Well, it’s that time of year. On top of the holiday shopping and slightly terrible family events you have on the horizon, you likely have next year’s business strategy on your plate. 

The past couple of years were packed with challenges that compelled a lot of teams to rapidly shift their game plan. And the challenges won’t stop in 2023: 

  • Economists have increased their inflation estimates for 2023. The likelihood of a recession over the next 12 months has risen to 49% (up from 47.5% in a previous survey). 
  • The longer inflation stands, the more likely it will impact wages and employment.

We don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer. We just want to propose the facts to help you craft a realistic and solid strategy for the upcoming year. And you don’t have to do this alone—our team at Big Leap has got you covered.

Here are 20 tips on how to increase your revenue in 2023. Use these to craft a well-rounded digital marketing strategy that illuminates your brand, fuels profitable connections, and keeps your business afloat. 

1. Understand Your Target Audience

First things first—who are you trying to reach? Before you can win customers and boost your sales, you need to understand your target audience. 

Listen to your prospects’ questions and problems. Be conscious of how they consume content and how their online habits can change the way they seek information and services like yours. 

The key is connecting your solutions and strategies to your audience’s needs. Any disconnect can push people away and have them looking elsewhere. 

How to Understand Your Target Audience

Start by finding out who your current customers are. What are the demographics? Use online survey tools like SurveyMonkey and Google Forms to gain more insight into their buying and online habits. 

Also, be sure to conduct a competitive gap analysis. What are your competitors currently offering? Who are they targeting? Where are they ranked on Google and other search engines? 

Finding these answers can help you: 

  • Identify ways to refine your unique value proposition
  • Discover the gaps you need to fill to win trust and loyalty from your target market 
  • Unveil specific marketing areas you need to invest more in and areas that are just not worth your time and money

Recommended Resources for Understanding Your Target Audience

2. Get Your SEO in Order

SEO changes constantly, which throws marketers for a loop, but we still keep it central to our strategies. Why? 

Seventy-five percent of online users don’t look past the first page of search results. So if you’re not on the first page, your business basically doesn’t exist to more than half of the global population. 

SEO doesn’t just help you stay visible—it helps drive traffic, a.k.a. potential customers to your site. And if they like what they see (we’ll get to this in a bit), they’re more likely to convert. 

How to Get Your SEO in Order

There are numerous ways to level up your SEO game, but here are a few to get started: 

  • Conduct a site audit: Do you have broken links? Is your site slow? Do you have duplicate content? A site audit conducted with the help of Screaming Frog can give you direction on the technical and creative aspects of your site. 
  • Come up with better keywords through search intent: Keywords are crucial in helping people find your company for search queries. But rather than focusing on the specific key phrase itself, focus on the context surrounding it. In other words, think about search intent. Why is someone typing a certain phrase into Google? This can help you discover related phrases and more specific queries to create long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords generally have a higher conversion rate than regular keywords.
  • Identify missing inbound links: Other sites and blogs are likely talking about you. But are they linking to you? With tools like Moz’s Fresh Web Explorer, you can find out. Reach out to these sites/businesses, kindly asking them to link to your business. Inbound links are one of the strongest factors Google uses to rank sites. 
  • Bolster your local SEO efforts: If you’ve got a business that serves specific geographic locations, local SEO is a must. Local SEO helps you show up for searches related to your business and the areas you serve. When 97 percent of users search online to find a business, you don’t want to miss out on this strategy. 

Now, there are various tactics involved in local SEO, but here are two key areas to get you started on the right foot: 

  1. Google Business Profile: Make sure you have a Google Business Profile. Once you have one, be sure your business info (e.g., name, address, phone, website) is up to date, and you consistently respond to reviews, both the good and the bad. Doing this will help increase your chances of winning a local 3-pack and knowledge panel spot—two types of zero-click searches.
  2. Local keywords: Location-oriented keywords and “near me” phrases (e.g., “hairdressers near me”) are pivotal in bolstering your local SEO rankings. Find relevant local keywords via keyword research and optimize your site pages by naturally weaving them into your content. 

