Best Digital Marketing Strategies
Digital marketing is important to a business’ success in today’s world of technology. It does not matter how large or small a company is, or what industry it belongs too. Online marketing is, by far, one of the best methods for growing a business, building brand awareness, and increasing revenue.
The trick to success has the best digital marketing strategies, but which strategies will work the best with your business? In the following article, we will go over the best strategies to help get you started.
What Are Digital Marketing Strategies?
Your digital marketing strategy will be a well laid out plan detailing the actions to take for achieving your goals. For instance, you may be trying to increase lead generation by 10% or conversion rates by 6%. Social media marketing, content marketing, and influencer partnerships are all examples of digital marketing strategies. Each of these can be used for driving traffic, growing leads, and building trust.
How Do Digital Marketing Strategies Help?
For a business to be successful today, it is important to incorporate digital marketing. Without laying out a plan, your business will not have a roadmap for success. However, when you have an idea of your goals, but the lack of experience in getting started, it can result in the failure of digital marketing campaigns. If you’re not confident in your marketing abilities, hiring a team of experts is well worth the investment.
Creating a Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Business
Are you trying to learn the process of creating an online marketing strategy? Follow these 8 steps to get started:
Define Branding
How do you want people to view your brand through the ad? Highlight your company’s strong points, consider the voice you want your brand to have. What are your value proposition and unique selling points (U.S.P.s)?
Create Buyer Personas
Decide who your target audience is by creating buyer personas. This includes the demographics, interests, and motivations behind your target audience decision making. What will drive people to purchase your product or services?
Build S.M.A.R.T. goals
S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely goals. By determining these areas, you’ll have a roadmap to reaching your goals. Consider both short-term and long-term goals.
Choosing Your Marketing Strategies
Not all online marketing strategies will work for each business. Determine which ones will provide the most advantage for your company and focus on those. By focusing on a few valuable strategies, you can fine-tune them.
Set a Budget
Begin creating a realistic budget for your campaigns by doing your research. As a reference, online marketing averages between $2,000 to $11,000. Your costs may be higher or lower, depending on your goals.
Brainstorming The Strategy
By planning out your advertising strategy, it will be easier to stick to each part. For example, decide on an ad budget for advertising, and a content calendar if you’re focusing on content marketing.
Campaign Launch
Once you have the online marketing plan worked out, it is time to launch your campaign across the marketing channels you are focusing on. Be sure they have the correct tracking setup—for instance, Google Analytics for your website.
Track Results
Finally, your campaign has gone live. Now you must monitor your campaign and track performance. Using tools such as Google Ads, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics will allow you to maximize your ROI
Top 7 Digital Marketing Strategies
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a popular digital marketing method used to increase organic traffic, engagement, and build relationships with consumers. It can also be used to help your company establish authority in your niche.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing helps to engage and increase consumers through various methods. Content may include infographics, blog posts, videos, informational posts, and more. The important part of content marketing is that it provides value and information to people.
Content marketing does NOT focus on sales pitches, upselling, cross-sells, etc. Content marketing is purely informational.
For example, if you have a website selling tires, you could write articles about how often to change your tires. You could also target keywords such as “how to maintain your tires.” While not transactional, it can help bring in more traffic and create trust and awareness for your company.
The important part of content marketing is to be both relevant and useful for your target audience. That means creating content that is high-quality and unique, so people want to share it with friends, family, and others.
The Goal of Content Marketing
The goal is to offer users useful information that people what to share. This, in turn, helps increase traffic, builds brand awareness, generates leads, and builds trust. When combined, these help increase sales conversion.
When combined with SEO, you can optimize your content to improve search rankings, further increasing visibility and traffic.
Why is Content Marketing Important?
Content marketing is one of the lowest costing digital marketing strategies to implement, and it can double conversion rates. It provides the ability to reach your target audience throughout the sales funnel, and it costs 62% less on average than other advertising methods.
Content increases lead generation by 54%.
Content marketing is a long-term process like SEO that can greatly increase lead generation and conversion. You can use it to target users throughout each stage of a sales funnel.
6 Out of 10 Users Prefer Useful Content
Users have become immune to online advertising because it is everywhere. People may choose to ignore ads and promotional efforts. However, if a user is searching for information that you can provide, their less likely to ignore you. In fact, 6 out of 10 users said they prefer businesses that provide useful content.
SEO
SEO is a very important factor and is a strong part of successful content marketing. That is why you should not overlook including it in your digital marketing strategies.
