If you’re a business owner, you likely know and understand what the internet can do for you. It holds the power to connect what you’re offering with the masses if you use the right strategy. Digital marketing might seem too intimidating to incorporate into your business. You probably have questions, such as:
- What’s most important in a digital marketing campaign?
- Which platforms are best for reaching your target audience?
- Is digital marketing appropriate for my business?
The truth is that digital marketing isn’t much different from advertising on radio, television, or even physical mediums like billboards. It uses the same concepts to appeal to your audience but instead incorporates tools – such as search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads – to customize your marketing campaigns to better fit your target demographic.
Here’s a brief step-by-step guide offering you the basics of digital marketing today.
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Why Is Digital Marketing So Important?
Put simply; digital marketing is where the party is. At any given moment, billions of people worldwide are online. They’re making purchases, communicating and having civil discourse with their social network, and being influenced by advertising. A well-planned digital marketing campaign presents an endless sea of potential customers who could see your campaign throughout their day.
Does Digital Marketing Work for Everyone?
Yes! Digital marketing is effective because it is infinitely customizable. A good digital marketing campaign can narrow down your target audience with precise requirements, and the scalability of digital ads works just as well for small businesses as it does large ones.
Similarly, digital marketing can be effective with a wide range of budgets, offering smaller businesses opportunities to make their marketing dollars count. It also gives larger companies the flexibility to further connect with their target audience and make their budget extend even further toward converting sales.
Where Should I Start My Digital Marketing Campaign?
Many tools exist to help you implement digital marketing for your business. Here are examples of the most common and versatile.
Content Marketing
Content marketing refers to any media your digital marketing campaign produces that’s meant to cultivate a target audience through education about your business. And also, Content marketing includes the following:
- Articles
- Guides
- Videos
- Blogs
- White papers
Content marketing is an excellent starting point for a digital marketing campaign. It gives your campaign a ground floor that connects your target audience to your business’s core tenets. You can find exceptional content at The Doe site, anyone can submit his anonymous content here.
Social Media Marketing
In simplest terms, anything you post on your business’s social media pages (and anything other businesses or individuals post about your business on their pages) is social media marketing. This type of digital marketing is highly customizable and reaches a wide audience, making it versatile and easy to adapt for any business.
Email Marketing
This kind of marketing is one of the most important steps to monitoring and re-engaging with customers. An email marketing campaign should consist of a series of informative emails, inquiry and feedback requests, follow-ups, and “thank you for your purchase” emails. These email communications work together to better communicate with your customers while also anticipating their needs.
Native Advertising
This tactic introduces customers to your business through carefully crafted editorials and utilizes publications to help promote your product. This relies on other sources to advertise your business, diversifying your campaign.
How Do I Create the Perfect Digital Marketing Campaign?
This is a tricky question because the perfect digital marketing campaign depends entirely on your unique business. Here are some examples that demonstrate how different digital marketing campaigns are effective.
Example 1: Bakery
A local bakery begins with social media, posting pictures of its products on Instagram and Facebook to garner a local following. After building up some steam, the bakery connects with a local food blogger who writes a review about their seasonal items.
The bakery then begins emailing regular customers with reward points to entice repeat visits. Once business increases, the bakery posts a paid ad about its new catering options on Facebook, specifically geared toward higher income, professional users.
Example 2: Law Firm
A national law firm utilizes SEO to customize its website so that it attracts clients who are searching key terms like “defense attorneys,” “legal help,” or “law firm near me.” Its emails and website are more focused on feedback from clients and information about their team and history.
The firm then reaches out to The Wall Street Journal to publish an online story about a recent case it won and runs a banner ad on the front page of The Washington Post.
These examples seem different, right? They are not alike, but what they share is the focus on finding marketing channels that best address their unique needs. There is not a single cookie-cutter digital marketing campaign that will work for every business. There is, however, a perfect digital marketing campaign for every company.
Launch a Digital Marketing Strategy That’s Right for Your Business
Well-planned digital marketing considers the needs, restraints, creativity, and clientele of a business. In some case, you might need a good Miami web design company to do a complete overhaul of your current website in order to get good results with your new marketing strategy. The ability to customize to those specific considerations has made marketing indispensable for any business.