Recommended Resources for Getting Your SEO in Order

3. Add Paid Search for an Extra Boost

Add a kick to your organic efforts by peppering in paid search/PPC (pay-per-click) methods. PPC entails: 

  • Retargeting: Ads that remind past site visitors of your products and services. Since seven out of 10 shoppers will leave a site without making a purchase, retargeting is a good way to woo them back.
  • Display ads: These ads are embedded and displayed across various site pages. You can create customized display ads for each stage of your customer journey to help encourage your leads to move closer to a conversion.
  • Paid search ads: These search results are usually above organic results when you look up something on Google. They are marked with an “ad” next to them. Since paid ads are at the very top of search results, they can offer the visibility you need. 

How to Get Started with Paid Search

Start with organic marketing strategies to secure the long-term success of your company. This can help you decipher what converts well, too. Then, add in paid search strategies to fill the gaps.

Platforms like Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and AdRoll provide PPC options. So, find out where your audience is hanging out and plan your paid strategies accordingly. 

Recommended Resources for Paid Search

4. Automate like Crazy

Time is money. Finding ways to efficiently get tasks done AND win more leads and conversions can get tricky. But one marketing tool that can make it all happen? Marketing automation. 

Marketing automation enables you to reach more people on a more personal level. We know, this sounds impossible. But with the right marketing automation tools, it’s possible, alright. 

Automation generates 451 percent more qualified leads. Not to mention, 77 percent of marketers have seen their conversions increase. 

How to Spearhead Marketing Automation

Look into marketing automation software like Hubspot and Pardot. Then, depending on your marketing needs and goals, you might want to consider looking into: 

  • Segmentation: Marketing automation lets you segment your potential customers based on specific characteristics. That way, you can send out unique messages to each group. Those who segment their email campaigns see a 760 percent increase in revenue. 
  • Reporting and analytics: Making impactful decisions starts and ends with data. Marketing automation allows you to monitor the progress of your business goals. By establishing relevant dashboards, your team can track key metrics like lead sources, MQLs (marketing qualified leads), SQLs (sales qualified leads), and revenue rates. These benchmarks can help you assess what areas of your business reel in the most profit.
  • Sales enablement: Combine your marketing automation platform with your CRM system. Doing this can help your marketing and sales teams collaborate and find ways to unclog friction areas in your sales pipeline and speed up the sales cycle. The results? Higher profitability.

Recommended Resources for Marketing Automation

5. Engage through Email

Every dollar spent on email marketing brings an average ROI of $42. Better yet, you can drive these dollars even further by using marketing automation to automate your emails. Start sending out messages to the right people at the right time. 

How to Engage through Email

Here are a couple of ways to make the most of your email marketing campaigns: 

  • Create autoresponders: Your prospects want to feel heard, seen, and loved. An autoresponder is a simple and effective email tool that allows you to send a series of scheduled follow-up emails to your leads and customers. It helps you build relationships and encourage them to take the action you want them to take.
  • Promote stellar content: Important as it is to stay connected with your leads, if you aren’t showering them with valuable content, you’re just throwing dollars down the drain. So think about what your prospects want and need. Use this to put together a content strategy, which brings us to our next point. 

Recommended Resources for Email Marketing

6. Plan Out a Robust Content Strategy

Seventy-two percent of marketers not only say content marketing increases their engagement rates, but it also increases the number of leads. In this case study, a solid content marketing strategy boosted our client’s site sessions by 80 percent and organic revenue by over 1,000 percent. 

Content should be central to your digital marketing strategy for 2023 and beyond. It’s the love language that kindles trust and lasting relationships. After all, how else are you going to communicate with potential customers? 

How to Plan Out a Robust Content Strategy

With your team, discuss each section of the marketing funnel. What types of content can you create for every stage of the buyer’s journey? 

Here are some ideas: 

  • Awareness stage: Blog posts, infographics, videos, and newsletters
  • Consideration stage: Case studies, E-books, downloadable guides, and quizzes/surveys
  • Decision stage: Free trials, testimonials, and customer support/help documentation 

Don’t be afraid to repurpose older content. If it has value, update it with new statistics, facts, and examples. Then, re-promote it. This can save time and allow more room to focus on big-picture strategies. 

Recommended Resources for Content Strategy

7. Create 10x Content

The online landscape is loud and crowded. To help you really stand out, consider creating 10x content. 

Coined by Moz founder Rand Fishkin, 10x content is content that is 10 times better than your competitors’ content. It’s about providing the highest quality content and a uniquely positive user experience. 

