Basic Digital Marketing

We all want more content to promote. It helps strengthen our websites, boosts our SEO, and provides us something to use on social media. That said, it takes time, effort, and money to get that content.

Content marketing is still one of the most powerful weapons there is in digital marketing. To keep pace with others in competition with you though, you may want to produce more content faster. This is natural however it can cost you. No one wants low-quality content – not you nor the consumer.

Persuading a customer to buy your product on eCommerce is the ultimate objective in digital marketing campaigns in this category. How is this done most effectively though, from a time, effort, and cost perspective – this is a question a lot of websites chase after. Through the following eCommerce digital marketing strategies, one can improve their conversion rates, increase consumer confidence, and achieve trust with your brand name.

Customer recommendations

Turn your customer reviews and testimonials on-site into recommendations relevant to the buyer. If you don’t have many reviews as of yet, consider recommendations as a substitute. Products with fewer reviews online tend to be purchased less because the perception’s there that they don’t have many customers or that there’s a reason these products are avoided. The more you can recommend, the more likely you can upsell or cross-sell.

Selling eCommerce on social media, you have a lot of competition. The challenge in addition to elevating yourself above your competitors is also how to sell to a group that doesn’t want to be sold to and which are not on these platforms for this reason. Well, here are 7 secrets we consider to be essentials to doing eCommerce marketing on social media.

Personalize.

Customers want to be spoken to as people – not numbers. This is true not only on social media but in any sort of digital marketing or customer service interaction. As you respond to customers, use their name, be positive, and be authentic. If you have the information available, pull up their record. Reference their past history with the company or make recommendations based on what you know.

In digital marketing, website owners don’t always achieve the impact they want with their CTAs. There’s a lot which can influence how a CTA performs and when done right, the results can be massive. When done wrong, a site owner could be unknowingly sabotaging their effort. Building awareness for a brand off-page and nurturing leads correctly on-page are a starting part of success with CTAs.

Let’s say you’re already doing everything right and yet, for some reason your CTAs aren’t generating the clicks you want. This could be a sign that something simple’s not being done. Conversion channels selected, how powerful and authentic your content is, and how you’re strategizing your CTAs could be the answer. Should you believe it to be an issue with your CTA strategy, here are 3 changes you can make to help elevate your brand and maximize conversions.

A cohesive brand narrative that you can sell in a logo, a photo, a video, and in your marketing materials starts with finding the story you want to tell.

Storytelling is so important as it allows consumers to connect as human beings to the products, services, and brands which surround them. A brand has little value, in this day and age, if all they are is a faceless corporation. Consumers want a story, meaning, and to know when they buy from you, they’re putting their money in a good place.

Think of your brand and its values, what makes it special, and who your customers are. Before circulating any SEO-driven content marketing or putting out your first social media post, know what impression you want to leave. Outside of what you sell or the industry in which you operate, a brand should aspire to be something of meaning to their customers or community. Nike’s an example, representing aspiration, inspiration, innovation, and inclusion for athletes. Nike’s tagline is ‘Just do it’ and it has nothing to do with shoes and merchandise, and yet it’s somehow so appropriate for the brand.

The rules of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites can be challenging to manage, as consumer behaviours can sometimes seem to change year by year. Regardless, mobile devices and digital tech has made it so that social media is unavoidable. Best practices are an excellent reference point to adhere to when digging into what’s expected on social media.

Best practices customized by any business should be done according to data. After all, digital marketing of any kind is driven by data. Analytics like this identify strengths and weaknesses, providing brands the chance to listen to their audience and act. Leverage the social media analytics you have to refine your approach. If you don’t already have a social media account, no problem. Ensure moving forward, you pay attention to the data. Monitor your competition’s social media and look how they’re interacting with followers, what kind of content they are using, and the result.

Though there are plenty of digital tools and tech out there handling analytics, Google’s main Analytics program is still preferred and used by many digital marketers. Large numbers of digital marketers and brands struggle with how to measure ROI through different sources and/or don’t know how to accurately measure data through non-traditional channels like social media. These are some of the top FAQs about Google Analytics that can maybe help.

You don’t need a multi-million dollar budget to generate significant returns in digital marketing. Many brands have built businesses off capitalizing on cost-effective opportunities to grow audience. Even in times of recession nationally and when a company has had their marketing budgets cut, there are still ways to spur growth in a consistent, long-term way. If you’re dealing with a slash in your marketing budget or are working with limited financial resources to begin with, here are a few ways to protect growth with a smaller-than-preferred budget.

Spend smarter.

Look at your digital marketing channels and spend smartly where ROI is highest. Although a small budget can seem inopportune for company growth, in a sense, all marketing has to do is to generate enough of a return on its main channels to justify continuing. Alleviate risk by spending smarter, according to what has the highest yield.

