As a business in today’s modern climate, it is important to utilize the internet as a part of your marketing strategy. In fact, where digital marketing skills were once a specialty, they are now a necessity. Even if you’re running a local business that relies on traditional marketing avenues, such as local advertising and referrals, you need to have an online presence.
With this in mind, it’s vital to understand what digital marketing is, when it should be used, the budget required, and how it can work alongside traditional marketing. Here, I’ll guide you through the basics so you can decide which avenues will be best for your business.
What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing refers to any type of strategy used online to promote a product or service. You likely see some digital marketing type from a brand or influencer every time you open a social media platform.
Unless you’re one of the few people without a smartphone, it’s likely your phone is always within three feet of you – we’re rarely without them. That means in any spare moment, we’re likely to go on social media or start browsing the web, where we can stumble across new brands and businesses. If your business isn’t one of them, you’re going to lose business to your competition who are.
So, what platforms and channels are included under the umbrella of “digital marketing?” Let’s take a look at what’s essential to a successful digital marketing strategy.
- SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the name for all the tweaks you can make to your website and content to appear in search results. This is essential because it will dictate how high up the search engine rankings your links appear.
When a consumer searches online for a topic related to your business, product, or service, they’re going to see the links that search engine thinks will give them the best results. When you use SEO techniques to optimize your site, you’ll rank higher. The aim should be to rank on the first two pages, ideally the first, though this can be difficult to do.
- Content Marketing
Tying in with SEO is Content Marketing. This is where you create content such as blog posts, videos, guides, podcasts and more to attract your desired audience. This content should be relevant and valuable to your audience – it should teach them something, give them a deeper understanding of a topic, entertain them, and/or call them to take action.
For instance, a blog post can be posted on your website and found through Google, and then shared on social media (which I will talk more about below) and seen by a wider audience.
- Social Media
A solid social media presence is essential. Research shows that in 2020, more than 3.6 billion people worldwide used social media platforms at least monthly, which is projected to increase by 2025. Even if you choose not to have a website, you should have a social media presence.
Social media allows your customers and followers to engage with your brand, allows you to stay in their mind if you post often, and even show people how good your customer service is if you solve issues publically. This personal touch encourages new and existing customers to remain loyal to your brand, products, and/or services and return to you time and time again.
- Paid Ads
Paid ads are another part of a digital marketing strategy but are optional. Some businesses will focus on using paid ads to generate business, while others only focus on content marketing and SEO. Mastering paid ads is not easy, so if it’s something you’re interested in, it’s often best to work with an expert before you start spending a lot of money. Paid ads can include social media ads, adverts on YouTube, pay-per-click ads, traditional banner ads, and more.
- Email Marketing
If you have an email account, you will likely be sick of email marketing (unless you’re great at managing your inbox!). Email marketing offers incredibly high conversion rates, is hard to master, but is possibly the best way to stay in contact with your customers. It will essentially allow you to contact them with news and offers even if you have no website or social media accounts (which isn’t recommended).
What Type of Business Benefits Most from Digital Marketing?
No business won’t benefit from digital marketing. Whatever you sell or offer to the world, there are always more people to reach and existing customers to maintain. Even if you only serve your customers in-person, having a digital presence will help you stay in contact with your customers, reach new ones, and become more trustworthy.
Whether or not you have a social presence is now a trust factor for most buyers, especially if your local business that isn’t in a high-traffic location, such as in town. If customers aren’t sure if you’re still in business and there’s no recent news online, they may assume you’re no longer trading and will look elsewhere.
With that being said, successful digital marketing strategies vary greatly from business to business. Your strategy will vary depending on your customer, price point, and how you deliver your products or services.
For example, a restaurant may focus on social media to generate new business, while a cleaning company may focus on content marketing or paid ads. You don’t need to choose just one strategy – you can use a mix of whatever will work best for your ideal customer.
What Budget Do You Need to Start Digital Marketing?
One of the best things about digital marketing is you can start with little-to-no money. If you have the internet and a smartphone, it’s fast and easy to sign up to social media platforms, and you can start marketing immediately.
If you have a limited budget, invest in inbound marketing (inbound means people find/come to you), such as social media posts, blog posts, and SEO efforts. Even with this minimal spending, you are likely to find that you are getting a high return on investment (ROI). Unless you outsource your content marketing, you may only have to invest your time, though be aware that it will take more time to see results than you would with something like PPC.
If you have a big budget, it’s often wise to implement online ads, which are a fast way to drive traffic and get new leads or sales, depending on how successful your ads are.
When Should You Use Traditional Marketing?
Traditional marketing and digital marketing both have the same goal: to make you more visible and discoverable.
Traditional marketing tends to be the best option if you are looking to reach an older audience, who may not spend so much time online, but more time reading print, such as newspapers and magazines, listening to the radio, and watching television. If you are financially able to have your campaigns in magazines and advertisements on prime-time TV, your money may be well spent.
It is also a key way to reach a local audience. With digital marketing, you will have to compete with large corporations and global companies for attention, whereas with traditional marketing methods, such as flyers, posters, and billboards, there will be less competition within your local area for your specific audience.
An effective digital marketing strategy enables your brand to connect with a wider audience than you would be able to with a strictly traditional strategy and more effectively target specific groups of ideal customers. Furthermore, digital marketing allows you to track campaigns’ success in real-time with solid data, allowing you to tweak your campaign as and whenever you need to. This means that you won’t waste money on campaigns that simply aren’t working.
If you haven’t yet taken your business online, now is the time to start.