How to Create 10x Content

Get started by: 

  • Taking a look at the topics your competitors are covering: What are some ways you can add further detail to these topics? Maybe it’s adding in reputable sources and statistics and providing actionable takeaways. Whatever it is, make them bigger and better by providing educational value.
  • Creating a good mobile experience: Every piece of content should be optimized for easy viewing on mobile. Why? 58.99 percent of the time we spend online is spent on mobile phones.
  • Making it fun and creative: Find exceptional ways to present your content. Whether it’s illustrating your findings in a helpful graph or including an interactive component to it, create something people will want to stick around for.

Keep in mind, it takes experimentation and practice to find something that really lands. The more you create, the more you’ll develop a better sense of what works and what doesn’t.

Recommended Resources for Creating 10x Content

8. Leverage Influencer Relationships

Influencer brand relationships are a key marketing strategy—93 percent of marketers leverage them in campaigns. 

Influencers help establish trust and loyalty with a company’s audience via brand promotion. Not only can this drive engagement but also: 

  • Improve brand awareness
  • Build credibility 
  • Reach the influencer’s target audience
  • Increase conversions 
  • Expand your reach 

How to Establish Influencer Relationships

Spearhead your influencer strategy the right way by: 

  • Conducting audience research: This can be a good way to assess where your audience hangs out online and who they follow. Use this data to conduct research and find relevant influencers.
  • Conducting online research: Scope the social media space via hashtag posts to discover individuals with a relatively considerable following. 
  • Creating a rundown for influencers: For organizational purposes, have a rundown of what you want your influencers to post and when. This makes your campaign run more cohesively. Big Leap’s social media team did this for InvoSpa, which reeled in a 329 percent increase in Instagram followers.

Recommended Resources for Bolstering Influencer Relationships

9. Interactive/AI Content

Interactive/AI content allows consumers to experience your products in a simulated world. As apps and platforms grow, they produce more technologically advanced ways for brands to connect with their audience. And the results are proving to be pretty profitable.

In particular, beauty and home decor businesses have found success with virtual and AR experiences. For example, take Pinterest’s try-on experience. Users who try out this feature are five times more likely to purchase a product. 

How to Leverage Interactive/AI Content

Think about how your product or service takes a part in your consumers’ lives. Find an experience that allows them to learn more about themselves and/or your products/services. These may include: 

  • A real-time calculator tool that fleshes out payments/costs for the user
  • A quiz that allows users to identify the type of product that would best fit their lifestyle
  • A tool that allows people to see a particular product (e.g., furniture) in their home before purchasing it

Recommended Resources for Interactive/AI Content

10. Host Webinars

Seventy-three percent of B2B and sales firms believe webinars are the best way to generate high-quality leads. As more businesses were transitioning their efforts online due to COVID-19, webinars were the biggest increase among marketing strategies.

Webinars can help establish your team as thought leaders in the industry. After all, people are immune to hard-selling tactics—they need to be educated before they feel inclined to convert. 

Webinars can: 

  • Build community: Webinars provide the opportunity to gain real-time communication and put faces to names. This can humanize your brand and grow your network. Who knows, your future business partner might be in the audience. 
  • Drive authentic conversations: Through Q&A sessions and interviews with industry leaders, your audience can gain real-life insights. These insights can be monumental in helping audience members find ways to overcome their pain points. And when the audience finds tangible solutions, you’ll likely gain their trust. 

How to Create a Webinar

An efficient way to approach webinars is by using your existing content as the foundation. For example, let’s say you have a comprehensive guide on HR in the finance industry. You can pull essential parts of the guide and incorporate them into an outline and script for your webinar. 

Using existing content to build your webinar foundation can help close potential gaps in your customer journey. During your webinar, you can encourage your audience to check out your guide and other content materials to grow their knowledge further. This strategy can be a great way to further promote your business content to potential new leads. 

Recommended Resources for Webinars

11. A/B Test to Boost Your Site Conversions

Got some pretty stellar content on your landing pages? Great. But how’s it laid out on your site? Does it compel people to click and take action? 

Having a website is crucial, but if it isn’t generating leads and customers, then it’s all just junk. That’s why you need conversion rate optimization (CRO)—a digital marketing strategy that boosts your on-site experience and increases conversions. 

If CRO is done right, you can enjoy a 223 percent increase in ROI. Good CRO involves A/B testing or comparing two variations of an element on your page. 

