Digital marketing encapsulates every activity you perform online so that customers can find, and interact with your brand. A digital marketing strategy is how you select, prepare, execute, and measure those activities to achieve specific goals and objectives.
The shift in focus from traditional advertising channels to digital media is well and truly complete. So much so, that global spend on digital ads is set to reach over $375 billion by 2021.
Digital marketing strategies have also become far more sophisticated, with new types of strategies and ways to advertise online becoming available all the time.
It can feel a little overwhelming to try and benchmark your digital marketing efforts in this storm of spending and strategies. To get yourself back on track, go back to basics with these eight simple digital marketing tips.
1. Conduct Competitor Research And Analysis
When it comes to marketing, it’s easier than most business functions to track competitors’ activity, spending, and success.
Competitive analysis frameworks like performing a SWOT analysis or using Porter’s Five Forces can help you to begin competitor research. For more in-depth analysis, you can go straight to the tools you already use for deploying your own marketing strategy.
Social Media Analysis
Most social media platforms will allow you to track a certain amount of competitors. Facebook provides one of the most in-depth views of competitor activity on the platform.
Simply take the following steps:
- Login to your Facebook Business profile and navigate to the “Insights” tab.
- Scroll down to the section marked “Pages to Watch.”
- Click “Add Pages” and search the names of your competitors to add them to the list.
- You’ll now be able to see their total page likes, number of new followers per week, the number of times they post per week, and their engagement rate.
SEO Results
Information about the performance of your competitors’ websites is freely accessible online. All you need are the right tools to do it.
If you use tools like SEMRush or Moz, you’ll be able to find built-in competitor tracking tools. Free tools like The Hoth allow you to see what keywords your competitors are being found for and how much traffic those SEO results are generating for them.
2. Pay Attention To Google My Business Listings
When users enter key search terms in Google, business profiles often appear. For example, searching “restaurants in London” brings up the following results:
Searching for the first result “Amrutha Lounge”, shows us the full Google business profile for that restaurant.
Take full control over the information that appears by claiming your business on Google My Business. Having a fully optimized business listing on Google dramatically increases your chances of being found by potential customers.
You can also use it to post specific offers and promotions. Users are also more likely to trust a business that has a complete Google business listing with reviews and accurate information.
3. Email Marketing
Email still endures as one of the most effective channels in digital marketing. Here are some quick tips for optimizing your email marketing strategy:
#Sign up to your competitors’ lists
Out of ideas? Sign up to the email lists of competitors and other companies within your industry that have similar target audiences to you. Once their emails start rolling into your inbox, you may find some inspiration for the tone, style, and content for your own campaigns.
#Optimize your subject line
A high-performing email starts with the subject line. The most successful subject lines are short, catchy, use emojis, and are personalized.
#Personalize your emails
Speaking of personalization, you should personalize the content of your email as well. Personalization can be as simple as using the person’s first name instead of a generic greeting. Brands also use drip campaigns to make sure the content is relevant.
#Continuously test
What works for one company or industry may not work for another. It’s imperative that you continually test different elements of your emails. Testing elements like subject line, copy, calls-to-action, and design will help to optimize your emails for the highest click-through rates.
4. Decide When To Use Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is not something that you should jump into feet first without proper planning and preparation. Some core marketing pillars need to be in place first, including:
#1.Marketing Strategy
Paid digital advertising should be incorporated as part of an overall marketing strategy with clearly defined goals and objectives. Using the S.M.A.R.T goals framework can help you understand where paid advertising fits into your marketing strategy.
#2. Keyword Research & SEO
Conduct in-depth research on the keywords that you want your brand, products, and services to be found under in search engine results. Proper keyword research is vital to achieving a high ROI.
#3. Landing Pages
Paid advertising activities should be highly streamlined to get the most out of the time and budget you invest. Companies with more than forty landing pages earn twelve times the amount of leads than brands with only 1-5 landing pages. Creating highly targeted campaigns with specific landing pages is a must for running effective paid advertising campaigns.
#4. Analytics
Analytics allows you to analyze and optimize your campaigns to get the most out of your budget. You should ensure your Google Analytics is set up correctly and understand the PPC benchmarks against which your results should be measured.
5. Optimize Your Website For All The Major Search Engines
Search Engine Optimization is a crucial element of your digital marketing strategy. Organic search results earn much higher click-through rates than paid results. Creating a high domain authority level through organic means also supports the results of your paid campaigns.
However, SEO strategies are long-term, and it can take a lot longer to produce results. It’s also one of the most time-consuming aspects of digital marketing as it involves a lot of content production and website optimization. But the efforts are well worth the results: marketing strategies that prioritize blogging and other SEO activities are thirteen times more likely to achieve a positive ROI.
For brands that don’t have the internal resources to dedicate the time needed for effective SEO strategies, hiring professionals such as this digital marketing company in Coimbatore can help to jumpstart your SEO results.
6. Avoid Trying To Do Too Many Things At Once
Spreading your resources too thin will result in ineffective tactics that don’t produce results. It’s much better to streamline your activities and choose those that will have a positive ROI for your brand.
You may have to spend some time testing various digital marketing activities to discover what works best for your brand. However, some elements that you should take into account are:
#Your audience
You should only be concentrating your efforts on the digital marketing channels where you can be sure of reaching your target audience.
#Your competitors
Research your competitors’ activities and results to see what is working (or not working) for them.
#Your resources
There is no point in being overly ambitious with your digital marketing strategy if you cannot execute it accordingly. Before deciding on channels to invest in, analyze the amount of time and budget needed and what you can realistically achieve.
#Your goals & objectives
Do you want to generate leads? Or build brand awareness? Clearly defined goals and objectives will help you understand which digital marketing channels will actively contribute to your digital marketing success.
7. Enhance Your User Experience
User Experience (UX) comprises every interaction the user has with your website, from the first click-through right down to conversion. When it comes to digital marketing, here are a few key UX elements that can make or break your conversion rate:
#1. Call to Action (CTA)
Test your calls-to-action in multiple ways, including placement, copy, color, and animation.
#2. Navigation
Being able to navigate your website quickly is vital to ensuring a user will convert. This includes a clear and easily accessible menu and a call-to-action at every point.
#3. Website Speed
Website speed is one of the most critical factors in conversion rates. If it takes more than three seconds for your web page to load, more than half of visitors will simply abandon it and look elsewhere.
8. Put More Effort Into Influencer Marketing
SEO, paid advertising, social media, and email marketing are all effective digital marketing strategies. But they are usually more long-term strategies for gently guiding users down the path to purchase.
One strategy that has the power to create immediate purchases amongst your target audience is influencer marketing. 87% of surveyed consumers said that they were inspired to purchase based on what they saw from an influencer.
When considering an influencer strategy:
- Choose influencers that align correctly with your brand in terms of the target audience
- Choose trustworthy influencers
- Consider micro-influencers over more prominent names – they can often curate more trust with your target audience
- Decide on a specific KPI (for example, a tagged link, promo codes, or social engagement rates)
- Engage in long term relationships with a few key influencers rather than one-off campaigns
To sum it all up…
No matter what digital marketing activities you choose to partake in, the most important thing is building a comprehensive strategy. With highly targeted goals in place, you can choose the channels and activities that will have the most positive impact and highest ROI. Which of these tips will you start with?
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