While there are many tried and tested marketing tactics to bring in customers, the online world has ushered in an innovative way to reach audience previously beyond our comprehension.
While print ads and mail outs can still be effective marketing tools, digital marketing offers businesses the chance to attract new customers with the click of a button. If you have never seen the results of an effective digital marketing campaign, it is easy to be sceptical about the need to invest time and money into a complex strategy. However, mastering the fundamentals of digital marketing provides scope to understand how effective a solid strategy can be in increasing interest (and revenue) for your business.
Sounds like an attractive prospect, yes? However, actually mastering these basics can be difficult if you don’t have insight into the various platforms, tactics and metrics that are required to construct quality campaigns. From Facebook ads and SEO data to scheduling and optimising, there are plenty of elements to digital marketing that are foreign to many business owners. To help you grasp digital marketing with ease, let’s look at some key platforms and strategies you should embrace if you want to up your marketing game.
What platforms do I need to be on?
There are a number of platforms you will need to log onto for maximum marketing reach. Think the usual suspects like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest and YouTube. Other platforms worth trying out are Yahoo, Google Plus, Amazon, WhatsApp and WordPress.
How do I develop a digital content marketing strategy?
Knowing which content to produce can be difficult to ascertain. In essence, you want to be producing and distributing content that hits four key points:
- Thought leadership: content that conveys industry knowledge and provides deep insights into your field.
- Educational: this type of content teaches your audience about your product or service. This can be in the form of tips, tricks, hacks or explainer videos.
- Humanising: creating content with a personal message, such as behind the scenes insights or testimonials is a key tactic to authentically connect with your audience.
- Promotional: one seventh of your digital content strategy should focus on promotional angles, such as competitions or giveaways.
How should I distribute my content?
In reality, you are not going to have the time to jump onto your social accounts and post new content every day. Hiring a social media specialist can ease the burden, but there are various content scheduling platforms that can make their job easier so they have more time to draft quality strategy.
Scheduling tools to look out for include Sked Social, Buffer, Hootsuite, Falcon and Sprout Social – these platforms give you the power to schedule social media posts across multiple channels and content streams to meet deadlines and deliverables.
How do I know if I am getting return on investment for my digital marketing strategy?
You’ve poured a significant amount of resources into your digital marketing strategy, now you want to ascertain whether you are getting genuine results for your hard work. Plenty of social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram automatically provide you with metric reports and gauges if you hold a business account, making it simple to access the facts and figures depicting the success of your content. However, it is important to know which metrics are key to evaluating the success of your strategy.
Metrics to keep an eye out for include:
- Reach
- Interactions and Engagement
- Influence
- Share of Voice
- Audience Growth
- Volume of Website Traffic/Clicks
- Sentiment
- Volume of Sales
- EDM Metrics
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