How to Boost Your Site Conversions

There are a ton of tips on how to boost your CRO and what to test. Here are a few good places to start: 

  • CTAs: Are you using boring language like “submit,” or are you using active language like “grab yours” or “claim your free site audit”? Weave in active words and test out different CTAs to see which ones convert the most.
  • Longer landing pages: Longer landing pages make up to 220 percent more leads than shorter pages. If your site page is rather short, try going long-form. Address all of your customers’ queries. Then, A/B test your short and long pages.
  • Pop-ups: Add a 30-second delay on your pop-ups and provide different offers. You might just win up to a 9.28 percent conversion rate. 

Recommended Resources for Boosting Site Conversions/CRO

12. Site Performance

If you’re in a rocky relationship with Google, take a good look at Core Web Vitals. In June 2021, Google updated its algorithm to incorporate page experience as a ranking factor. 

One good chunk of this page experience is Core Web Vitals, a specific set of metrics Google uses to assess your site. Here they are: 

  • Largest contentful paint (LCP): How fast your pages load
  • Cumulative layout shift (CLS): How stable the visual layout of your pages is
  • First input delay (FID): How interactive and responsive your pages are

How to Improve Your Site Performance

Examine your Core Web Vitals report in the Google Search Console. This report should provide a good rundown of where you need to improve. 

Here are some examples of possible issues and solutions you can use to improve your Core Web Vitals: 

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)

  • Issue: Slow page-load time
  • Solution: Remove problematic third-party code. Or, lazy load the code so that your page loads content only when the user scrolls down your page. 

Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

  • Issue: Page layouts that suddenly shift when the user takes action, such as clicking on a link
  • Solution: Clearly define the width and height of images/videos in your HTML. Or, if it’s a third-party ad issue, reserve enough ad space on your page with the help of Google’s ad optimization tips. 

First Input Delay (FID)

  • Issue: A time lag in getting users to the next step/page when they fill out a form
  • Solution: Defer unused JavaScript files or code-split your JS by grouping them into smaller files and lazy loading them.

Recommended Resources for Improving Site Performance

13. Stay Active & Transparent on Social Media

More than half of the world’s population is active on social media. Are you? 

Failing to be present on social media gives the impression your brand is dead. And failing to respond to people’s comments/questions gives the sense you don’t care about your customers.

How to Bolster Your Social Media Efforts

Get a social calendar going and test out different types of content to feature in your posts. In the beginning, this will likely take some experimentation to see what brings in the most engagement. 

By creating a social calendar a month in advance and providing valuable content, one of Big Leap’s clients was able to win a 1,500 percent increase in engagement and over 900 percent increase in reach. 

Recommended Resources for Social Media

14. Protect Your Brand with Reputation Management

Good reputation management goes far beyond simply putting out fires. It involves a long-term strategy that safeguards the viability of your business. As consumers lean heavily on the web to conduct their research, how you look online is imperative to your success. 

How to Protect Your Brand Using Reputation Management

A strong reputation management strategy all begins with good content. Creating and sharing high-quality content can bolster your authority and bury the negative listings on the SERPs (search engine results pages).

For example, for Nu Skin’s Latin America campaign, Big Leap improved the skincare company’s reputation management by: 

  • Expanding their content via blogs and podcasts. This would help expand the brand’s positive digital footprint amid the client’s negative news cycle. In addition, it would help drive additional traffic to their site, further improving the brand’s authority in the beauty space. 
  • Determining the best placement and color of Nu Skin’s social buttons. This would encourage more engagement and conversions and drive the brand’s online authority. 

Recommended Resources for Reputation Management

15. Focus on Reviews

Ninety-three percent of users say online reviews impact their purchasing decisions. And a one-star gain in a Yelp rating brings a five to nine percent boost in revenue. 

How’s your online reputation looking? Do most of your customers love you, or do they despise you? How’s this impacting your business?

How to Focus on Online Reviews

If you’ve been the victim of bad reviews and publicity, luckily, we’re reputation management professionals who can lend a hand. We can help bury the negative reviews/results and shed light on the positive aspects of your business. 

And if you’re just swimming through a pool of positive reviews, great! Keep at it by asking old and new customers for referrals and reviews. 

Recommended Resources for Online Reviews

16. Network & Collaborate

Find your tribe! Take advantage of any events or organizations related to your industry. 