The National Hockey League is a marketing machine. As star athletes are building their personal brands through sponsorships and merchandise, the NHL is doing the same thing. NHL hockey cards, team jerseys, video games, and anything branded with an official logo is an exercise in marketing the organization’s been performing for decades.

Beyond the same merchandising and revenue-generating marketing the NHL has always done, they’re also starting to take the players and use their journeys or stories to sell more tickets, merchandise, and more.

SEO takes time to build and over time, that can easily add up to a lot of financial resources invested. Unfortunately, brands can waste a lot of money expecting results in the long-term, not knowing the challenges, issues, and KPIs to look at.

If you’re not getting a big return on your SEO after a few months, you may be one of the several websites who are wasting money on tactics which aren’t working. Here are 7 ways brands are wasting their budgets on SEO.

Healthcare organizations have a larger digital footprint today than ever before. Clinics, walk-ins, family physicians, and more are all with websites now, battling to attract patients in areas. Throughout high-traffic cities, there’s more competition than ever for patients. There’s something every business can learn from how healthcare organizations are maximizing digital opportunity and optimizing their site.

Marketing automation is an integral component to multi-channel digital marketing. No business manager or marketer can oversee every detail of every channel 24/7. Automation has to come into play. When you have marketing automation software plugged in, you’re getting the management you need in the digital space and are taking the same advantage the world’s biggest corporations and likely, some of your competitors are.

‘Marketing automation’ is a term meant to describe software or platforms – such as with emails, social media, or managing contact information – designed to automate marketing activities. Applied correctly, automation will bring in more leads and nurture them, ultimately resulting in increased revenues and an even higher ROI. At no point will you need to sacrifice the quality of communications or work.

eCommerce accounts for more than 12 percent of total retail spending worldwide and growth is exploding in this area. As the competition heats up, an eCommerce site must work hard to optimize every aspect of their web design and digital marketing to build their brand and sell products. Audiences are more knowledgeable about what’s expected with an eCommerce site than many of us think and any complication can send a prospective shopper away. Before delving into how to promote products on social media and promoting email newsletter sign-ups, here’s some tips on a basic beginner’s digital marketing and web design on-page strategy.

Omnichannel marketing is connecting with your customers across multiple platforms – such as through text, voice, video marketing, email marketing, and social media. Seamless user experience across every channel builds customer loyalty.

Consumers have multiple touch-points on which they can be reached and more than ever, they’re expecting brands to be able to reach them on each. There are three other digital marketing strategies in opposition to an omnidirectional strategy – traditional which is a physical brick-and-mortar location; eCommerce which is the selling of products or services online; and multi-channel marketing which is comprised on various disconnected channels consumers use independently. Comparatively, omnichannel marketing uses all channels interconnected – the key difference.

Email may not be as trendy as social media or more glamorous digital marketing strategies however to this day, it’s one of the most conversion-friendly channels there is and has the potential to generate significant ROI. Email has endured over the years by being the most effective way to nurture leads and produce immediate sales. Here’s why we think email should be a go-to lead nurturing tool.

Follow-up emails.

Lead nurturing is about creating a relationship with the lead and giving them the time to make their own purchasing decision. Remember, the average buyer engages in 10 or more pieces of content before making a purchase. Take the time to send follow-up emails personalized to the client. Segment your targets according to the actions they’ve taken to maximize your level of responsiveness. Marketing automation can work wonders in this role, allowing you to schedule emails across every lead with minimal effort. Follow up with leads quickly in this way and see the difference it makes months down the line as overall lead conversation rates get a boost.

Fuel unlimited growth for your business with the right content marketing strategies to grow your online presence and establish yourself as an authoritative, trustworthy source. The development of content marketing is affordable, easily implemented into an existing website, and has a high value. For these reasons, a lot of sites from all business categories adopt content marketing. For beginners or websites who need a little extra help to get a leg up over competition, here are 5 content marketing strategies that will deliver big!

Use email.

Email is the best way to keep in touch with your customers. It’s direct and effective while gently highlighting your brand. In relation to content marketing, it’s also a very effective strategy as subscribers are 3 times more likely to share your content than other channels. When writing emails, use an eye-catching subject line, make your first line or two attractive and expressive, and keep it short. Emails aren’t meant to be 1,000-word blog posts. They should follow logic, incorporate short paragraphs, and always incorporate CTAs.

There are so many different strategies and techniques which can help with SEO that it’s easy to obsess over improving rankings. There are also several areas that are sometimes misunderstood. These five SEO strategies should be re-evaluated in 2019 by any site with an ingoing SEO campaign.

Keyword rank tracking.

It can be addictive chasing after certain keywords and monitoring where you rank. That said, many common software used to monitor keyword rank don’t factor in the search intents and don’t necessarily give an accurate perspective on your performance. For example, your keyword rank could be in part unrelated to what your site is about. That’s why some run a manual search on each keyword to see what comes up. Also, we don’t recommend tracking more than 30 keywords – much easier to manage than 100+.

