Guaranteed highest return on investment (ROI) of all marketing avenues.
If you sell paper, and happen to know exactly when your client is running out of paper and is about to order some more stock and can send your sales rep to their office at that exact moment in time, then you’re ahead of the game.
If like most businesses you don’t have that insight nor can afford to have your sales rep camp outside your clients offices the next best thing is to make sure when your customers or clients need what you’re selling you’re top of the list of suppliers they contact.
How do you do this…? SEO. Be the first in google (+ yahoo, bing etc.) for your key phrases.
It’s a simple concept, I want to buy some paper in London, so I google it, call the company that pops up, they’re offering a reasonable deal, I place an order.
If somebody searches paper in london, they’re only doing so as they actually need paper, it’s not a past time.
You’re focusing your marketing purely on potential sales.
You put an ad in the paper or on the tube or a humongous bill board, you’re focusing on much much more than your potential sales. That’s all good and well for brand building and all and fine if you’re selling cars… But if you’re not selling cars, and want your marketing budget to return you with sales then nothing will make your money go further than SEO.