Unleash the Power of Digital Marketing to Grow Your Business
BySarah Harris
Sarah Harris takes care of the customer support requests at Workast. She is also an avid writer.
Sarah Harris takes care of the customer support requests at Workast. She is also an avid writer.
If marketing means adding value to your products and services, digital marketing helps you do so cost-effectively at scale.
One of the challenges of using digital marketing is that there are so many tools and techniques to choose from. Choosing, however, is the key to using the power of digital marketing.
You need to stay in control of your marketing efforts and not become a slave to the latest trends. That means focusing on the techniques that:
deliver the most bang for your buck
are right for your customers, and
won’t cause you or your marketing team to have a meltdown
Here are the top digital marketing tactics to consider and tips on how to make the most of each.
Email marketing ROI is 3600%. That means that you stand to receive $36 for every $1 you invest. It is particularly effective because people opt in to receive communications from you.
Approximately 4.5 billion people currently use email. Most of them check it every day. And more than 60% of customers prefer brands to contact them by email.
When your messages go straight to a customer’s or potential customer’s inbox, you get the opportunity to build a relationship as well as your brand.
Make the most of email by segmenting your list. Most businesses have several main types of customers. By creating separate email campaigns to cater to these types, you can make closer, more meaningful connections with people, which should lead to better conversions and sales.
You don't need to be on all platforms at once. In fact, trying to be everywhere at once is almost impossible and even potentially harmful to your brand.
It is near impossible because there are well over 100 active social media platforms, with more being created all the time. Some sink. Some rise. But trying to be active on all of them at once would leave any marketing team ragged.
Trying to post on too many social media platforms can harm your brand, because each platform has its own main types of users and etiquette. Businesses should think carefully about with which platforms they wish to associate and do so authentically.
The best advice is to go where your customers are.
Also note that because every platform is different you should adapt your messages to each platform. Cutting and pasting the same message for all your social media venues is fast but comes across as lazy and can hinder your attempts to connect meaningfully with your clients.
The top social media platforms to consider include:
YouTube
TikTok
Paid ads are effective because you can draw on the data from social media platforms to target your ideal customers. Social media sites help you display your ads to potential customers according to their age, location, interests, and many other factors.
You can also control how much you invest in ads and get real-time figures to measure your ROI, making it much more user-friendly than traditional advertising like newspapers and TV spots.
Another way to make the most of social media advertising is to run several versions of an ad at once. You can A/B test ideas to see which ads perform best.
For example, you might try the same ad where one has an image as well as text, or where each has a differently worded call to action. This can help you make more conversions and create better ads in the future.
If you have a brick-and-mortar location, local SEO is a fantastic way to attract more of the right people to your business. Optimizing local search makes sure you can connect with people searching for businesses like yours within their region or specified range.
Local SEO uses tactics including:
ensuring your location details are keywords on your website and social media platforms
making sure your contact details are homogeneous throughout your web presence
having an up-to-date Google business profile
using high-quality merchant photos
sharing reviews
creating location-specific content for your customers
According to some estimates, about half of all mobile searches are location-specific. A high percentage of calls and in-person visits result from these mobile searches, so it is worth helping them find your business on and offline.
Finding online groups and participating in their events is an excellent way to express and build a company’s identity. It is also a way to meet potential business partners and customers.
Facebook Groups is a good place for businesses to make these kinds of connections. Businesses might also consider professional meetups for networking opportunities.
Before meeting people in-person, it is always wise to check out their reviews and how they conduct themselves online. PhoneHistory is a useful reverse phone lookup site that can not only help marketers authenticate leads but also help a business assess the authenticity of anyone with whom it intends to meet and engage.
AI content generators can help digital marketers accelerate their potential. The rough edges are quickly being worn down. Now text generators can effectively use prompts to create content for the web, including graphics, video, and text.
Be aware, however, of relying on an algorithm to connect with your customers. The human touch during the digital marketing content creation process remains key to developing meaningful communications with your customers and making your brand unique.
Where content writers use AI for research, they must fact-check the research. Plagiarism is also a significant risk that requires mitigation by a human editor.
Nonetheless, digital marketers may find AI a helpful tool to stimulate ideas, develop content calendars, deepen strategies, and elaborate on established posts.
The key to making the most of digital marketing is to focus on the aspects that make most sense for your customers without becoming a slave to those techniques.
Content that is forced will feel forced. It is evident when a company consistently rushes out substandard content just to make a deadline and that can reflect badly on the brand.
Develop a structured, considered content calendar and populate it with high-quality posts that your clients will love. Technology will help keep your digital marketing secure, safe, and effective.