Digital marketing is a vital part of any business that wants to succeed in the electronic and technological age we live in. Regardless of how big a business is, it can take advantage of adopting various digital marketing strategies. There are countless benefits to employing not one, but many strategies, least of all a bigger online awareness of the business, and cost-effectiveness as opposed to traditional marketing approaches.
Modern technology relies on an efficient marketing plan to help make decisions about the future and solve problems. Here are ten essential digital marketing strategies that any business should consider adopting this year.
Table of Contents
Blogging
Blogging can be a great way to form a relationship with customers. The main three pillars to any digital marketing strategy are: the customer’s journey, how they access that platform, and what they see when they get there. Customers want to be engaged and posting relevant blogs onto a business’s website can do just that. The best types of blogs are ones that pertain to the business but that are also more personal. They can be fun and interactive or even informative, but blogs should be regular. People can get attached to a business with the right blogging content, and even vlogging has become popular. This is video blogging where a business records the content, rather than posting written articles.
This aspect of digital marketing helps to drive more traffic to the website and can be posted to various social media platforms. The content that a business creates can increase conversations between customers and even provide valuable feedback to the business. Blogging is highly effective in creating a brand personality and increasing awareness of that business by posting content that attracts new customers and keeps others returning.
Email Marketing
Emails are still one of the most popular ways for businesses and customers to communicate. There are about 4 million email accounts worldwide, so almost everyone has a personal and business email, which shows just how common it is. Digital marketers know that email is an effective form of engaging customers regularly. Emails can be an efficient means of sending constant information and communication, but it has to be relevant content that the client wants to receive. The most annoying thing about email is receiving constant spam that can hide important emails. Sometimes companies bombard customers with numerous unrelated emails every week, which is just a way to turn people away from the business. When a customer becomes annoyed, they will go somewhere else.
It’s important to have a subscribe and unsubscribe option for clients that wish to no longer receive content. If a business does its email marketing correctly, people will choose to stay subscribed to remain up to date with the latest the company has to offer. Email marketing should be used to retain customers and source new ones, but it needs to target a specific audience. Digital marketing allows a business to decide what type of marketing is sent to different demographics of clients so that the content is geared specifically to a group of people most likely to purchase the product or service.
Social Media
Almost every person on the planet has a social media account to stay connected to friends and family. It’s such a major part of our lives that social media marketing is one of the biggest strategies all businesses utilize. Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are some of the main social media accounts that businesses have. To make the most of social media marketing, a business should have as many social media accounts as there are available. Some customers use Instagram or Pinterest more than others because those are more visual platforms. This is ideal for digital marketing because customers don’t like to read long posts; instead, they like to get their information from images and videos.
A business can create a unique brand on social media that people associate with. There are more avenues for communication between customers and businesses on social media, and feedback can be instant and direct. There should be a team of employees managing digital marketing with social media to stay on top of any messages, but also to make sure that enough content is being posted daily. Posts can get lost in the feed, so it’s important to ensure that numerous pieces of content are being created and posted constantly.
Employ Data Analyst
With digital marketing, a business needs to understand how to attract customers through online media. This requires data analysis to extract information from the people that use the product or service to understand their purchasing behavior and habits. Digital marketing can be integrated with any website or social media account to track every process that happens with the business’s online platforms. Employing a data analyst is the best option to make decisions based on factual electronic information that is easy to understand. A data analyst will be able to tell a business which website pages get more traction than another, whether clients of a certain demographic order their products or services, and what digital marketing strategies are working the best.
Data analysts are highly skilled in understanding thousands of lines of data to advise on solutions to any problem. They have gained relevant experience by earning a qualification in the correct field. You can achieve an online masters in data analytics with Emerson College if you wish to work as a data analyst in the field of digital marketing.
Influencers
Influencing is a relatively new form of marketing that businesses employ because certain individuals have a large following of fans that hang on their every word. They subscribe to influencers’ social media accounts to follow their daily lives. Influencers make most of their money by partnering with a company to promote their brand and increase their online presence. They advocate for the business by either reviewing their products and services or creating promotional material on their side to attract customers.
