You likely know that digital marketing is critical for modern businesses. In fact, 75% of marketers increased their company’s credibility and trust through digital marketing work. But how do you leverage these benefits for your business if you don’t have a strong marketing background?
A key component to succeeding in marketing in a digital world is taking a holistic approach. There is no singular strategy that will put you in front of the competition. Instead, you need to diversify your approach. A healthy mix of strategies can create a comprehensive plan. Here are five key digital marketing strategies to use for your business.
Strategy #1: Networking & Building Relationships
One of the most overlooked strategies for marketing in the digital age is strengthening relationships through networking. Networking involves growing and strengthening relationships. The goal is to have a wide array of contacts that you can use to synergize partnerships. If this is a new idea for your marketing efforts, you’ll be pleased to know there are many opportunities for networking.
Networking Avenues
One question many people have is where to start their networking efforts. There are a wide variety of places to engage in this:
- Conferences
- Workshops
- Seminars
- Online forums
- Influencers you follow
- Local business organizations, such as BNI
Finding the opportunities to engage with the broader community can help you begin to grow your network.
Benefits
There are a number of benefits to engaging in networking. One that yields the most direct returns on time invested is referrals. Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool and people will trust the opinions of others.
Networking also provides an opportunity for partnerships and collaborative opportunities. This can involve joining with another business on a promotion or tapping into someone else’s expertise in order to help your customers. For example, maybe you run a lawncare business and partner with a botanist at a local greenhouse to offer a free class about spring flowers.
Tips
There are many things you can do to strengthen your networking skills. Here are some tips:
- Be genuine. Let people get to know you, not who you think they want to meet.
- Provide something of value. By helping others organically, you’ll see more success.
- Follow-up periodically to help build a relationship over time.
Strategy #2: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
You’ve probably heard of SEO even if you may not exactly understand it. SEO involves designing digital content in a manner where it is most likely to be shown by search engines to people who are looking for it. This is absolutely critical for getting your digital marketing content in front of your intended audience of potential customers.
On-page vs. Off-page
SEO can be classified as either on-page or off-page. On-page SEO involves things you do directly on your webpage to strengthen your SEO performance. These things typically include optimizing keywords and meta tags, using relevant images, strengthening page speed, and other aspects of content marketing.
Off-page SEO is something people are not necessarily familiar with. It tends to involve things that drive awareness and traffic to your page from elsewhere. This typically includes having guest bloggers, social media strategies, and link building.
Benefits
There are tons of benefits to leveraging SEO for your digital marketing efforts. The biggest is increased visibility. Improving SEO means you show up closer to the top of search results, bringing your business to more potential consumers. By doing this, you increase organic traffic to your website, providing returns with only an investment of time.
Another important benefit of SEO is that it helps to build your authority. As you strengthen your website for SEO performance, it will also help establish you as an authority in your area of practice. Plus, showing up closer to the top of search engines will add an extra degree of authority.
Tips
While there are many ways to strengthen SEO, here are some top tips:
- Engage in keyword research so you can target keywords that will make the most impact.
- Work on creating quality content that people will find valuable.
- Focus on being educational instead of sales-focused with content.
- Optimize your website structure so that people can navigate more easily.
Strategy #3: Invest in Professional Website Copywriting
Another important strategy involves the quality of the content on your website. While you may be great at operating your business, that doesn’t mean you are a professional writer. For many people, copywriting can be frustrating or just not the best use of their time.
However, having high quality website copy is important for digital marketing. Your audience will be more likely to find your website engaging while quality copy can also strengthen your overall brand. Thus, investing in professional copywriting can greatly improve your marketing efforts.
Copywriting Role in User Experience & Conversion
Copywriting plays an important role in many ways. First, strong copywriting will pair with SEO to strengthen your performance in search engines. It can also strengthen your branding by aligning tone with how you wish your business to be perceived.
However, one of the biggest reasons to hire professional copywriting is that it can bring you more conversions. When you provide visitors with the information they want in an engaging manner, you keep them on your website, increasing the probability of purchases.
