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Many people think that digital marketing is something complex, but the truth is it is simply marketing. It is through digital marketing that businesses are able to get their messages to their target audience.
Digital marketing like any other business strategy works by a set of rules. Firstly, for a brand, it is about making the right offer at the right time and in the right place. In this time and age, most of the prospective customers are online. They spend their free time online to keep abreast with current social media trends, news and feed as well as find solutions to their problems.
Through digital marketing, businesses are visible in these channels so that their target audience and customers can see them, learn more about the business and make inquiries on their products and services.
What is Digital Marketing?
If you are new to the digital marketing field, you may feel as though mastering the art of online marketing is somewhat overwhelming. This is something understandable, but the truth is there are so many tactics that you can learn.
These tactics play a critical role in creating a robust foundation for your business by attracting the right prospects, nurturing a long-lasting relationship and providing clients with attractive packages and offers that they can appreciate and respond to.
Simply put, digital marketing is what you do online to attract attention, drive traffic to your website and convince people to opt-in, and make a purchase. Some of the common mistakes that marketers make with digital marketing include failure to try traffic strategies.
As compared to offline marketing, digital marketing keeps evolving constantly. A good Digital Marketing Agency is able to keep itself familiar with the changes in knowledge that affects the industry.
As this medium of marketing is dynamic and takes into account a number of variables, it is always a good idea to opt for an agency that is on top of their game, affordable, honest, and trustworthy.
Read more: The Ultimate Guide to Internet Marketing
How to Drive Traffic to your Website?
One of the things that people think is that they just need to post their products and they will sell themselves! Creating viral content is only half the battle won. The key is to use digital channels to increase visibility, traction, and results.
You may have developed some great content that inspires people and should prompt them to want to share and drive traffic to your website, but that is not enough. Digital marketing is all about promoting your products and services to the ideal customer.
There are so many strategies available that one can use to drive traffic to their website. The truth is, it is very easy for marketers to get sucked into the digital marketing realm with a ‘guru’ out there offering ‘interventions’ on how you can make money.
Get off that bandwagon! Instead of chasing the next big thing, why not take time to analyze what your goals are so that you narrow down your strategies to those that actually match your brand. This way, you will concentrate your time and efforts in driving traffic where it is practical and really works.
What is the Digital Conversion Funnel?
This brings me to the Digital Conversion Funnel, something that is important when it comes to digital marketing. It is important for us to understand the overall process involved in digital marketing channels.
First, digital marketing should have at its aim, acquiring target users and then funneling them through sales and conversions, a process referred to as a funnel.
The first thing is for any business to acquire prospective clients, then converting them into customers and working hard to retain them. This model is universal and is applicable to any business.
Unlike the traditional marketing process that is more focused on acquiring new customers, digital marketing, on the contrary, is more focused on the entire conversion process. This means that, once you have new leads, it is important that you keep marketing your products for you to convert more clients and upsell more and more products.
Now that we understand how to effectively convert and retain target customers, the other important thing is for us to learn some of the strategies that we can employ for a successful digital marketing campaign. Some of these strategies include-
- Email Marketing
- Content Marketing
- SEO Services Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Pay-Per-Clicks (PPCs)
- Lead Generation Campaigns
Email Marketing:
Marketers swear by this to be the lifeblood of any business. An email marketing strategy is at the center of every successful digital marketing campaign. However, you may be thinking ‘what is email marketing?’
Email marketing entails targeting potential consumers, leads, investors, and other categories of prospects through an email database.
The first thing for email marketing is having access to the email addresses of your prospective clients. This means that you have to target clients who have an actual interest in the products you are offering and then convince them to give you their contacts through opt-ins. This way, you get to grow your emailing list.
Once your clients are opt-in, you share with them valuable information about your products, services, and company. You demonstrate to them how your products will help them solve their problems and challenges.
The best way to do this is by showing off the best offers you have, giving them how-to tips for your products, educating them and introducing them to new products your company offers and how they compare to those form a competitor company.
The truth is, with email marketing, you have access to endless possibilities. If you are planning an email marketing strategy, you need to use certain tools that will help you in the process.
These tools can be email outreach tools that help you track emails, verify emails, plan drip campaigns, and follow up on deadlines. There are many email outreach tools on the market, but choosing the right one is necessary.
Content Marketing:
This is one of the most powerful traffic building strategies. From the very beginning, the internet has been all about sharing information. Today, with the rapid evolution in social media, this is becoming even truer.