Why is SEO Important?
SEO helps improve your website ranking in search engines by letting it know you provide relevant information to a user’s search terms. The more relevant and useful search engines consider your site to be, the higher it ranks in the search results.
Search engines use keywords and phrases to determine relevance. The more keywords you can rank for, the better chance you have of ranking near the top, or possibly taking the #1 organic search result.
The Goal of SEO
The overall goal is to increase organic traffic to your website from people searching for related keywords, therefore a targeted audience. Organic traffic is commonly from users that were already searching or interested in the product or service you are providing.
For example, a coffee shop could use SEO to target the keywords “fresh roasted coffee beans” and “average caffeine in coffee.” Each having a different purpose, the first being transactional, while the other is more informational.
Both of the above examples are related to what the coffee shop sells, and targets users searching with similar interests.
Why Include SEO?
If you look at the competition, SEO is everywhere. From the search engine results, meta description, to the landing page, and deep into the sales funnel. The reason SEO is possibly the most popular marketing strategy is that a search engine is the number one place people search for things, followed by Amazon.
Today, over 80% of users use search engines to find information about a product, service, brand, anything they are curious about. After searching, half of those consumers discover the new company. With proper SEO marketing, your business could be the one they find.
To further express the importance of SEO, let us look at the following statistics:
Over 30% of users click the first search result
That is 3 out of 10 users that will click on the first result for their search term. The reason is, Google and other search engines have become so tuned into the content and SEO efforts they can usually determine which website, out of millions, provides the most trusted and related information.
Under 10% of users click on the second page.
If you’re not at least ranking on the first page of a search, you are likely going unseen by 9 out of 10 users. Considering so many searches end with the first result, the further down the page you’re located, the less visible you.
For these reasons, it is important that you implement a strong SEO strategy to be successful. If you’re unsure where to start, you can invest in hiring an experienced SEO agency. It will help increase the potential consumers attracted to your product or service.
PPC
PPC can be used for getting to the top of search results more immediately compared to the long-term process of SEO.
Why is PPC Important?
PPC stands for Pay Per Click, an advertising method that allows you to only pay when users click on your ad. It’s an auction-style system where you place bids for the position you want your ad shown.
If your bid beats the competition, your ad will be shown in the ad position for users searching your keyword. When they click the ad, you get charged. This helps eliminate costs for ad space or risking increased costs for impressions that do not convert.
Let’s say you sell freshly roasted coffee beans, you want people to find and purchase your product. By targeting people searching “fresh roasted coffee,” you’re creating a transactional style PPC ad. Your goal is to get a Return on Investment (ROI), so transactional keywords are best for paid advertising.
PPC advertising can include more than just search engines, it can be through social media, WeChat, or other platforms.
The Goal of PPC
The goal of PPC advertising is to attract users to do transactional searches, which means they are looking for a product or service they’re ready to buy. After reaching your landing page, they are more likely to follow the Call To Action (C.T.A.) and convert to a customer or new lead.
Why Include PPC?
PPC is the leading paid marketing method used, with one of the highest ROI It is a useful approach for various startup businesses just beginning their marketing or looking for a fast boost in traffic. It helps get you on the top of searches, giving a more immediate boost while you work on ranking higher with SEO.
PPC Marketing Increases ROI
On average, Google processes more than 60,000 searches every second! That’s over 2 trillion annual searches. Because of being the leader in search engines, Google is usually the first platform companies use for PPC campaigns. They often start out with their entire PPC budget spent on Google Ads; from there, they branch out to other platforms.
Transactional Searches Have 50% Higher Purchase Rates
If you use a PPC campaign to target transactional type searches, the users are already looking and, in most cases, ready to buy what they are looking for. If they click on your ad, it already increased your chance of converting by 50%.
PPC and SEO are often used in combination, even by companies that already have an established ranking in search results. By using PPC to target related transactional keywords and SEO to target informational and transactional keywords, you have a higher chance of taking over the competition in searches.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing can help business growth in numerous ways through increasing conversions and brand awareness.
What Is Social Media Marketing?
A business may choose to run an ad campaign through social media platforms to target a certain demographic based on interests, behavior, location, age, gender, etc. Social media marketing can focus on a single platform, or a combination, depending on your target audience and goal.
The following are some of the most popular social platforms for marketing and advertising:
The Goal of Social Media Marketing
The purpose of social media marketing is to help improve your brand awareness, but it can increase conversions and reputation too. Typically, a social media marketing campaign will combine promotional and informational content with helping to engage and interact with users.
