Digital marketing is any form of marketing that is done online. This is different from traditional marketing which uses offline media such as billboards, print ads, broadcasting… and the infamous cold-calls. There are 5.16 billion internet users worldwide, which is 64.4% of the global population. With the sheer amount of people on the internet, it only makes sense that businesses advertise themselves online.
Digital marketing aims to establish and maintain a strong online presence for your brand, so that whenever a potential customer searches for the products or services you offer, your company’s website and social media accounts appear among the top results.
Digital marketing can be inexpensive while still giving very satisfactory results and a high return on investment (ROI). SEO marketing has a ROI of 22:1, and email marketing has an impressive 36:1 ratio. This allows small and medium businesses to compete with much bigger brands without having to spend a fortune in advertising.
Even though the internet is incredibly wide-reaching, you can also target very specific audiences with your marketing. You can tailor your ads to be shown to certain demographics based on location, age, gender, interests, income level, etc. This allows you to focus your efforts on people that are most likely to become a customer, leading to better conversions and higher-quality leads.
With traditional forms of advertising, it can be nearly impossible to measure the effectiveness of your ad. Digital marketing however, gives you access to metrics such as reach, unique visitors, bounce rates, engagement for almost anything you post online. This allows you to accurately measure ROI, identify and track market trends, and determine marketing strategies.
Brand awareness represents how familiar people are with your brand. Think Google, Thermos, or Band-Aid. These are brand names that are now deeply associated with certain actions or items because of excellent brand awareness. Having good awareness builds trust, brand equity, and social impact. Customers will start to actively seek out your brand to make purchases and try new products you offer. Plus, it’s basically free advertising.
Digital marketing channels provide an easy way for your business to engage and connect with your customers, regardless of location. With regular social media posts, newsletters, and videos, you can begin to build a loyal customer base around your brand. Responding to questions and reviews can also build a positive customer service experience. All of this contributes to higher trust, a positive reputation, and more repeat business.
To achieve a strong online presence for your business, here are 7 core aspects of digital marketing that you should focus on.
The first step of digital marketing simply starts with having a professional website with a clear message that aligns with your brand.
A well-made website with coherent branding helps your company stand out from the competition. By providing quality information to visitors, you are building customer confidence by showcasing expertise as well as the legitimacy and quality of your products or services, thereby increasing the credibility of your company.
The information on your website must also be curated to be easy to read and navigate through. A cluttered website with poor layout or pages that are slow to load can easily lose the attention of visitors. According to Contentsquare, visitors only spend an average of 69 seconds per page, and that number continues to fall every year.
Having an attractive, custom-made website with impactful visuals helps grab the attention of visitors. The more time they spend on your website, the better the chances of your brand leaving a lasting impression in their minds. This leads to increased brand awareness and higher conversion rates.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which means optimizing your content to improve your website’s ranking on a search engine results page (SERP). This can be done by strategically including links and keywords relevant to your market and complying with search engine algorithms.
Search engines are a likely starting point for most people who are looking for something online. When you have good SERP ranking, your website more reliably shows up on the first page of search results. This means your website will see much more traffic – after all, how often do you find yourself browsing links on the fifth page of Google search?
However, being able to access the right audiences matters too. For example, a digital marketing agency wouldn’t want their website showing up on searches for sushi restaurants. This is why researching for keywords that are relevant to your industry matters. It allows your website to be visible to people who actually want to see the content that you’re offering.
Regularly posting content will also improve your SEO ranking, especially if the content is optimized for Google’s search algorithms. This is because Google has 92% of the global search engine market, processing over 40,000 searches every second!
By regularly updating and maintaining your SEO, search engines will drive much more meaningful, organic traffic to your website. This can in turn build brand awareness and even convert visitors to customers.
Creating profiles on social media platforms and engaging directly with your audience is a great way to promote your business. Social media marketing is by far the top marketing channel, being utilized more than blogs, email marketing, and SEO marketing.
You should at least be posting engaging, meaningful content that showcases your company’s brand values. Interacting with followers in the comments section, or directly promoting products and services is also very effective.
