Digital Marketing is the marketplace where you grow your business in the online world. The relationship has changed over the years through its means, yet the essence remains the same – there’s an exchange happening.
The consumer comes to them now, the problem is no longer how to get the customer into the shop alone, but also creating a loyal and trusting relationship to secure sales.
What is important are the various techniques that develop due to digital marketing strategies, including: search engine optimization (also known as SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), digital advertising, social marketing, email marketing, website design and development, content development, e-commerce and mobile marketing.The conversation develops depending on the developments of technology.
Digital marketing is also known as ‘online marketing’ or ‘web marketing’, and it was a term that started to be put into use in the early ‘90s.
Brands have to nowadays resort to some form of digital marketing, they have to have a virtual presence to remain relative. Being an online presence implies that they are available for their customer 24/7, which makes one globally available.
Another benefit is the conversation between the customer and the seller, the latter wants feedback from the consumer.
Platforms such as Instagram now give companies the opportunity to interact and create a loyal following – it’s not about the one-time purchase, it’s about engaging them enough to do so again. Of course this means that you might have to deal with some negative feedback and comments too, but that is to be expected – you can’t please everyone and you’re not meant to. Keep your target audience in mind and you should be able to move along swiftly.
Do encourage client conversation and make use of bloggers to advertise your products through blogs, websites, videos, you name it.
Knowing your target audience will allow you to create a clearer image of your own brand identity and purpose, or mission. This is essential – if you don’t know who you are then how are your clients supposed to?
Your audience connects to your brand awareness and optimization. Internet allows for ease of access; people use various platforms depending on the message they are trying to convey, so choose your platform with purpose – Facebook, YouTube, various forums or if you want to stick to the basics of website and email marketing.
However, all the while you need to think of where your audience lives – does the majority of your audience live on Facebook or Instagram?
This is why you need to see how you are going to define your target audience before you start out looking at which platforms you need to use.
With so many platforms out there, you’re spoilt for choice and you have the advantage of creating a competitive outlet for yourself. You do not need to be on every platform, in reality is best to just pick a handful or less and really work to be relevant, innovative and consistent on just those.
Posting regularly and engaging your audience is key. If they didn’t want to hear from you then they wouldn’t be following you.
Your audience connects to your brand awareness and optimization. Internet allows for ease of access; people use various platforms depending on the message they are trying to convey, so choose your platform with purpose – Facebook, YouTube, various forums or if you want to stick to the basics of website and email marketing.
However, all the while you need to think of where your audience lives – does the majority of your audience live on Facebook or Instagram? This is why you need to see how you are going to define your target audience before you start out looking at which platforms you need to use.
With so many platforms out there, you’re spoilt for choice and you have the advantage of creating a competitive outlet for yourself. You do not need to be on every platform, in reality is best to just pick a handful or less and really work to be relevant, innovative and consistent on just those.
Posting regularly and engaging your audience is key. If they didn’t want to hear from you then they wouldn’t be following you.
It’s important to create your niche area through digital marketing to enable you to analyse behavioural patterns that might arise from your visitors online. Creating a presence on social media will create a link between the new and existing consumers. You want to be able to convert interested clients to consumers. This creates a successive loop or a chain.
Another advantage to digital is that it will turn out to be relatively cheap if it is done properly. Compared to traditional means of marketing such as printing, using different platforms will turn out to be cheaper and possibly more effective to your end goal, this is mainly due to the fact that a lot of social media is free and the external service costs, advertising costs, processing and interface design costs will decrease.
Effectiveness of Digital Marketing
Everything depends on quality and moderation. You want to achieve the balance between the right amount of push to create a good amount of pull from your following. Give them a hint, a teaser, and then keep them hanging…slightly anyway.
If you feed them too much information they will become uninterested. This is also an opportunity for you to create a space for them to come in and comment. This gap in information will be filled if you work in this way, making it more interactive also makes it more interesting for your customers. Burberry, for example, has created a platform which asks its clients to post a photo of them in their iconic trench coats.
Content Marketing
This is the bit where you have to give your audience what they want, with a certain method to the way you do so. This is the way you make yourself creatively more relevant.
