Smart Digital Marketing Strategies
See also: Marketing SkillsEstablishing a solid digital marketing strategy is an important step in any business plan. Ecommerce runs on digital marketing, especially today when over 90% of customers use the internet to find what they need.
To increase reach, visibility, and conversions, you should make sure to establish clear, measurable goals. No matter how good your product or service is, it won’t do any good if no one knows about it. Therefore developing an organized, multifaceted marketing strategy is important to any successful business.
Here are a few smart digital marketing strategies to get you started.
1. Invest in PPC
Pay per click (PPC) marketing is a form of paid advertising in which advertising companies bid on keywords.
When potential customers search for those keywords, your ad will ideally be the first thing they see above the organic search results. The most relevant PPC advertising platform is GoogleAds, which allows businesses to create ads that appear on their search engines.
The best part of PPC advertising is that you only pay for results, so it only costs you if a user decides to click on your advertisement. This is one of the best ways of making sure your advertising is shown to the demographics you want to reach.
If you want the best results when spending on PPC, define clear goals, use negative keywords, and always use A/B testing to see how you can improve and focus on high performing, optimized keywords. To delve deeper, consider using a detailed PPC optimisation checklist prepared by industry practitioners.
2. Use APIs
Although you may not recognize the acronym, you have undoubtedly interacted with APIs as a consumer.
API stands for application programming interface. The consumer internet experience is dictated by this important but somewhat intangible concept. It is usually the developers working to create the correct software and apps to make the customer experience a smoother one.
Essentially, APIs act as an information gateway, allowing businesses to share certain information while protecting what they don’t want to share. APIs let businesses embed maps on their websites, seamlessly process card payments, or run apps that compile information from multiple sources in one place like flight tracking or budgeting.
APIs also allow for quick social media logins and are the backbone of project manager programs like Slack or Microsoft teams that offer an easy way for businesses to share information and communicate internally.
3. Be Present on Social Media
Social media is an important opportunity to connect with new and loyal customers, share information, expand your reach and globally build your brand.
Refrain from using social media for generic posting. Be sure to cultivate a brand identity and remain consistent throughout all channels and share your business's values uniformly. Try to remain as personal as possible by going live, including interactive options, and providing behind the scenes exclusives to connect with your audience.
Diversifying content will boost engagement and yield higher conversion rates than plain text or repetitive content. You want to build a relationship with your customers based on trust and personability. Consumers want to feel good about their purchasing habits, so being active on social media gives them a reason to choose you over your competition.
4. Incorporate SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a step that cannot be overlooked.
About 80% of customers use search engines at some point in their quest for a new product or service. Barely anyone makes it to the second page of search results and over 25% click the first result they see. Based on this alone, you can see how important it is to get your site in front of the right customer as soon as possible and choose the best local marketing tool.
SEO is also about improving the users experience and interactions with your website. SEO is not a single step fix, it can be better described as a framework of best practices and processes. There are three areas of focus, technical, onsite and offsite.
Technical SEO ensures that search engines are able to crawl and index your business's site.
The rules that are applied to your site to support search engines are classified as on-site SEO.
The ways you can improve your blog or website rankings by promoting it is called off-site SEO.
5. Go Mobile
Almost 80% of customers using the internet also own a smartphone, therefore remaining mobile friendly is extremely valuable. Mobile marketing targets audiences on their smartphones, tablets and other portable devices, using a combination of email, social media, and in-app marketing. You can get creative and use software that turns emails into SMS messages to ensure your emails are being seen and not getting lost amongst the inbox clutter. These days, almost everything that can be done online can also be done on a mobile device.
Going mobile means more than having a functioning app. Try to incorporate mobile payment options and make sure your website is as mobile friendly as possible. Quality mobile marketing means remaining in touch with your audience and being able to produce mobile-friendly content while remaining adaptive. The biggest benefit to using mobile technology is the ability to increase your business's efficiency.
6. Establish Remarketing Campaigns
Unfortunately, not every ad click or page visit translates into a conversion. Creating a remarketing campaign simply means advertising directly back to people who have already interacted with your brand in some way. Perhaps they visited your blog, clicked through an email link, engaged on social media, or already made a purchase. Remarketing is an important tool when looking to increase conversion rates because those who have already come into contact with your brand in some capacity have a significantly higher chance of converting than completely new customers.
Most advertising tools offer remarketing options, so it is not all up to you to identify these segments. Not only is remarketing one of the cheaper options but it gives you the ability to be extremely granular in your targeting approach.
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Digital marketing strategies are not one size fits all and not every approach will yield an immediate success.
It’s important to set measurable and realistic goals for your business followed by an implementation strategy to achieve those goals over a set period of time. Get started setting up meaningful social media accounts, allocate funding to invest in targeted pay per click campaigns, develop APIs to improve your customer's experience and spend time setting up solid SEO so the right people can find your business.
About the Author
Nick Rojas combines 20 years of experience working with and consulting for small to medium business and a passion for journalism to help readers grow. He writes about technology, marketing, and social media for the aspiring entrepreneur.