Basic Digital Marketing

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.

Crushing the competition is a part of good business. If you want to maximize your market share, that has to come from somewhere. As challenging as it can be for new businesses to do, there are thankfully several digital marketing strategies one can use to generate revenues and gain an advantage over the competition.

Use the media.

The competition is there for you to monitor. Don’t ignore that. Set up a Google Alert to monitor your competition and any mention they receive on the Internet. Pay attention to who is talking about them. If they’re getting press from a specific media outlet, reach out to those journalists. Although you won’t be successful every time, when you are, you may be able to give your company some free press in time by cultivating relationships with online and offline media.

If you don’t think you’re getting the mileage you want from your blog articles, you might be right. The simplest SEO mistake can cost a website big. If your website’s failing and you’re not ranking where you want, from a blogger’s perspective, here’s where to start.

XML sitemap

The easiest instant change to make that will have a great impact on your website is to ensure you have an accurate XML sitemap set up. This is a roadmap of your blog, indicating to Google the structure of your site and the content ahead. Installing the Google XML Sitemaps plug-in is recommended as it will increase your post indexing rate, and make it easier for spiders to crawl/find your posts.

There is so, so, so much focus put on millennials, and their wants and needs, that few businesses are prepared for the incoming Generation Z. This is the first generation who grew up with smartphones and social media, and they’re a whole different set of people than millennials. If you’re serious about maintaining a young audience, you need to shift your attention towards sustaining popularity among Generation Z.

Generation Z now accounts for approximately 40 percent of all consumers. They’re much more advanced in their knowledge of technology and the digital world. Generation Z are generally referred to as having shorter attention spans and are thus more difficult to impress. If you haven’t made an impression in seconds, you’ve lost them and probably for good. Generation Z expects to be curated too, consistently. They also highly value influencers, particularly on YouTube and Instagram.

A small business can generate a lot of revenue these days if they know how to exploit social marketing just right. Let’s be clear in stating that social media marketing is not just about gaining followers and likes. In fact, sometimes the objective is completely different. Strategizing a digital marketing plan, here are 9 secrets that all the top players are using.

Creating bulk content.

There are going to be some days where you don’t have anything to post. That’s natural. Set a schedule where you bulk up on social media posts and blogs ahead of time. That way, you’ll always have something to post. Craft a week’s worth or a month’s worth of content at the same time.

Every company participating in video marketing wants their content to go viral. When a video goes viral, big things happen. A brand instantly boosts their social media followers and can generate millions off a single video. Going viral is very, very tough. It doesn’t come natural in video marketing. So few videos end up actually going viral that it’s a high bar to aspire to. Here are six examples of brands who have done viral video marketing right however.

Always

Always’ #LikeaGirl campaign showed children and adults contemplating the phrase ‘like a girl’. Its message was positive, inclusive, and creates an emotional connection with Always’ predominantly female audience. Always also took extra steps by encouraging others to share their own examples on social media and including the #LikeaGirl hashtag.

There’s a lot to focus on with an eCommerce company, with so many digital marketing channels and platforms to consider. For many businesses, marketing their products or services online is challenging because of how time-consuming it can be. If you’re looking to maximize your time, keep up with the competition, and show continued growth in your business numbers, here are 5 eCommerce digital marketing opportunities you should be capitalizing on.

A blog.

Overproducing irrelevant articles in an attempt to improve SEO is a bad move overall. When executed properly however, a blog can be an easy and cost-effective way to educate and highlight products. The key is relevance. An article should resonate with an audience, anticipate their needs, and answer the questions they are likely to have. Avoid hard-selling. Instead, content should be presented with value and no agenda. Design how-tos and similar help-based blogs. The more you do this, the more value you create in the mind of the consumer on a product.

Is your SEO out of date – you’re not the only one. Too many websites are using older SEO techniques which could be unknowingly penalizing your website. If you’re purposefully using spammy techniques to attempt to trick the system, chances are it’s either not working or you’re going to inevitably get caught. In SEO, you’ve got to change with the times and search engine algorithms have changed in the last decade. If you want high quality, targeted website traffic, ensure you’re not following these five bad SEO strategies.

Publishing too much content.

Although you might think posting blogs will increase traffic to your site, increased output generally equates to lower quality. A website which contains too many blogs and text-heavy webpages are not viewed favorably. If you’re serious about SEO, you want to focus on publishing as many high-quality blogs as you can. Prioritize quality over quantity. Quality equates to traffic – not quantity.

Digital marketing trends and innovation are always an excellent source for inspiration for small businesses looking to get a leg up on competition. Fast food brands like Burger King and McDonald’s have launched some of the best marketing campaigns in the last fifty years.

KFC’s most recent digital marketing campaigns are some any marketer has got to be impressed by. In recent years, KFC came up with a digital marketing campaign that used influencers, professional wrestlers, and Hollywood celebrities to dress up as the Colonel. This created a sense of anticipation as to who was next in line to take on the Colonel retro look and was a playful manner to create awareness in the marketplace.

Then, a second digital marketing launched involved a live-stream approach, broadcasting four hours of cats climbing Colonel-inspired merchandise ranging from a small cat condo to a rug, pool floatie, fire log, and more. This was, again, a great way to get attention for the brand.

High CTR rates are an email marketer’s dream. That said, in an inbox filled with possibly hundreds of messages, it can be difficult for some brands to create enough of a reason to get a subscriber to open their email and then, to click through to your website.

If you want fast, easy techniques on how to improve your click-through rate, we can help. Using these strategies, a subscriber won’t have to put out too much energy or think too much about where to click or what to do. Within 3 emails or less, you should see your CTR rate improve tremendously.

Attractive, catchy subject line.

Increase your click-through rate by getting people to open your emails with a catchy subject line. Ideally, the right subject line should either create a sense of mystery or intrigue, imply a sense of urgency, or are unexpected and unique. You want to get their click in 5 seconds or less!

An excellent influencer marketing campaign relies almost entirely on connecting with the right influencers for your brand. When done right, instantly, you can find your KPIs moving in a faster, higher direction.

Multiple studies have shown influencer marketing to be one of the most cost-effective forms of providing brands with an instant boost in revenues. On average, ROI for influencer marketing is $7 per dollar invested. In food, retail, and travel, these are the categories where the most effective influencer marketing exists. If you fall outside of these areas, no worries as influencers certainly have value. Any brand can tap into influencers, as long as the influencers is not in opposition to your brand’s image or credibility. Evidently, choosing the wrong influencer can be a waste of money and/or have dire consequences for the long-term health of your business.

Why influencer marketing is preferred so much more than other strategies is because of how simple and direct it is, particularly with its results. You don’t need to spend hours writing and posting blogs, sharing social media updates, connecting with customers one at a time, and waiting indefinitely for momentum to take shape. Going through an influence, you receive access to potentially millions of people in a single interaction from a voice they trust which thereby capitalizes on word-of-mouth. Because it’s coming from somewhere they know and trust, a consumer’s more likely to buy into a brand, product, or service.