This explains the reason why content marketing is gaining popularity every single year. The internet is replete with many advertisements aimed at getting access to informative, objective and relevant information that the target audience can identify with and trust.
It may be hard to accept but trust me; those brands that offer value without necessarily pushing their target audience to make purchases often are able to command trust and authority in the eyes of its customers.
For content marketing to be effective, influencer integration in your Content Marketing strategy is required. These are people who have the authority in the industry and have a trusted following. This means that, for your content to attract the attention of your target audience, you have to use authoritative people to position you as a leading option.
Content marketing all boils down to crafting high quality and valuable information that is informative and relevant to the target audience and ranks higher than that from your business competitors.
Creating good content cannot exist in isolation. It needs to be supported with proper keyword integration, social sharing on various platforms, and optimization of the website. The blog section of the website should be the brand’s warehouse of keywords, information, and credibility.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services:
SEO is probably one of the oldest and most efficient ways to develop the health of your website. This is also a way in which, you can drive traffic to your website. SEO Services help websites in organically ranking higher on search results. Here are visit now and get a free SEO analysis.
Getting and fixing the right SEO strategy for your website is essential. SEO is a technical method for optimizing your website and involves several detailed steps and strategies. These steps should take place over a period.
SEO services should comprise of three main sub-divisions- Off-Page SEO Services, ON-Page SEO Services, and Technical SEO Services. Whenever, you want to involve a Digital Marketing Agency for an SEO Service, ensure that all three facets take care of.
Several Digital Marketing companies in the market often manipulate and confuse brands when it comes to SEO. It is not about the big technical jargons that are important. Often the small and basic things help SEO.
It is also to be kept in mind that ROIs from an effective SEO strategy is a long-term investment, and does not immediately start showing results. However, if you are able to define your objectives, and maintain a good SEO team, you will see an exponential increase in your traffic soon enough.
Adhering to SEO Best Practices for a substantial time will establish a good foundation for your brand. If you study up and research on some metrics like DA, Traffic, Backlinks, you will soon be able to understand the basics.
A robust and effective SEO strategy helps improve visibility and rankings, but also requires persistent and nonstop investment. The investment is on two fronts- time and energy but happily, no money!
Social Media Marketing:
This simply refers to the process through which brands attract the attention of prospective clients and drives traffic by means of social media platforms. This strategy has become one of the fastest and most effective ways for brands to drive traffic without necessarily incurring any monetary expenses.
According to statistics, over 65% of adults in the US are active on social media platforms. This simply means that the probability of reaching your customer base over social media is high.
Using social media, you can directly connect with your target audience and establish a robust social community on the niche and brand you are marketing. Digital marketing through social media plays a central role in-
- Establishing an interactive community on your niche of interest
- Driving traffic to your website
- Gathering customer feedback and responses
- Validating novel promotions and ideas for new products
- Directly taking care of customer services and support
- Identifying prospective customer
Pay Per Click Campaigns (PPCs):
There are organic ways to increase traffic to your website or generate leads, and then there are paid promotion campaigns. PPCs or pay-per-click is a channel of digital marketing through which brands can get their website positioned in sponsored areas of search engines.
If the ad/website/lead gen page link is clicked the publisher (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram) charges a fee or commission from the brand or the brand’s agency. In other words, the more traffic that your website generates through PPCs, the more money you will have to pay the advertisers.
PPCs are quite popular among brands and digital agencies as it results in quicker ROIs. Invest money on Google, and get immediate returns. However, this model is appropriate for certain things, and not so appropriate for others.
If you are looking to build your reputation, establish trust and credibility in the market and amongst consumers, it is better to opt-out of PPCs at least in the initial period. A properly PPC campaign can help yield rich dividends especially if the PPC value is low, but the end conversion is high.
Lead Generation through Digital Marketing:
With each passing day, customers are becoming more and more educated on certain products and topics of interest. This is because they have access to information that they use to make an informed decision before they can commit to making a purchase.
In the same manner, many businesses are taking the time to establish leads first and then nurturing them into conversions to make sales rather than attempting to make immediate sales.
You may be wondering, but who is a lead? Well, a lead is simply a website visitor that leaves with their contact information with the hope that they will contact you in the future. Some of the common leads are those who sign up, opt-in or start a free trial for your products among other ways.
Let us not confuse leads with sales because leads do not generate income immediately. This is the reason why they go through lead nurturing first before they finally become active customers.
Digital Marketing and Consumer Experiences:
There is a slight difference between online and offline marketing when it comes to customer conversions. An offline marketing strategy is not geared to educate or inform consumers. The attempt is to sell abrasively.