Rather than thinking, “What’s in it for me?” think about how these resources will help build valuable relationships. The people you meet can help you formulate new ideas and introduce you to new people and customers. 

How to Network & Collaborate

Reach out to friends or former colleagues by posting on your social platforms. Ask your contacts to refer you to those who might be interested in your company and initiatives. 

You could also find a potential partner who can help drive new business in the future. This new partner’s values and vision should be well aligned with yours. 

Recommended Resources for Networking & Collaborating

17. Demonstrate Thought Leadership

A thought leader offers valuable guidance and insight on a particular topic. Being a thought leader is a helpful tool for building credibility, trust, and loyalty. It can set you apart from competitors as the go-to resource on a given topic. 

How to Become a Thought Leader

Keep in mind, it takes time to become a thought leader. As with SEO, it takes time, patience, and hard work to build your credibility and win the trust of your community. 

Stick with these four items as you’re carving your path: 

  • Clarify your area of expertise: Be specific when sharing what your expertise is. The more specific it is, the easier you can build your brand and gain a following.
  • Create consistent content: Share your expertise via blog posts, podcasts, or videos. Identify industry blogs or sites you can become a regular contributor on to build your credibility.
  • Work with influencers and mentors: A thought leader does not hold all the answers. They take the time to speak with others to gain a deeper understanding of a given topic and a unique perspective.
  • Know your audience: Connecting with your audience is key to succeeding as a thought leader. People change, and this includes your audience. Therefore, continuously check in with your buyer personas and assess if and how they are changing.

Recommended Resources for Thought Leadership

18. Offer Freebies/Samples

Ninety-three percent of U.S. consumers believe discounts and offers are important factors in their purchasing decisions. Moreover, more than half search for coupons online before making an online purchase. 

Committing to a new product and service is a big decision. Always present discounts and special offers, whether you sell hand cream, provide roof repair services, or offer SaaS. 

How to Offer Freebies/Samples

Provide 2-for-1 deals, free samples, or referral programs to your customers. Give them the opportunity to get to know your services. Make committing to a new brand a pleasant experience. 

Recommended Resources for Offering Freebies/Samples

19. Get Ready for Voice Search

40.2 percent of the U.S. population uses voice search every day. If you haven’t already updated your SEO strategy to accommodate voice search, you gotta do it now. 

Siri and Alexa have made quite the impact on SEO. Voice search results load in about 4.6 seconds; this is 52 percent faster than the average web page load time. 

How to Get Ready for Voice Search

Optimize your site for voice search by: 

  • Aiming for featured snippets: 40.7 percent of all voice search answers are from featured snippets. With tools like Answer the Public, you can find common questions relevant to your keywords. Use these key questions as H2s in your content and answer them directly below in the body. Make answers direct, concise, and short.
  • Earn quality backlinks: The average domain rating (DR) of voice search is 76.8. This is high. To boost your DR, you have to circle back and fine-tune your SEO, content marketing, CRO, etc. 

Recommended Resources for Voice Search

20. Prepare for Change

In 2018, Google reported over 3,000 updates to its search algorithm. In 2020, 44 percent of marketers faced mid-year budget cuts due to COVID-19. In 2021, Google rolled out its Core Web Vitals update. 

What will be the new normal tomorrow? Will you be ready to move swiftly with the changes our world throws at us? 

How to Prepare for Change

Brainstorm and create agile marketing strategies in 2023. This means considering: 

  • Activity/performance: If organic methods have been bringing in the most returns compared to paid search, you need to move your money accordingly. 
  • Changes in the marketplace: Your competitors can change their strategies and products at any time. You should be ready to shift your plans, too, to stay competitive and relevant to customers. 
  • Shifts in the digital economy: With the numerous Google algorithm updates and tech inventions we have yet to see, your business needs to adapt to these transitions. One small change can affect your rankings and how people see you online. 

Recommended Resources for Navigating Change

Amplify Your Digital Marketing Strategy in 2023 with Big Leap

If you need more guidance on how to boost your revenue, reach out to the Big Leap team. With over a decade of experience in the digital marketing world, our team has helped numerous businesses safeguard their long-term viability. Whatever success looks like for your business in 2023, we’re here to be your trusted partner.

Janet Lee
Janet Lee
Content Writer at Big Leap
Janet is a content writer at Big Leap. When she's not writing, you can find her reading, listening to a podcast, and exploring Utah's great outdoors.
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