Influencers are taking overtaking the marketing industry, and the biggest influencers are celebrities with a large fanbase. To get the most out of this digital marketing strategy, a business should partner with an influencer whose followers can associate with the business. For example, hiring an influencer who reviews video games would be ideal for a game developer or console provider company. The influencer then promotes the business in exchange for merchandise or financial incentive.
Automation
Automation in digital marketing relates to the passive forms of communication that engage customers constantly without much input from the business. It’s a massive job to create regular content and promotional material, as well as social media and email marketing. Automation can help to send out newsletters every week or promote the company with consistent email content. Marketing automation refers to any software that manages tasks like follow-up emails or posting social media content at regular intervals. Digital marketing allows a business to gather relevant information on users and customers and then to organize the marketing that is sent to specific groups of people.
A business could have multiple target audiences, all that choose different products and services that can be taken advantage of. People of a certain age will be sent content relevant to them at specific times of the week or month. Digital marketing could be automated to send gender-related marketing to only a select group of males or females, and even specified based on age and geographical location.
Affiliate Marketing
This form of digital marketing is similar to referral programs where companies hire external businesses and people to promote their products or service for a commission-based fee. A major pro for affiliate marketing is that the majority of the promotional material is managed externally by the person or company. It takes a lot of the heavy lifting away and can save costs on a digital marketing strategy. An affiliate marketer will be responsible for maintaining the brand’s image and marketing them in a positive light.
With affiliate marketing, a business can focus on other areas to increase revenue and improve customer service, while the hired person or company manages all content and processes for sending out promotional material. This includes working with websites to load ads onto pages that when clicked by a customer, generates income for both the affiliate marketer and the business.
Optimization of Search Engines
Every business wants a website that will be at the top of Google or Bing’s list when a client searches for products or services related to them. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. It’s the process of optimizing a website that when phrases or certain keywords are searched, the company is recommended. The goal of SEO as a digital marketing strategy is to direct more traffic to a website in the hopes of increasing sales by awareness.
Companies that utilize SEO could be the number one recommendation when a client searches for anything online that is associated with the business. It could be the one company that they have never heard of that offers fantastic customer service and affordably priced items. SEO helps to push a business’s name to get more attraction from people who didn’t know of them before. It’s the ideal way to secure new business, and if an organization employs Google Analytics, for example, it can be used to identify just how many people frequent the website or social media pages. This kind of information can help with other digital marketing strategies to understand what approaches are more effective.
Viral Videos
Content goes viral globally because it’s either extremely funny or something unique and out-of-the-box. It takes just one very good viral video for a company to get its name out in the market and increase the business’s awareness. Social media is all about communication and keeping up to date. Any video on a social media page has the potential to go viral in just a few hours. People have become notorious for the crazy stuff they do, or the amazing work done. The right content can push any company onto the map.
Even if the video is only viral for a week or so, this can generate a major influx of revenue because it will attract people to the business’s website. A business can also become known for posting viral videos regularly, and it’s the one proven way to get the proper recognition a business needs. It can be used to become an overnight success where other digital marketing strategies haven’t worked in the past.
Pay-Per-Click
Have you ever seen sponsored ads on the side of a search engine when you look for sunglasses or something else? This is PPC digital marketing that allows businesses to post ads anytime a specific phrase or word is searched. Every time an interested customer clicks on the ad, the business earns money. It’s a great digital marketing strategy that has a high return on investment (ROI) ratio because the business only pays for the ad when someone clicks on it – no clicks means no fees to fork out. This can be a cost-effective solution, particularly for small start-up businesses that don’t have a large digital marketing budget.
PPC is the best way to turn searches into profitable sales, but it needs to generate relevant campaigns that will get the most clicks per ad. A hundred clicks on one PPC ad is better than five out of 20 posted, for example. Because PPC isn’t a major investment, if it’s not working after a short period, the business hasn’t lost anything, and they can employ another digital marketing strategy. It’s an effective short-term plan to gauge how well this type of digital marketing is operating online.
Having a digital marketing strategy in place is crucial for any business to succeed in the online world. Technology has provided countless avenues for businesses to take advantage of different digital marketing techniques to attract customers, such as these 10 strategies. Digital marketing is also changing at such a rapid rate that businesses need to utilize as many different strategies as possible.