In comparison, an online digital marketing approach seeks to win over the prospective consumer by offering information. This is a better approach as it ends up building loyalty, trust, and credibility by providing advice and information that is useful.
There are many processes, which are important when it comes to forming the first point of contact with the consumer, to the process of making him a repeat consumer.
Customer Purchase Cycle:
This refers to the process by which clients make a purchase. During this process, there is only a small window for the client to make a decision when it comes to purchases. During the assessment phase, the chance of converting your target audience into potential customers is so slim unless your brand makes a lasting impression.
Capturing them as leads ensures that you hold on to their contact information and use that to continue building a relationship based on trust. With constant reminding of your brand, the clients will soon come to you and get to the point of making a purchase.
Customer Lifetime Value:
Did you know that existing clients are 5x highly likely to make a purchase as compared to new prospects? On the other hand, repeat clients are highly likely to make a purchase 67% more than new clients are.
This simply means that when you get a customer, their value is greater than that of the initial purchase. In the same manner, businesses that fully understand the customer’s lifetime value often invest more in securing new clients.
Finally, when it comes to digital marketing, we have to ensure that we retain customers. Based on the statistics we have mentioned above comparing existing and new customers, it is important to note that retaining customers and then retargeting them for expanding the customer base is key in establishing a successful business.
Client Satisfaction through Digital Marketing:
This is concerned with delivering to the client’s value for their money. If your clients are not satisfied, the truth is, nothing else really matters! Your first priority should always be to retain your clients, and the route is to deliver timely products and effective support.
Extension of Digital Marketing Services:
This is all about addressing customer problems and issues. This also offers them an additional opportunity to give you money. You may think of this as upselling, but this is offering them supplemental products and services among other things. If you try and extract money from your clients, you will lose them. The secret is to offer them value making it easy for them to choose to pay as much.
Advocacy of your Brand through Digital Marketing:
This is about converting regular clients into advocates for your brand. This is often effective through referral programs that aim at rewarding regulars for bringing in new customers. When customers are rewarded well, they are motivated to bring in friends and family when the rewards go away. Therefore, it is important that you set up small referral programs that offer bonuses to clients.
Do All Brands need Digital Marketing Services?
A common misconception regarding digital marketing is the viability of small brands using these solutions for their businesses. We would like to say that no matter what size is your brand, digital marketing is necessary for your brand.
For small brands, digital marketing is an absolute necessity as it helps them establish a level playing field. A big brand can spend on outdoor marketing and advertising budgets, but small brands cannot.
However, small brands can really make a difference through Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing. Through a creative social media strategy, small brands can grow monumentally without spending too much money.
Digital Marketing has helped democratize marketing and advertising in the 21st century and helped small brands and businesses incrementally. No matter what your requirement, the digital marketing array of services is so vast, that the requirement can fit in.
The challenge for small brands on digital is to work smartly and creatively. Selecting the right Digital or Creative Agency that is affordable and creative is necessary. If you are a small business start-up, you might want to opt for a digital start-up. It would help you in terms of prices, commitment, and shared values.
For small brands, the aim is to fix priorities and proceed accordingly. As budgets are an issue, you should always plan a phase-wise approach with your Digital Agency. For example, you can start with a social media presence. Follow it up with a Shopify-themed e-commerce/brand website. Start creating blogs, and slowly opt for paid promotions.
Starting slow will help you evaluate what is the right medium for your brand. How you should allocate monetary resources for digital services, and the ROIs you should expect. This involves detailed planning and crafty execution skills.
Final Thoughts on Digital Marketing:
Just like many forms of marketing, the main aim of digital marketing is to make a sale. However, the most important part of digital is to serve as a connection between a business and target audience.
It is challenging to have to sort through thousands of strategies unraveled by the digital marketing community. However, once you have understood the basics it is easier to visualize the bigger picture.
This way, you can make an informed choice on what strategy is suitable for the growth of your brand. With the help of this guide, it is much faster to maneuver your way to becoming a digital marketing expert.
Digital Marketing is an infinite domain of possibilities. With developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality, digital marketing is set to undergo another change. Google, Moz, Ahrefs and other benchmarks that provide metrics, and rank sites, are regularly updating their algorithms.
In other words, the learnings in the field of Digital Marketing for brands, agencies and digital marketing professionals never stop!
If you want detailed information with regard to any Digital Marketing strategy, hit us up in the comments section.
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