For all the effort you’re putting into creating the easiest path for customers to make a purchase, common mistakes such as the following three could be wasting 1,000s of buys.

Ask yourself, are you converting the number of leads you believe your product is capable of – if the answer’s no, you might be unknowingly sabotaging your digital marketing efforts through the following 3 mistakes. Generating leads and traffic is a massive challenge in eCommerce, no matter how big or successful your brand is. Thankfully, if you’ve fallen into any of these traps, it’s fixable.

New social media platforms are popping up every day, by the dozens, and although they don’t necessarily hold big audiences yet, smaller and trendier platforms might be just what a brand needs to find their target audience.

Let’s not forget, in 2002, LinkedIn launched as one of the first social media sites and was alone in the marketplace at the time. Since then, we’ve seen sites like Snapchat rise like it did in 2016 trending at a faster growth rate than anything the Internet’s seen before and building a base of hundreds of millions of users. Then, there are brands like Etsy who got in early on a growing platform, which in this case was Pinterest and used pinning images on the social media platform to motivate a growth rate of 20 percent week over week for several months. The point of all this is that there are opportunities out there for social media platforms to capitalize on new, under-developed social sites. Needless to say, massive success could be awaiting you, just around the corner!

Spending some hours every week on executing social media marketing strategies can provide more website traffic, help improve search engine rankings, and increase overall conversions. Social media brands which are most successful know who to target and where. The channels chosen count for a lot. Every day, there are dozens new social media sites popping up and the dominating platforms are still pretty numerous, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and more. Where to focus your attention on though is simple and all about demographics.

What will your social media marketing objective be?

What you do on social media should link directly to an objective. Why you choose a particular channel and how you use it also should link directly to what you hope to achieve. For brand awareness social media strategies, you want large, established platforms with sizeable followers, like any of the big names we mentioned. If you’re looking for lead generation in a B2B environment, alternatively, LinkedIn is a champion for social media ROI in this category. Early on, establish your objective clearly and use it as your guide.

Realtors and real estate agencies use digital marketing every day to overcome the competition and reach their audience. Considering these days, more than 90 percent of people buying properties begin with an online search, how they market digitally is key to their success. For non-real estate businesses, there’s a lot to learn about what makes realtors successful and how this can be applied to your business.

Consistent branding.

Look at any successful realtor’s digital marketing strategy and you’ll find consistent branding throughout. Across every social media channel and every site on which their brand appears, they’re using the same logo, the same tag line, the same font, and oftentimes the same images. Consistent branding lets the user know they are in the right place and prevents confusion.

A staggering amount of attention in digital marketing is paid to SEO and that’s for a reason. SEO is a massive lead generator, brand visibility builder, and easily the best organic search strategy there is. If you have recently partnered with a digital marketing agency like Unlimited Exposure and/or are using a software to conduct an SEO audit, there are several things you should expect to see.

A comprehensive website crawl.

Any SEO website audit will begin with a full site crawl to identify any overarching issues which could be plaguing your SEO. A crawl provides a baseline for a site, scanning every URL and delivering an analysis on which the rest of one’s audit can be built. A crawl will locate on-page errors, including broken links, page titles, and duplicate content.

Content marketing done right will increase revenues, generate the web traffic you want, establish brand authority, help with brand visibility, possibly motivate influencer marketing, and more. An area many brands forget about exploiting specifically is link building – something crucial for growth, especially digitally.

Link building is accomplishable through writing guest blogs on other high-authority sites, link reclamation, connecting with high-authority outlets, through influencer marketing, and via press releases. The latter is one of the ways to build links while also establishing credibility, helping customers find you online, and improve search engine rankings.

Digital marketing takes on many forms. Chances are, if you have an online business or have a business website, you’ve probably participated in it at various times already. There are many things digital marketing can accomplish, including increasing revenues, getting more SEO attention, and boosting your social media numbers. Here are some of the biggest trends in 2019 in digital marketing and why it is still so important to success for businesses from all backgrounds.

Do you have no idea where to start with your content marketing campaign – here’s 6 examples from brands who have achieved mass success by personalizing their content to their audience. Although these strategies won’t necessarily work across the board in every industry, they may provide inspiration as to how to develop your own unique content marketing plan.

BBC

The BBC’s website digital marketing campaign is based around audience participation. BBC produced a ‘Your Life on Earth’ interactive info-graphic personalized to a user’s responses. They entered in birthdate, height, and more, and were shown interesting facts and figures about the ways in which the world has changed. Links were included, directing back to BBC videos and articles. They used completely unconnected content to link back to BBC content which was relevant and which would be meaningful to their audience.