Finding online marketing overwhelming?
In the modern age of business, there’s little question that a large part of any well-planned marketing strategy is ‘digital’.
Whether your products or services are B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to consumer), with 93% of buying process beginning online, your customer is searching the web and browsing social media.
As a new or growing business, it’s increasingly challenging to keep up with the evolving digital landscape. Acknowledging that digital marketing is the most successful means of reaching your customer is one thing, but planning and implementing an effective digital marketing strategy can be overwhelming.
What is Digital Marketing?
Understanding the breadth of digital marketing is often the first hurdle. Many small businesses would be forgiven for believing that digital marketing is jargon for an occasional Facebook post or tweet, but it’s this lack of understanding that separates those businesses that continue to adapt, evolve and thrive, from those that fall behind or never really establish any market share.
Digital marketing is not always overt, in fact, digital marketing at its best is very rarely an ‘advert’ or blatant promotion. The opportunity that digital marketing presents is to provide ‘value’. Whether that’s something interesting, relevant, topical, informative, amusing or entertaining, digital marketing provides a reason for your business to connect and engage with its audience, and in so doing, enables you to deliver your message, to build brand awareness, trust and authority.
That might sound obscure, but every time you read a review, watch a video guide, see a Facebook mention, are recommended products that “you might like”, receive an email or enter your email address, accept cookies or click a link, that’s digital marketing.
Consider for a moment that you’re in the market for a new digital SLR camera. Would you more likely respond to an advert from Nikon, or a buyer’s guide comparing the latest offerings from Nikon, Canon and Sony?
Of course, advertising can still an effective means of generating business. A good marketeer will plan and implement a compelling advertising campaign; a great marketeer will leverage the most effective channels and target the most relevant audience to maximise your ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend). In an ideal world, we’d all have bottomless budgets, but the reality is that we have finite funds and it’s important to focus your marketing activities.
To help narrow things down, digital marketing can be separated into three distinct ‘channels’:
- Paid Channels - Advertising, PPC, Display Ads, Social Media Ads, Retargeting, Paid Influencers
- Earned Channels- Mentions, Shares, Reposts, Reviews
- Owned Channels - Website, Social Media Channels, Blog Site, Apps, Customer Data, Email
How you leverage these channels depends upon your audience and your marketing objective. It might be to drive more traffic to your website, generate more leads, convert more sales or launch a new product.
Whatever your objective, you need to first create a marketing campaign and then plan a strategy to deliver that campaign across these digital platforms and channels in the most effective means possible. As they say, if you fail to plan, plan to fail.
Need Help?
We’d love to help plan and implement your next digital marketing campaign, but we’re just as happy to offer some guidance if you’re struggling to get to grips with concept. Give us a call or send us a message.