Email marketing strategies are also very useful, and this implies that you have a website that is up-to-date. Over the past few years email marketing has evolved and boomed, so it might be a good idea to brush up on the essentials of email marketing.
So, what’s the fuss about email marketing?
The point of it is to attract, then nurture and then convert (this is where you put up offers and convert to sales) your sign-ups to become actual customers. You might have attracted their attention on-site or through your website so now it’s important to keep these loyal followers hooked. It’s not always about the sales or your product promotion – it’s about keeping that connection alive.
And how about that newsletter? This is dwindling slightly, so make it as personal and brief as you can if you want to retain this element. Think about how your customer is probably opening and looking forward to it whilst they are on the way to work if they’re using public transport or first thing at work. Make them smile!
Different marketing tools will establish a sense of professionalism and exclusivity too. Include videos to engage people to stay on your site, even if they are snippets.
Developments and Digital Strategies
As we mentioned before, technology is constantly evolving. These are some things that you should look out for:
• Segmentation
Focus has been placed on segmentation with digital marketing to be able to target specific markets. This is for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer sectors.
• Influencer marketing
Relevant nodes are identified within related communities and are known as influencers. It is possible to reach influencers on social media by making use of paid ads, such as Facebook Advertising or Google Adwords. You could also opt to use the sophisticated sCRM (social customer relationship management) software, like SAP C4C, Microsoft Dynamics, Sage CRM and Salesforce CRM.
Remarketing plays a major role in the digital marketing plan. This allows you to publish targeted ads in front of an interest group as they would have previously visited the site for particular products or services.
Important Techniques of Digital Marketing
Important Techniques of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing involves advertising, social marketing, website design and development, content development and mobile marketing.
Digital Advertising
Marketing and advertising are meshed, so you have to be aware of how to create strategic ads on various media channels, as well as pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.
You will also need to touch up on your search engine optimization/marketing (SEO/SEM); digital business analytics and digital project management. When it comes to digital marketing strategies, SEO is all about increasing visibility.
In brief:
– SEO/SEM tools and optimization
– digital business analytics
– digital project management
– graphic design
– pay-per-click analytics
Social Media Marketing
You have to be engaged and engaging – your customers are feeding off your enthusiasm, motivation and drive. Your posts can’t be random and occasional if you want them to make a difference. Understanding analytics and managing PPC campaigns are a must, then the main job is to strategize and manage social media posts.
In brief:
– social media management
– digital business analytics
– content strategy
– creative direction
Website Design & Development
Your website is your visage – it’s your first impression. This is the place your customer will choose to stay with your brand or not. This is dependent on various factors. You have to consider how user-friendly your site is and how informative and interactive it is. How enjoyable and easy is your site and brand experience?
In brief:
– UX design
– front-end development
– web development
– consumer and behavioural analytics
– product management
Content Development
This might take a bit of practice, yet once you’re happy with your tone of voice and you’re clear about the message you want to convey then you should be good to go.
You might also find it helpful to understand how to develop consumable content which has nothing to do with your social media; think about writing up and collecting reports.
If you’re writing content for your website, it’s important that you write SEO optimised content with the right keywords and follow proper SEO procedure procedures, such as implementing the right headers (H2s, H3s, etc.).
You might need to do a little research about how you can write good SEO content to set you on the right track, but after you understand the basics, you will pretty much be good to go.
In brief:
– content management
– SEO/SEM tools and optimization
– digital project management
– content creation and management
– web traffic analytics
Mobile Marketing
Mobile is usually the medium used to go through much of the social media content throughout the day. This is why you might need to adapt your strategies to mobile usability. Patterns come in this part too, see whether what you’re providing on your site matches your customer behaviour and needs depending on their searches, the time they most frequently access your site, and the like. But at the very least, your website needs to be mobile friendly – you can no longer get away with a desktop view on mobiles.
In brief:
– mobile design and development
– e-commerce analytics
– web traffic analytics
This is quite a bulk to think about, and this fact explains why you have individual experts dealing with each sector.
Recognising what digital marketing and strategies can do for you is essential to grow and learn as a company. It’s very much about customizing marketing to your needs and personalizing it – see what’s out there and what you need to work with your chosen sector and then build your digital presence from there.