What is Digital Marketing
So you want to grow your business, and you know that when most people want your products or services, they generally go looking for it online. Or maybe they come across it when they are flicking through their social media or reading some articles on a website.
So doesn’t it make sense that your business is online?
You start getting people telling you that you need a website, or maybe a Facebook or Instagram page. It sounds like all you need to do is get a website and create a few pages on your favourite social media platforms and sit back and wait for online sales to grow. The problem is that you do this and after a year or so you realise that you’re getting very little in the way of sales from these. That’s of course if you keep track of what your website or social media is actually generating for your business.
So is this digital marketing ?
The answer is yes and no. It is a digital marketing strategy; just not a very good one. Just building a website or social media page is like getting a brochure printed and leaving them in the box in your office. It does nothing to help grow your business unless you implement different strategies or channels to distribute these brochures. Maybe you do a letterbox drop, distribute them at a trade show or get them displayed at a local complimentary business. Once you have a website or social media page, you need to work out how you are going to drive people to see them.
What is the definition of digital marketing?
Digital Marketing is the marketing of goods and services using the internet and other digital channels. In other words, it is selling your products or services using websites, apps, mobile devices, search engines, social media and other digital means of communication.
Digital Marketing can also be referred to as Online Marketing or Internet Marketing.
The key point in this definition, is using different channels.
The starting point of a digital marketing strategy
Like any form of marketing (offline or online), the starting point should be creating your marketing assets.
- If you want to run ads in a newspaper, you need to start with the ads graphics
- If you are running a radio ad, you need to start with the ad script
- For billboards, you need a design graphic
Digital marketing is no different, but for an effective, long term strategy we believe you need to start with a great website. Then maybe some social media pages. The reason we always start with a website is that you control this and own this asset. A Facebook page is owned by Facebook, and at any time they can change the way it looks and behaves. Have we all heard about Twitter; sorry, I mean X?
So we start with a great, functional, user-friendly website, what are the channels we use to drive people to see it?
Search Engine Optimisation
This is where you work on various strategies to ensure that your website ranks high up (preferably first page) when someone does a search in Google or Bing. You want your website to be listed organically, where the searcher will see it and want to click through to your website.
This should be part of most serious digital marketing strategies.
Find out more about Search Engine Optimisation.
Search Engine Marketing
This is where you pay to have your business listing showing when someone does a search in Google and Bing. Think Google Ads.
This can work out to be quite expensive and will go up in cost over time. Great for short term, instant results.
Find out more about Search Engine Marketing.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is a bit of a crossover channel as it feeds into other channels. This is where you create articles, videos, infographics, podcasts, images, web pages etc to promote your products and services. This content can then be used in SEO, Social media, Google Ads etc.
Find out more about Content Marketing.
Social Media Marketing
This is similar to Google Ads, but creating paid ads to show in the different social media platforms. For example, Facebook ads showing in peoples feeds.
Find out more about Social Media Marketing.
Email/EDM Marketing
Building databases of potential customers and using newsletters etc to get them to buy your products or services. Often these emails have links back to your website for the final conversion.
Text/SMS Marketing
This is the same as email marketing, but instead of using emails to communicate, you use text messages. These are perfect for time sensitive messaging and if used correctly can convert well.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation is setting up systems where you automatically contact prospects throughout the sales process to encourage them to take the next step. As a general rule this is using either email or SMS. A simple example of this, is having follow-up emails sent out at set time frames after someone has filled in a web enquiry. These emails will obviously express why your products and services are so good and why they should use you.
Social Media
This includes both setting up profiles and building your followers, or using the social platform to advertise your products or services on. Social media is a great way to build social proof, so even if you're not generating leads and sales, your helping to convert these from other channels.
Online Directories
There are thousands of online directories on the internet; some paid and some free. As part of a digital marketing strategy, you should find the ones that are relevant to your business or industry and set up profiles on them.
Other forms of Digital Marketing
The above are what we believe are the main forms of digital marketing you should consider for a small business. Below are some others that you may find mentioned in your travels.
- Affiliate Marketing - where you pay for sales etc from other online marketers
- Influencer Marketing - I think we all know this one
- Video Marketing - building viral videos etc to get your business noticed
- Audio/Podcast Marketing - as above but with audio
So now you what digital marketing is
You hopefully now understand why digital marketing is so important if you want to grow your business, and why just having a website isn’t enough. You should think of budgeting for digital marketing the same way you would for offline marketing (radio, TV, print etc). It isn’t a one-off expense, and then it will continue to deliver into the future. You need to budget to spend money every month to ensure it continues to work and preferably grow into the future. There is no one-off digital marketing strategy, they all need continual nurturing, measuring and optimising.