What is Digital Marketing?
Nowadays, almost everyone searches for products, services or businesses online. If they’re looking for a restaurant, they’ll check out reviews on Trip Advisor or Google My Business; if they’re looking for a lively place to go out in the evening, they’ll check out the social media of the bars and clubs nearby to see which place looks good.
The basic goal behind digital marketing is to make sure that when these people are searching for a business like yours on Google or a social media app, they find you as quickly as possible. This can be done through a variety of techniques that we’ll explore in this blog but make no mistake, companies that have the best visible presence online are the ones who thrive.
Social Media Marketing
The first area we’ll look at is Social Media Marketing. Nowadays, it seems that everyone and their dog has a social media profile on their favourite platform and spends a reasonable amount of time on it every day. On average, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram users are online for around half an hour daily, for example.
So how do we market on social media? There are quite a few different ways that you can market on a social media platform; the most direct option is to run a paid advertising campaign that is focused on your core demographic, alternatively, you could reach out to an influencer who is open to promoting your brand or business, or just build your brand slowly and organically through your posts and use of hashtags.
In any case, in the digital age, it is a wise decision for businesses to maximise their visibility online regardless of whether it’s a physical store, office or e-shop. If you want to remain competitive, you need to engage with your customer base and reach out to new ones too.
Google Ads Campaigns
The correct use of Google Ads is definitely the fastest way to appear at the top of the rankings of a Google search. Why is this important? Well, to put things into perspective, results on the second page of Google have an average CTR or click-through rate of just 1%; so 99 times out of 100, nobody bothers to click on them.
So, what makes a Google Ad campaign effective? A great Google Ad campaign is one that has a well thought out strategy, an appropriate budget for its scale and a clear, appealing message to potential customers/clients.
Establish a Purpose
The strategy behind a Google Ad campaign starts with considering the desired outcome; what is it that we want to achieve? The purpose could be to raise awareness of your business, it could be to make direct conversions or lead people to your online store, it could be to announce a sale or promotion, or be a retargeting ad.
Once the purpose has been established, the next area to consider is the target audience. Which demographic does your typical customer fit into? If you run a company that makes mobility scooters for older people, it would more than likely be a waste of time and your advertising budget to target 18-25 year-olds, for example. Knowing who your typical customer is and targeting others like them is key.
Find the Target Audience
Another fundamental part of your strategy is the keywords that you choose to target. Google Ads are triggered by certain criteria being met, with the words that people search for being one of the most important. The way Google works, there’s more competition to show for the more desired search terms, so targeting them will cost you a lot more per click than less popular keywords. One trick here is to find the phrases that describe your business perfectly but your competitors haven’t picked up on yet; if you’re successful, people will find you and it won’t cost you a lot – the best of both worlds!
Budget
Speaking of outlay, the budget you choose to work with is also very important. There is often a “sweet spot” to be found where you’ll find your best return on investment (ROI) – it’s not financially prudent or necessary to just spend as much as possible. There is often a degree of trial and error here in the beginning, but the best thing to do is to scale up incrementally and find the point where your budget has reached its optimum level.
Campaign Types
Finally, you should decide which kind of ads you want to run. There are three common types of Google Ads; Shopping Ads, Search Ads and Display Network Ads. You can read more about them here.
Email Marketing
Many people think that due to the rise of social media, Email Marketing is a relic of the past; however, this is fundamentally not the case. Email Marketing is still an incredibly effective way of converting sales and it still accounts for around 20% of all transactions made online.
The beauty of Email Marketing is found in its precision. If you have a list of customer emails or ones gleaned from a voluntary sign-up, you have an audience that you know has either bought from you before or is interested in doing so. Having your target mark there and ready to go saves you a lot of time and guesswork.
Another benefit of Email Marketing is that your only real expense is having an account on one of the many email campaign platforms available. Unlike Google Ads, you do not require an additional budget for bidding on keywords. Additionally, you can set up automated flows for a variety of purposes; for example, you can automatically email customers who abandoned a cart at checkout or set one up to ask a customer for a review if they hadn’t left one after a certain period of time. There are many different possibilities here.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the cornerstones of a successful digital marketing strategy and should very much be in your plans. You might be wondering ‘What is SEO?’ and the answer to that is simple; it is optimizing your website’s content to ensure that you appear as high up the organic rankings as possible when people search for a business offering products or services like yours.
It needs to be said that SEO is a longer-term strategy for your business than, for example, a Google Ads campaign. Ad campaigns are a shortcut to appearing at the top of a Google search as a sponsored result but maintaining that position will prove to be costly over the course of months or years. Well-implemented SEO means that your website will appear at the top of the organic search results without any additional cost; this is because Google’s algorithm has decided that your website is the best response to what the user has searched for.
A good digital marketing agency has the responsibility to keep up to date with all the changes that Google makes to its algorithm. This way, they understand the way web pages are ranked and can make the necessary changes as and when they are required.
Outreach Marketing
The final area that we’ll look at in this blog is Outreach Marketing. The idea behind this form of Digital Marketing concerns building relationships and making connections with people who can help you reach a wider audience and thus grow your business.
Nowadays, one of the most common ways of doing this is to approach influencers who operate in the same sector as your business in order to do a sponsored collaboration that will appear on Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, Facebook or another platform. This could take the form of a series of posts, reels, videos or a combination of the three, whereby the influencer promotes your product or business to their followers.
One of the main benefits of creating this kind of sponsored content is that technically it’s not an ‘advert’. When people know they’re being advertised to, they will have their guard up and view it with a greater degree of cynicism than they would when they hear about a product or business’ benefits from someone they know and trust. Additionally, these videos are not subject to things like ad-blockers.
While influencers can be a useful tool, especially for attracting younger customers, the barrier to entry for a lot of companies is the initial cost. Influencers with a lot of followers do not come cheap and even those with a modest fanbase of say 10k-100k followers tend to charge between $100-$500 per post. With that said, the return on investment (ROI) is typically $5.78 for every $1 spent, showing that those who can pay to play tend to do well.
Your Next Steps
All in all, digital marketing has many faces and forms and what’s best for your company depends on a myriad of factors. If you’re looking to grow your business this way, it’s best to consult a professional agency to understand how best to make your business stand out from the crowd.