Benefits
Weaving professional copywriting into your digital marketing efforts will bring a myriad of benefits. By engaging your visitors, you will strengthen your conversion rates. This means the simple act of providing professional content will lead to increased sales.
Additionally, professional copywriting helps to ensure that your website will present a professional and polished image to visitors. This is particularly important for small businesses as it can play a huge role in establishing credibility.
Tips
Below are some key tips for strengthening your copywriting:
- Hire skilled and experienced copywriters to improve content and free up your time.
- Ensure that you keep the audience in mind when writing.
- Choose a consistent voice (informative, personal, conversational, etc.) and stick with it.
Strategy #4: Email Marketing
When you think about marketing in the digital age, you may not immediately think of email marketing. After all, there are a lot of other venues for marketing in the age of social media. However, email marketing is still an area where your business can see success and an important component of a holistic strategy.
Why It Remains a Powerful Tool
Email marketing remains a powerful tool for a number of reasons. It helps you strengthen existing relationships with customers. It can also be used to segment and micro-target customers with offers that appeal specifically to them. It is also a relatively easy method to monitor success. These strengths mean email marketing meshes well with other digital marketing methods.
Types of Emails
When engaging in email marketing, consider the various types of emails that you may want to leverage:
- Newsletters – provide updates about your business and useful information.
- Promotions – notify customers about sales or featured items.
- Welcome series – thank customers for signing up for your emails with onboarding information.
- Cart abandonment – let customers know they left items in their virtual shopping cart.
Benefits
One of the biggest benefits of email marketing is that it provides a direct link to your customers enabling you to get your message right in front of them. In a busy, competitive environment, this is a huge plus. Of course, email marketing also provides a big ROI!
Another strength of this tactic is the ability to create highly personalized emails that can foster greater engagement. Segmenting your audience into various categories, prior purchasing histories, demographics, or psychographics is a great way to work to segment.
Tips
Below are some great things to consider when approaching email marketing:
- Segment you audience in order to make emails as personable and applicable as possible.
- Spend time to create engaging subject lines that increase the odds the email is read.
- Monitor metrics to help determine the effectiveness of different email campaigns.
Strategy #5: Social Media Marketing
The social mediaSocial Media Marketing landscape is rapidly evolving and becoming more dynamic than ever before. Thus, it is no surprise that social media is an essential component of a holistic digital marketing strategy. Every business should maintain a presence on at least two social media platforms in order to maximize their outreach.
Platforms
You already know that there are many options when it comes to social media platforms. Below are some of the ones to consider and the rationale.
- Facebook – largest network; mainly older users; works well with multiple media types.
- Instagram – caters to a younger audience; highly visual with photos and videos.
- Twitter – very effective for interacting with customers and other brands.
- LinkedIn – professional network; potentially a good choice for businesses in professional services.
- TikTok – fast growing social network; video based; mainly younger generations as users.
Benefits
Social media marketing brings many benefits. One of the most important is brand awareness. Establishing strong social media channels can promote outreach and help more people discover your brand that would not have otherwise.
Additionally, a great aspect of social media marketing is the ability for instant engagement with customers and the general public. This can help you get real time feedback and be more proactive. Social media is also a great way to build a community around your business, something that will keep customers coming back for years to come.
Tips
When thinking about social media marketing, keep these tips in mind:
- Having quality posts is much more important than the quantity of posts. Posts should promote engagement.
- Take some time to learn about each platform’s algorithms to take advantage of them and get content in front of more people.
- Interactive content is key when it comes to social networks. This will strengthen engagement.
The Synergy of Integrated Digital Marketing
Ultimately, digital marketing is all about synergy. When implemented together, these various strategies combine for a holistic effect that provides greater results than using only one or two individually. Ensure that your strategies work together instead of using them as silos. In other words, you should have a similar focus and tone across the various strategies. The goal is to promote a cohesive brand experience that flows from one platform to another.
It is important for businesses to periodically review their digital marketing strategies. This allows for adaptation when needed. The digital marketing landscape changes rapidly. Staying up to date is important for continuing to succeed and get the biggest ROI for your efforts!