Making Digital Marketing Work For You

We live in a digital world. In fact, if you aren’t online, then you can’t really expect to be found. Unless your word of mouth marketing is phenomenal – but that takes years, or even decades to build up.

Your business should take up space online. You need a website – your hub of information, your social media channels, and of course, online advertisements. But how do you maximize their impact? How can you make it work for you, while you work on your business?

Your digital marketing should be treated like a workhorse – they are the heavy lifters of your message. Let’s tuck into nine tasty ways that you can make your marketing work harder.

1. SEO

Wouldn’t be a marketing article without SEO. Search Engine Optimization is to make your website efficient. It means that with the right keywords, you will appear in search time after time.

Tweaking your SEO will mean that you can bump up the Google organic search results. It’s not a short term thing either. You would ideally work with a company that can advise and implement a strategy to push you towards that goal of 1st-page appearance.

You can’t manipulate Google’s SERPs, because they have an algorithm to prevent that. But you can maximize your own SEO and stay up to date with SEO changes and heck you can even make use of the Alex Skill “SEO Agency.” Pop over here for more information on that.

Related: How to Get Keywords (SEO)How to Get Keywords (SEO)

2. Content Marketing

One way that Google will know that your website or blog is relevant is regular and content. Panda, Hummingbird, and Penguin (Google Algorithms) have all pointed to the fact that content is the most important metric used.

You can produce pretty much any content that you want, but always keep your SEO in mind.

• Blogs
• Articles
• Videos
• Q&As;
• Webinars
• Social Media
• White Papers
• eBooks

These all count as content that you can work on. Always remember when you are creating content, it’s the good stuff that gets shared – and that tells Google it is relevant.

3. Social Media Marketing

Consider this as the conversation that never stops. And you have complete control over its creation and curation. SMM involves driving traffic from your social media channels to your website (or sales page).

You will be crafting a community, that won’t mind when you sling in those links to products. In fact, a captive audience will be more than happy to click the links.

The trick is that you shouldn’t always be selling. You should be providing information that is useful and keeping the conversation going. And in doing so, you will be seen as an expert in what you do.

This can be time-consuming because ideally, you will create content for every platform.

You are looking to be posting or communicating at least 5 times a day across all platforms. You probably think that sounds like a lot, but if you check out Hootsuite, Sprout, Planoly, Buffer and more – they will help you craft an intelligent posting schedule – and auto-post your content.

You then have access to the statistics and can use that to streamline your approach further.

4. SEM

Social Media Marketing and Search Engine Marketing are kinds of friends.

SEM is a comprehensive strategy that will drive traffic to your business, most often via paid methods.

Which is why it is also referred to as Paid Search Marketing (and it’s big business). It is complex, and there are a lot of options.

• PPC – Pay Per Click
• CPC – Cost Per Click
• CPM – Cost Per Thousand Impressions
• Display Advertising
• Search Retargeting
• Site Remarketing
• Paid Social Advertising
• Mobile Marketing

Are just a few. Then there will be specialists in those areas and some who work better on different platforms – Bing and Google being the most popular.

If you make a mistake while setting this up, you can quickly lose thousands of dollars/pounds/euros in minutes. So if you choose to see what might for you, then head to a specialist.

5. Digital Display Marketing

This is another friend of the SEM we mentioned earlier. You can use a range of display advertising formats. Text, banners, images, rich media, video ads, and interactive. These are eye-catching and usually, do very well.

You can customize your message based on the interests that people have, the purchases they have made, where they are in the buying cycle, and even content topics.

This can be a really costly thing, you will need to work with people who can give you some serious ROI. But remember, results for anything aren’t always guaranteed.

6. Viral Marketing

This takes people being very creative. Thinking outside the box will not guarantee you do go viral, but the more interesting something is, the more likely it is that people will start sharing.

Typically video works best, and if it is humorous it helps – but you can try out any format. Just be sure that when it is shared, you have your links ready to receive all of that fantastic traffic.

It is worth noting that very often brands aren’t actually prepared for what happens when they do go viral, so while it is the ream to sell out in minutes – it leaves you in an awkward position and unable to maximize the viral marketing.

7. Email Marketing

Your website and social media should be building an email list. Your email list is more important than you think. Imagine that all of the social media channels stopped working tomorrow. Your email list is your direct line to potential customers.

There are some fabulous options when it comes to email marketing software, MailChimp being one of the most popular. But you can find plenty that will do the job perfectly. You will need to adhere to any data protection laws for your country and spend time creating the initial template and content to send out.

Successful digital marketing is about preparation. Build your email list, planning and implementing social media marketing, being consistent, and creating content that matters to your audience.

8. PPC

PPC stands for “pay per click” advertising and is a cost-effective method used by many startups.  Put simply, you pay for what you get. If someone clicks your ad and is directed to your site, you pay.   If not, you don’t. Take a look at a PPC management agency to take the hard work off your shoulders but still reap the benefits.

9. Deep Learning for Marketing

Deep learning is a great new way of marketing that uses data to build algorithms and deliver marketing ads that your target audience actually wants to see.

The more you know about your customers, the better you can tailor your marketing efforts towards them, and the more effective they will be, which is why deep learning for marketing is a strategy you will not want to ignore.

How are you making digital marketing work for you? Are you employing all these methods?