to the Pacific coast that’s nearby—this has earned it the nickname The Garden City. Many are charmed by the sights and activities that Victoria has to offer; roughly one million people visit the renowned Butchart Gardens each year. The centre of the city has a population of 85,792, but when you include the surrounding region, that number jumps to 385,999. The coastline is dotted with harbours and ships, bringing in visitors from around the world. Cyclists love this city; Victoria is dubbed The Cycling Capital of Canada due to its many bike paths.
When you’re marketing your business in Victoria, you want to use your resources as efficiently as possible. You probably don’t have unlimited cash at your disposal, so you want to stretch your dollar for all it’s worth. There are multiple approaches you can take when it comes to spreading the word about your business. Let’s go over the pros and cons of each, which will help give you an idea of where to focus your budget:
Traditional Marketing
We’re all familiar with common marketing methods: flyers, posters, and business cards. On your drive home, you probably see billboards that advertise various services. While these strategies are effective to an extent, they aren’t as powerful as digital marketing for one reason: they are not targeted. Search engine optimization makes your business more visible to those who are already searching for your services, whereas a poster is exposed to a random pool of people.
If you take a walk around the block, you’ll notice that most people have their eyes on their phones instead of the beautiful flowers of Victoria; they aren’t likely to notice your posters when their attention is elsewhere. To capture the minds of technology-driven generations, you need to invest in digital marketing.
Email Marketing
If you check your emails right now, your inbox likely has one or two promotional messages from various companies. Once a business has your email, they enter it into their marketing campaign that automatically sends messages. Sure, it keeps your name fresh in the customer’s mind, but you risk annoying your clients if you send emails too often (you’ll get sent to the dreaded spam folder). It can cause customers to overlook important emails from your business since they’re so used to seeing your promotions. Not all digital marketing strategies are created equally; to reach your client base in Victoria, you’ll need to implement a more refined strategy.
Social Media Marketing
Nearly everyone has a profile on some form of social media, whether that’s Facebook, LinkedIn, or Snapchat. One advantage of this technique is that you can find platforms that suit your type of business. If it’s a visually-based industry, like interior or graphic design, create an Instagram account to post images and videos of your work. Twitter is more text-based; use it to write funny or interesting tweets about your business. A challenge with social media marketing is that it’s hard to get noticed among millions of other accounts. Your promotional tweet won’t gain much traction when it’s buried beneath pictures of the latest event at Centennial Square. To increase your revenue, you need a marketing method that reaches a specific customer base.
Hire an SEO Agency
What if you could advertise to the people who are already searching for your goods and services?
That’s the beauty of SEO or search engine optimization. It helps buyers who are ready to make a purchase find what they’re looking for: your business.
You can create the best website, post the most interesting content, and have the highest review scores – but all your efforts will be for naught if customers can’t find these resources. It doesn’t matter how much better your services are than your competitors’, if they are on the first page of Google, and you’re somewhere on the third page. To remedy this issue, businesses hire SEO agencies, who work to make their website more accessible and include better content.
How impactful is SEO? Can higher rankings really generate more revenue? The numbers tell the real story. SEO lets you tap into a massive market, considering that 81% of people look online to make a purchase, and 75% of people only look at the first page of results. By appearing on the first page, you’ll get more exposure among your targeted demographic. This translates to real leads. Compared to direct mail or cold calls (which have a closing rate of 1.7%), search engine leads close 14.6% of the time. By investing in SEO, you’ll see an exponential ROI once your website starts ranking.
Thanks to the mild winter climate, green spaces in Victoria thrive year-round. With SEO, your business can do the same. At First Rank, we offer Victoria search engine optimization. Our SEO experts can optimize your website to rank higher on Google. Call us today and we’ll help you start ranking in search results.
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