Digital marketing is a blanket term for all of a company’s online marketing endeavors. It’s a combination of digital marketing tools and methods for implementing digital marketing strategies that can help you to attain your overall marketing goals. We can help you to better understand what digital marketing is and what you need to get started with a digital marketing strategy framework to help your business find success.
Two examples of digital marketing tools are a website and social media accounts for business. Not all social media platforms are created equal, but with a bit of initial research, you can determine which social media platforms will work best for you. Personally, I think the best social media platforms for business marketing are Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.
Assets
Website
Even if you know nothing about digital marketing strategy framework, by now with the drastic growth of the internet in the last twenty years, you know you need a website. Even a badly designed website is better than no website. However, a badly designed website can also be a huge hindrance, given the increasing ease and potentially low cost of website creation. Most people spend more time searching the internet for either what they need as consumers or for information on particular interests. Your website helps potential customers find you, which means that, first and foremost, a website is the most important asset you can have.
Social Media
More people spend the majority of their time on social media than anywhere else on the internet. This means that implementing a strong social media marketing strategy is a good bet for helping your customers find you. Not all social media platforms are created equal, so some may be better fits for your business goals than others. Here’s a brief rundown of the most popular and pervasive social media platforms.
Unless you’ve been living in a cave somewhere, disconnected from all of humanity, then I know you’ve heard of Facebook. Over the years, Facebook has truly transformed from a platform intended to simply connect people online to an incredibly powerful tool for digital marketing. Creating a profile using a Business Page has a ton of benefits, including the ability to create ads, boost content, and engage potential or existing customers.
You likely know about Twitter, but you might not know how you can use Twitter to promote your business. Just in case you don’t know about Twitter, here are the basics. Twitter is a platform that allows you to use short form communications of 140 characters or less. These Tweets can be seen, like, and shared by anyone who is following you on Twitter. You can also include links to any other internet content, including websites, blogs, and other social media. Much like Facebook, Twitter allows businesses to advertise, and it offers a lot of great tools to help you manage your ads as well as to understand how well (or how poorly) Twitter is working for you.
As far as social media goes, LinkedIn is likely the most professional of the social media platforms. LinkedIn is all about networking, making connections, and building relationships. You can post status updates, post long form articles, post links to blog posts, add portfolios, and post events. It’s a great tool for promoting your business using a Company Page that highlights your products or services, and it helps your business connect with other complimentary businesses as well as individuals who might be interested in your products or services.
Instagram is newer to the world of digital marketing strategy, but it has quickly become a contender. It’s a visual platform, and it allows for a bit more creativity in your marketing approach.Users post pictures with short descriptions or status updates, and these are shared with all of a user’s followers. You can tag other users and mention other users, both of which can be seen by everyone following you and the user that you tag or mention. Instagram also allows you to simultaneously post to other social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.
YouTube
YouTube is based entirely on video content. You can build your brand in a few different ways, including advertising with short ad clips. YouTube is great for highlighting products, for offering tutorials, and for giving people “behind the scenes” videos. Just like with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, people can follow your channel, like, comment on, and share your videos. Videos have excellent rates of shareability, so YouTube is definitely a platform to consider.
Tactics
Content Marketing
Content marketing refers to the creation and distribution of online content with the goal of highlighting and promoting interesting information regarding your products or services. Types of content include blogs, social media posts, and videos. Content marketing is generally more cost-effective than traditional marketing, and it’s more likely to increase your sales than traditional marketing because you can simply reach more people more quickly online.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is a key component of any digital marketing strategy framework. SEO uses keywords that people search for when using a search engine such as Google. The more of these keyword that you have throughout your content, the more likely you are to appear on the first page of search results, and ideally, you want to appear within the first five results. SEO depends entirely on content. The more good and organic content that you publish, the better your SEO should be.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Pay-per-click advertising is a method through which businesses can display ads for their services or product online. When people search for specific keywords or phrases relevant to your products or service, your ad is displayed at the top of the search engine results page (SERP).You are only charged when a user clicks on your ad.
Google Adwords is probably the most common PPC platform. Advertisers bid on keywords. You have a better chance of your ads being displayed more prominently than your competitors’ ads if you pay more for your keywords. Google uses very specific algorithms to determine determine which ads are valid and relevant.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a method for contacting potential customers directly. You send emails to targeted audiences of both previous and potential customers in order to enhance relationships. Email marketing is an excellent vehicle for increasing brand awareness and creating customer loyalty. There are many services available for automating email marketing campaigns. However, a lot of work goes into running successful email marketing campaigns. If you don’t have a dedicated marketing team, you should consider hiring a digital marketing firm.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is part of any good digital marketing strate. This form of marketing is a really good method for increasing brand awareness, brand loyality, brand credibility, and customer engagement. You create and share content on social media platforms such as the one discussed above. It includes a variety of activities, such as posting blog posts and sharing them on your social media platforms. It also includes sharing other content, such as photos, videos, and infographics. You can run all sorts of social media marketing campaigns. Most platforms now allow sponsored advertisements and options to boost posts.
Final Thoughts
Gone are the days of traditional marketing (for the most part). Today’s advertising world is all about internet marketing. Digital marketing definitely requires a lot of effort. There are a lot of components to a strong digital marketing strategy. It requires full-time work. If you’re a larger business, hiring a dedicated marketing team is a good option. If you don’t want to, or can’t afford to, hire an in-house marketing team, then hiring a digital marketing agency is an excellent option. Many digital marketing agencies offer individual strategy options as well as more comprehensive packages. With the help of a good digital marketing agency, you can build out a digital marketing strategy framework that fits for your business.