If you think long and hard about it, digital marketing is simply just marketing enabled for the technologically dependent. Given how accessible the internet is today, the number of people going online is continually increasing. Because of that, businesses and entrepreneurs have found a way to tap into these growing numbers, giving birth to digital marketing strategy.
While traditional marketing still exists on print ads and other means of physical marketing, digital marketing allows brands to reach their audience online in real-time, which creates countless possibilities and opportunities to increase growth and boost sales.
Influence and Capture Your Audience
With technology aiding your marketing efforts, businesses must understand that not all tools provided can benefit your business. In fact, you must tailor fit your digital marketing strategy to your brand to maximise and yield the best results.
The majority of the purchasing decisions are made online. So your brand needs to establish an attractive online presence to utilise this decision-making factor better, and potentially convert your audience into paying customers.
Your digital marketing strategy doesn’t stop with a successful sale. You have to make sure that your customers keep coming back, making customer and client retention a crucial element in your overall strategy.
Where Should I Start?
Your customers and target audience are already online, so it won’t be so hard to gather them on a particular platform. What you need to do now is simply capture their attention and spark interest. Make them wonder why you’re worth giving a second look. Because once you’ve established that, your audience will scour the internet to find more information about you. This is where your social media accounts and website come in. Building an online presence legitimises your business, and if people see that you don’t have one, they might immediately conclude your whole brand is a ruse.
Digital Marketing Strategy in the 21st Century
A common challenge in bringing your brand into the 21st Century is drawing up a solid marketing plan that is flexible enough to keep up with the constantly changing trends. A smart way to start when building your digital marketing strategy is to go straight to the root of your business and understand your opportunities, your strategy, and your action plan to implement those strategies.
A digital marketing strategy tailor-fit for your brand’s goals will give your business a better sense of direction and allow you to target your audience correctly. It will also help you define your online customer value proposition and differentiate how you can engage new customers and encourage existing customers to stay loyal.
To utilise and create a solid digital marketing strategy, you must understand the different tools and techniques that can help you bring your brand a digital edge.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
In simpler terms, SEO is basically having your website optimised to rank higher on a search engine. Through extensive keyword research and relevant and quality content, this process of digitally marketing your site can increase the amount of organic traffic you get.
This can prove to be a valuable aspect on your digital marketing strategy considering how this can generate more traffic to your website thus, capturing more leads through your call to actions and other engaging content on your website. The higher your rank is on the search engine, the more visible you are to your general audience.
You can think of your website as the virtual guide to your brand – a business card of some sort only, it can engage and interact with your audience in real-time.
Content Marketing
Content is an essential aspect when you’re building your digital marketing strategy. From blog posts to social media content, to video content. These pieces of digital material help promote and generate awareness for your brand. An engaging blog with pleasing graphics and valuable content, that educates or entertains the reader will build the trust and relationship your brand has with the reader. Plus, if your content is relatable enough, chances are your audience is likely to share this on their personal social media accounts and thus create a free awareness.
Social Media Marketing
In the age where social media runs the better part of our lives, your digital marketing strategy must hit all the right places. With social media marketing, you have the opportunity to target your audience’s personal space and establish a mutual connection – hit certain emotions that could push them to interact with your brand’s online persona. This again comes back to contextual content. Think about why users are using the particular platform you’re creating content for, and always focus on creating something that will provide value.
Email Marketing
The job doesn’t stop the minute someone visits the website. No – you want to make sure you capture the user’s information by offering something in return. This can be in the form of a newsletter, free downloads, discounts etc. Once you have a users email, you’re able to give them that extra nudge to finally convert them into paying and loyal customers. There are a lot of email marketing platforms such as Hubspot, Active Campaign, Mailchimp, and so many more that can help you maximise the leads captured from your website and social media ad campaigns.
These contacts can be placed on a nurture sequence wherein you send them regular and relevant emails which increases interaction. Always note to make your email content about the customer and never about your business. You have to show them how your brand can cater to their needs and problems. Often, you don’t convert a lead on your first couple of interactions. Sometimes, it will take a 10th phone call, so a regularity in your communication with your leads is crucial when designing your digital and email marketing strategy.
Social Media Advertising
Social media ads are also something you can consider when creating your digital marketing strategy. Have you ever wondered how the ads you find on Facebook seem to hit a particular interest? With paid advertising, you can use this user behaviour algorithm and reach a lot more of your target audience. Because of audience targeting, the people who see your ad are more likely to show an interest and click on them, which could then redirect them to wherever you choose, for example, a landing page or lead form.
There are so many ways you can design your digital marketing strategy in order to reach more of your target audience. All you have to do is understand how your audience behaves on different online channels. Is your audience more likely to click on videos over text ads? Are they on specific social platforms to connect or simply just to kill time?
Find What Works
Digital marketing can work for practically any business, regardless of size and industry. However, not every company has the time and resources to cover each area of marketing adequately. In-depth market research is vital to create a strategy that works for your business. Digital marketing as a whole should allow you to engage and interact with your prospects, and through this, you can capture data on what your audience truly wants.
The digital landscape allows you to reach a vast demographic that traditional marketing fails to offer. Because everything is online, you now can shape and influence the behaviour of your target markets buying power and the willingness to spend on your brand. Basically, it gives you a closer look at what the demands genuinely are. With the right digital marketing strategy, your brand will be able to attract highly targeted traffic which delivers only the best and sustainable results.