Why Include Social Media Marketing?
Incorporating social media into your business strategy provides you an advantage over the competition. Studies show less than 30% of businesses are using social media marketing. Considering users spend over 25% of their time browsing social media platforms, it’s a great opportunity.
Customer Service Through Social Media
Over 65% of consumers have reported they prefer using social media to reach out to a company’s customer service team. Consumers tend to prefer a company that offers multiple ways of contacting them to make it easier for their lifestyle.
Social Media Influences Purchase Behavior
Word of mouth remains a strong factor, no matter which industry you are in. Social media has allowed for things to travel faster through word of mouth, via sharing content, purchases, and more. If you are not active on social media, you are missing out on the opportunity to generate conversations.
If consumers cannot easily find you on social media, you may be missing out on a large portion of your targeted audience. In fact, simply having a business page can help increase consumer trust, especially by having many positive reviews and satisfied customers.
Email Marketing
Email marketing strategies can be a low-cost and budget-friendly option. It can be used to get new customers while retaining existing ones.
What Is Email Marketing?
Email marketing works by sending emails out, such as newsletters, coupons, company news, etc. It helps build better brand awareness and encourages customers to order gain. One key aspect of email marketing is monitoring and analyzing results.
You will have to constantly change and improve your email marketing campaign to continue growing. Similar to content marketing, you want to provide useful and valuable information to your email list.
Avoid spamming your email list, providing low-quality content. This can cause users to leave your subscription list. Although they may not currently need your product or services, by keeping them subscribers, you have the opportunity to remind them of your brand and what you have to offer.
For example, a company that sells and installs swimming pools can use email marketing to remind homeowners of their company throughout the year, while building a relationship through valuable information. While people may not need pool services during winter months, they are more likely to stay subscribed if they receive useful and helpful information—for instance, Tips for Winterizing Your Pool.
By retaining and growing a list of subscribers and creating authority in the pool industry, they are more likely to choose the pool company come spring for their installation and maintenance needs.
Email marketing allows businesses to segment the audience into smaller groups. This can help personalize each campaign, so subscribers feel like individuals, rather than part of a generalized list. For instance, you could build a campaign around consumers that scheduled pool maintenance or another focusing on those that bought the supplies to maintain the pool themselves.
The Goal of Email Marketing
The goal of email marketing is to regularly remind subscribers of your existence. This helps your company remain on their mind when the time comes they need a product or service you offer. You can provide useful information that teaches them something, promotional content such as coupons, or let them know about upcoming events.
Why Is Email Marketing Important?
Over 80% of companies have begun using email marketing because of the amazing ROI it offers. In addition to the ROI there are other benefits associated with email marketing.
On average, Email Marketing has a 4400% ROI
With an ROI averaging 4400%, it is easy to see why so many companies include it in their digital marketing strategy. In addition to bringing a massive return, in the long-term, it raises brand awareness and retaining rates.
Creates Increases Sales by 50% On Average
When your goal is to increase revenue and grow your list of leads, email marketing should be part of your strategy. It is a low cost, provides many benefits, and has a high ROI The important thing to remember is to segment your audience, personalize each campaign and have a quality email design.
Segmenting your email list can have a large impact as well, increasing revenue more than 700% on average.
Video Marketing
Video marketing can help grow your business, reach a larger audience, and increase sales using different channels than content marketing can.
What Is Video Marketing?
Video marketing allows companies to provide useful information through video, rather than content. A new audience can be targeted through video, increasing your reach, and bringing in new valuable leads. The following are some forms of video marketing:
- Behind the scenes
- Announcements
- How to / instructional
- Events
The type of video you create should reflect your business and target audience, so it helps expand brand awareness. Similar to email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing, you want to provide value so people will stay interested, resulting in future conversions.
The Goal of Video Marketing
The goal of video marketing is to create brand awareness, enhance conversions, and increase revenue. To reach these goals, businesses create high-quality videos that provide value for their customers while appealing to user behaviors and interests.
Studies have shown adults spend, on average, 2 to 5 hours per day watching videos. Additionally, video marketing has been shown to increase brand awareness by up to 140%. Video content can include behind the scenes, announcements, or teach the user something new.
Why Is Video Marketing Important?
When used in combination with email marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing, it can provide a full range reach to your target audience. Being able to expand your audience reach is just as important as it could bring in new customers that were not using the other platforms.
