Digital marketing is not one size fits all. Each business has unique needs and audience targets. While some advertising methods work better than others for different businesses, no single digital marketing strategy is the perfect fit for every company. To choose the right digital marketing strategy for your business, you must first understand your target audience, their pain points, and how they prefer to learn about new products and services. The best way to know these things is by talking to current customers, researching your competitors, and identifying the main ways that your future customers find and research businesses similar to yours. Once you know who you’re selling to, what their biggest problems are, and how they prefer to learn about new products and services you can begin developing a complete marketing plan.
Build a responsive website
Before you even start to think about the types of content you’re going to publish on your website, you need to make sure that it is both optimized and responsive. This means that your site will look great no matter what device someone is using to access it and that it also loads quickly so that every visitor has a positive experience. If your site is not optimized for mobile devices, Google will penalize you and may even push you out of the search engine results pages (SERPs). If you are using a website builder like Squarespace or Wix, you can easily select a responsive theme that will automatically optimize your site for all devices. If you are building your site from scratch, it is important to select a responsive web design so that neither your customers nor Google has to deal with an unresponsive or poorly designed website.
Make sure your website is mobile friendly
If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, Google may penalize you, which means your site may not show up on the first page of search results. More importantly, if you have a poorly designed mobile site, it could be keeping your customers away. In fact, according to a report by the cognitive neuroscience research unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, 53% of all online purchases are now made on mobile devices. This is why it is so important to make sure your website looks great on a mobile device. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you might be losing sales and missing out on potential customers. Google has provided a simple tool that allows you to see whether or not your site is mobile-friendly. If your site is not optimized for mobile devices, you can easily fix this by creating a responsive website. If you don’t have the time or resources to create a responsive website, you can also hire a freelancer to do this for you.
Use video marketing
According to a study conducted by Animoto, 81% of people watch online videos to learn more about products and services. With so many people consuming video content, it makes sense to incorporate video marketing into your complete digital marketing strategy. Whether you are creating a how-to video or a commercial, incorporating video into your marketing strategy allows you to connect with your customers in a way that is difficult to achieve with other marketing methods. YouTube is one of the easiest ways to get your video content out to the public. Once you have created your video, you can use YouTube’s built-in tools to schedule when your video will be uploaded and promoted on social media. Additionally, tools like Wistia or Vidyard allow you to embed your videos into your website, making it easy for visitors to consume your content.
Voice marketing
Voice marketing has taken off in recent years as voice-activated devices like Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, and Apple’s HomePod have become more popular. While you can’t use these devices to sell your products directly (except in very rare cases), they are excellent tools for building your brand. If you want to try voice marketing, you can start by creating an Amazon Alexa skill. An Alexa skill is a service that you can offer through your Alexa device. For example, you can create a skill that gives the latest headlines from your favorite news website. People can then access your skill by saying “Alexa, what’s the latest headlines?” This is a great way to build your brand and interact with your customers.
Social Media Marketing
The most obvious place to start with your digital marketing strategy is social media. According to Pew Research, 69% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 use social media. This makes it the most popular form of digital marketing by far. The best social media strategy is one that is focused on your customers. Are you selling fishing equipment? Then you probably shouldn’t be posting about the latest celebrity gossip. Instead, you should be posting content that your fishing customers would find interesting. You can also use social media to answer questions that your customers might have about your products. The best social media channels for your business will depend on your target audience and the types of content you create. Facebook, for example, is best for connecting with people in their 30s and 50s. If you are targeting teenagers, Instagram is a better option.
Blogging
Blogging is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing and for good reason. Creating useful and engaging blog posts allows you to show your customers that you care about them. Plus, it also allows you to create content that you can use to rank well in Google and appear at the top of the SERPs. When deciding what to write about, think about your customers’ biggest pains and how you can solve them. For example, let’s say that you sell wedding dresses. You might want to write a blog post about how to select the right wedding dress size. This will help your customers (and potential customers) feel like you care about them and that you are willing to help them with their problems. Once you’ve created your blog post, you can use social media to promote it. Post it on Facebook and Instagram as well as other blogging platforms like Medium. This allows you to grow your following, connect with new customers, and rank well on Google at the same time.
Paid advertising
Paid advertising, like the ad in the image above, is a way to reach a very specific subset of people who have shown interest in your products or services. You can pay for ad space on websites or social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram or use Google Adwords to display ads directly at the top of the Google SERPs. Paid advertising is an excellent way to target a very specific audience with your products or services. However, it does come with a price tag. The easiest way to create and manage your paid advertising campaigns is by using digital marketing software like HubSpot. Advertising on Facebook and Instagram If you want to advertise on social media, you can target ads to specific people based on their age, web browsing history, and the content they like. This allows you to reach a very specific audience, but it also allows you to avoid wasting money on ads that reach people who aren’t interested in your products or services.
SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the oldest and most effective forms of digital marketing. If you are using the right SEO techniques, your website will appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) when someone searches for products or services like yours. With more than 90% of people starting their purchase journey online, SEO is an essential part of any complete digital marketing strategy. There are tons of SEO tips and tricks out there, but they all fall into two basic categories: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page SEO refers to the content on your website and how it is structured and formatted. Off-page SEO refers to the links that lead to your website. How do you know if your website is optimized for SEO? Google’s search ranking factor tool will tell you exactly how well your website is optimized for search. If your website is not optimized for SEO, you could lose out on potential customers and sales.
Summary
Digital marketing is not one size fits all. Each business has unique needs and audience targets. While some advertising methods work better than others for different businesses, no single digital marketing strategy is the perfect fit for every company. To choose the right digital marketing strategy for your business, you must first understand your target audience, their pain points, and how they prefer to learn about new products and services. The best way to know these things is by talking to current customers, researching your competitors, and identifying the main ways that your future customers find and research businesses similar to yours. Once you know who you’re selling to, what their biggest problems are, and how they prefer to learn about new products and services you can begin developing a complete marketing plan.
