6 Tips To Consider When Focusing On Digital Marketing
1. Know The Reason You Want To Focus On Digital Marketing
The reason for focusing on digital marketing may be to simply increase the visibility of your business on search engines. It could be to increase sales, leads, or social media traffic.
The reason you want to focus on online marketing is important because it will dictate how you go about creating that presence.
When you know why you are focusing on digital marketing, it becomes easier to decide where you want to spend your time and money so that your efforts are worthwhile.
You want to avoid getting distracted by goals you can’t achieve or tasks that will not move you closer to your primary goals.
To create a successful digital marketing strategy, begin with a clear idea of what your goals are and then focus on the activities that will help reach those goals. This requires planning and some basic digital marketing planning skills.
Webfx has examples of digital marketing goals and they are:
- Build brand awareness
- Rank higher in search results
- Increase website traffic
- Establish authority in your industry
- Boost brand engagement
- Generate qualified leads
- Convert users
- Increase revenue
- Improve customer lifetime value (CLV)
- Make smarter business decisions with marketing data
2. Identify Your Target Market
The easiest way to identify your target market is to ask yourself the following questions:
- Who is my target audience?
- Who are my customers?
- What are their interests?
- What other products or services do they buy?
- What are their hobbies and passions?
- What other websites do they visit or ads do they respond to?
- Where do they live, work, play and shop?
- Where else do they spend their time on the internet?
- When can I reach them with a message?
- When is a good time for me to contact them in person, by telephone, in writing or over the internet?
- When will they be most receptive to my message or ad?
- What’s in it for them if they buy from me?
- What is the benefit of using my product or service versus someone else’s?
- How can I demonstrate that benefit in an ad or marketing piece?
Once you have an answer to these questions you will want to look into your current and past business and marketing plan and think about the following:
The level of competition. The larger the market share held by your competitors, the harder it is to get noticed and sell your product or service. Think about who holds the most market share in your target market and how you could beat them in any areas where they excel. What makes you stand out?
Available resources. How much money do you have available for marketing? How much time are you prepared to put into building relationships with customers? Identify how much money you have available for marketing expenses, such as printing flyers, hiring staff to promote your business, conducting surveys to find out what people want or need, or buying advertising space.
3. Be Consistent With The Message
An individual product, a single ad, or even a marketing campaign can’t stand on its own. You need to tie everything together in order for your brand to have a consistent identity. Think of it this way: If you were going to show someone a single movie, but they could choose from any film ever made, it would be a tall order to choose just one. The same holds true for your brand. Consumers don’t have the time to learn about every facet of your business, but they will be able to pick up on inconsistencies and lack of focus if you don’t build a strong foundation that flows into all aspects of your business.
Brand consistency is often tied to the impression that customers get when they interact with you, whether it’s in person or through traditional or social media channels. You want them to feel like there is only one single source for your product or service, and that source is you. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use outside vendors; in fact, most experts say that outsourcing some of your services actually help build brand consistency by keeping your company focused on what you do best.
Having a consistent message can be difficult when you are already trying to balance work, life and other activities. We would recommend that you hire a content writer to help you maintain a consistent message to your audience.
4. Develop A Targeted Digital Marketing Plan
Developing a digital marketing plan requires you to answer important questions like who are your customers, how will your digital marketing strategy attract them, what platforms will you use to reach them, and what digital tools will you use. We have covered a few of these already but it is important to answer as many questions as you can in your digital marketing plan. Digital marketing has become more advanced in recent years. It can be used to promote almost anything these days. It’s important to know that not every customer is the same, so your digital marketing plan should focus on reaching your target customer.
The first step is to determine what type of business you have because this will help you determine what type of platform will best suit you. For example, if you have a brick-and-mortar store, it might be good for you to invest in local search engine optimization since your potential customers are likely searching for businesses near them. If you own an online store, it might be better for you to invest in pay-per-click advertising since most of your potential customers are searching online.
The best digital marketing plan will include:
- A strong foundation for your digital marketing
- An outline of your strategy
- A timeline for the implementation of the plan
- Personal involvement from key leaders of the organization
- The ability to make changes to the plan as you go along and measure the success.
5. Develop A Plan To Measure Success
Before we get into the details, let’s start with a general overview of how to measure your digital marketing success.
Use a variety of sources – You should examine multiple sources for data and information about your online marketing campaign. This will give you a more complete view of what is happening and where you stand with your campaign.
Measure continuously – Instead of waiting until the end to evaluate how your online marketing strategy is performing, you should perform regular assessments. The sooner you can identify areas that need improvement or additional support, the better.
Look beyond traffic – Traffic is important, but it does not always provide an accurate measurement of success. Track things such as revenue and conversions to get a better idea of your progress.
Look at both qualitative and quantitative data – By combining quantitative data with qualitative data, you can gain a complete picture of how your online marketing campaign is performing. You can then use this information to make adjustments as needed to improve results.
These tools will help you measure your success. There are some very helpful tools that can give you insight into how well your digital marketing is performing.
Google Analytics – Search Console – Google Adwords – Twitter Analytics – Facebook Insights – Linkedin Analytics – Pinterest Analytics – Bing Webmaster Tools – Yahoo Webmaster Tools
Another great tool to take advantage of is social selling tools. These tools allow you to sell your products on social medias to you can have a greater reach of your brand and products.
6. Learn From Your Successes And Failures
Learning from your successes and failures is the only way to improve as a marketer. In fact, learning from your mistakes can be one of the most valuable takeaways from any campaign. The first thing you should do after a campaign is over is look at what worked and what didn’t – and why. There are a few factors you need to consider:
- Did I choose the right type of strategy?
- Was my targeting correct?
- Was I able to reach the right audience?
- What was my offer? Was it compelling enough?
- What went wrong with my landing page? Was it too long or hard to understand? Was it offering too much information? Was it clear what people needed to do next?
- Was I able to track conversions properly? If not, how could I have done this better?