Video Influences 90% of Purchase Decisions
Video marketing can be used to influence purchase decisions. In fact, research has shown that 90% of surveyed users were influenced to buy a product or service based on videos. For example, a video showing how to use a product can influence people to choose your product if it fits in their lifestyle.
Videos Help Increase Search Result Ranking
It has been shown that adding a video to your content marketing strategy and SEO efforts can have a major impact on ranking on the first page. That is because videos complement the content, which search engines favor, and that can result in higher-value traffic and lead generation.
Voice SEO
The latest addition to online marketing is Voice Search Optimization (Voice SEO). By incorporating this marketing method, you can further optimize websites for voice search. This assists you in taking the featured position in Google search results.
What does voice have to do with taking the featured spot?
With most people using mobile devices for searching, it is common to have voice assistants searching for your content, such as Amazon Echo or Siri. These programs use the content provided in the featured position for voice searches.
For example, if a person asks, “how do I stop my dog from chewing?”, the voice assistant will respond with the information from the featured spot.
Search queries work differently depending on the type of search conducted, making it important for businesses to include voice search optimization to maximize marketing efforts. It’s more important for local businesses to focus on voice SEO, such as fast-food chains, small shops, etc.
The Goal of Voice SEO
Taking the featured snippet spot is the goal of voice SEO by using relevant keywords for your target audience. By taking over this spot – often referred to as position zero – you can drastically increase visibility. This can result in much more organic traffic to your website, more foot traffic to your physical location, and increased sales.
Why Is Voice SEO Important?
More devices are being purchased with voice assistance features, from smartphones to speakers. Voice search has quickly become popular and is on course for becoming the most popular method of searching. Therefore, making it a significant part of marketing strategies.
50% Of Adults Use Voice Search Every Day
Researchers say half of the adults currently use voice search every day. Additionally, they expect this to continue increasing over the next several years, eventually becoming the most popular search method. By including voice SEO now, websites will be ranking for the featured spot as the popularity of voice search increases.
Over 50% of Voice-Activated Speakers Desire Brand Content
Similar to email marketing, the owners of voice-activated speakers have shown a desire for brand content, including promotions. They like knowing when new products and sales coming up. This is another reason voice SEO is an important area to focus on now before your competition does.
Advantages of Using a Digital Marketing Strategy
When implementing online marketing strategies, businesses can benefit in various ways. The following are four of the more important advantages.
Brand Awareness
Businesses that use online marketing can get noticed by a much wider audience. From implementing a single marketing method to a combination of email marketing, content marketing, SEO, or voice SEO, it will result in more people knowing about the business and what it offers.
When learning about a brand, many users want to know more about company culture and what the brand stands for. Making this information easy to get helps set a business apart from their competition. When people know about your brand and are regularly informed, they will be more likely to purchase from you in the future.
Increasing Web Traffic
One of the main goals of all online marketing strategies is to increase website traffic. When people find your website through marketing efforts, it is usually because they were looking for the product, service, or information you were marketing.
Traffic generated from marketing strategies will be of higher value because they are already interested in what you’re offering. This helps increase other benefits of digital marketing, including sales conversions and revenue.
The simple truth is, the more people that you get visiting your website, whether it be from SEO, newsletters, PPC ads, or other methods, every visitor is an opportunity to make a sale or inform the visitor more about your brand. This results in more leads, conversions, and ultimately higher sales
Increasing Storefront Traffic
Offline businesses with a physical location can benefit from online marketing strategies as well. In this situation, the goal is probably to increase customers in the physical location. Marketing strategies such as local SEO and voice SEO can help more people learn about your business, and find your location. Content marketing and video marketing can be used to influence the purchase decisions of potential customers.
Also, geofencing advertising is another option to get local customers. While not mentioned in this list, it is a newer marketing strategy that allows businesses to reach a very specific target audience based on their location.
Even if you’re unsure how to begin an online marketing campaign for a brick-and-mortar store, it would be worth consulting with a marketing agency. Over 80% of consumers research and search for products online before deciding to make the purchase.
Improving Conversions and Revenue
Finally, the largest goal and most significant of any business, increasing conversion and revenue. This is the end goal of all marketing strategies. All of the marketing strategies target an audience with an interest in what you offer.
Millions of people are searching for products, services, and information every second of the day. By incorporating online marketing strategies to your business, you can greatly increase brand awareness, conversions, engagement, and get more traffic to your online or physical store.
If you’re unsure where to start or do not have an experienced team in-house, you can hire an experienced marketing agency.