When creating content for social media, you should adopt different strategies suited for the user base of each social media platform. For example, video content that is casual and humorous would be perfect for visual-oriented platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. Whereas audiences on LinkedIn would appreciate more in-depth, information-driven content in a more professional tone.
Social media is also a great platform for your company to really show off a unique brand voice. A great example of this would be Wendy’s Twitter presence, which has cheeky quips, trending memes, and up-to-the-minute references. Their strategy is a great way to appeal to the younger demographics that they are targeting.
Affiliate marketing, sometimes called influencer marketing, is a more specific type of social media marketing. You can pay “influencers” and have them promote your products or services to their followers.
Content marketing can seem similar to social media marketing, as both digital marketing strategies involve creating content to engage with audiences. Here’s where the two differ: social media marketing is focused on building a connection with your customer base. On the other hand, content marketing is more about using in-depth, quality content to display your company’s expertise.
Content marketing usually involves creating and distributing videos, podcasts, and articles relevant to your target audience. Educational and informative content provides a good opportunity to showcase your company’s products or services in detail. More importantly, it also educates your audience how your products or services can solve their challenges.
Content marketing is a great digital marketing tool to generate leads for your business. When your brand has authority in your industry, it builds trust in customers and makes them comfortable purchasing from you. Effective content marketing can convert unsure audiences into loyal customers, and keeps loyal customers returning for more.
Similar to your company’s website, content marketing should also follow SEO best practices. This helps maximize the reach of your articles and the visibility of your brand. And as always, any type of regular quality content maintains brand awareness among your target market.
Pay-per-click is a type of advertising where you pay a fee to have your website on the search engine results page (SERP) whenever someone searches for relevant keywords. The fee you pay depends on whether people click your ad. PPC advertising is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing available to your business, generating twice the number of visitors compared to SEO.
PPC ads are prioritized and placed in more visible areas of a web page. For example, when you perform a Google search you’ll sometimes see links with an “Ad” label beside it. These links rank highest on the SERP above the organic search results, because they have paid for PPC advertising.
Of course, Google isn’t the only platform that offers PPC – so do the other search engines. Social platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are also popular places for buyers looking for new products. In fact, social media advertising is surpassing paid search ads as the largest advertising channel, exceeding $137 billion and growing 25% YoY. This is likely due to small and medium businesses taking advantage of the fact that up to 43.5% of internet users use social networks when researching ptroducts.
Email marketing focuses on building brand loyalty and keeping your customers engaged with regular newsletters and promotional content. It may be one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, but it is definitely not obsolete – every $1 spent on email marketing drives an impressive ROI of $36.
Email marketing content can be as simple as customer welcome emails, to educational content, to promotions for loyalty program members. These all have a similar purpose – to make your customer feel like an appreciated member of your brand. Creating a sense of connection and exclusivity with your customers builds brand loyalty and also helps generate repeat business.
By regularly reaching out to your customers, you can also maintain brand awareness. 99% of people check their email everyday, making it an effective channel to engage with customers. They may not make a purchase right away, but regular email marketing ensures that whenever they do need a product or service, they are more likely to remember your brand.
Behind all these aspects of digital marketing are the numbers that influence and motivate your advertising campaigns. You should be using analytical tools to constantly monitor your metrics such as reach, clicks, engagement, likes, views, etc. This can help you understand your audiences better, and determine whether your content or strategies are successful. As time goes on, you will need to adjust your content to better suit current trends and market conditions.
By implementing these fundamentals, small or medium businesses can reach a wider audience, attract new customers, and grow your brand. Everything from social media marketing to search engine optimization can indeed be done out of your own office with a bit of legwork.
However if you find yourself feeling overwhelmed by the nitty gritty of digital marketing, you can seek help from one of the many full-service creative agencies in Vancouver. These are businesses that have entire teams dedicated to every aspect of digital marketing to grow your business.
Remember, digital marketing is more of a marathon than a sprint. Sure, you can likely get some quick results from updating your website’s content for SEO or running PPC ads. But your business won’t reach full potential unless you are maintaining momentum and constantly building up your online presence.
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.
Creativity With Purpose.
