Gideon Marketing

What Every Company Needs To Understand About Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is advertising your business or your companies goods and services online or through mobile data channels. Like conventional marketing when done correctly it includes much screening and record keeping to find what is really working. Unlike conventional marketing digital marketing usually is a lot easier to track and easier to change and customize "on the fly" in response to feedback and tracking results.

Digital Marketing tends to be focused on a directly targeted audience more so than conventional marketing channels which tended to transmit a message repeatedly over a broad audience.

The primary categories of digital marketing are: Owned outlets such as a company's website, Facebook page or other social media channels; paid ads such as Google Adwords or Facebook paid advertising; and earned media outlets such as a blog following, Facebook fans and other social media accounts. Clearly the digital owned and earned classifications can co-occur.

One of the first things a company needs to develop is the particular objective of their digital efforts. In a common B2B business to business campaign the objective might be to generate high quality leads for a trained sales force to follow up with. In B2C business to consumer, the primary objective might be increased brand name reach, construct an email list of quality prospects, or a client call to a brick and mortar business location.

Some types of digital marketing can be rather affordable to begin with. For instance an email outreach campaign or publishing exceptionally engaging content on a blog post that gets an audience and is shared around the internet. Other alternatives can start rather cheaply and then be tweaked and enhanced before scaling up into greater budgets. These alternatives make digital marketing a much lower barrier to entry than conventional marketing. All of this is to state that smaller and medium sized companies have a much better opportunity for success and for that fact alone every business needs to have a well defined digital marketing plan and spending plan.

Why Should a Business/Service Organization Concentrate On Their Online Presence?

It is a well known truth that the internet has altered the world. Today the printed Yellow Pages are not much more than a paper weight, pun intended. Newspaper and publication subscriptions are down substantially across the country. Network television viewership is decreasing year over year. All of these "old-world" media outlets are succumbing to the digital new truth. The vast bulk of people search online to find the local goods and services that they need. If a business wants to grow it must be discovered online, and it must have multiple outlets online.

Therefore, it is a basic reality that a company must have a digital outline to grow their consumer base, brand name, and sales.

It Begins With a Strategy

Much like conventional marketing, a company needs to have a particular plan for their digital marketing. Marketing is a strategy that a company carries out to connect to their perfect prospects to inform them and get them to know, like and trust the business. Strategy is the big picture. Tactics are the HOW of the execution of the plan.

The marketing plan does does not have to be lots of pages of complicated technical lingo, (charts|graphs} and formula's. In reality it can be rather basic. Read The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib. You need to laser concentrate on:

1. Who. Your target market in advertising can't be "everybody that walks in the door". Each campaign must be laser focused on a particular target. Choose your "perfect" customer. Focus your message on exactly that individual. Are they male/female? What age? What income? What routines? What likes and dislikes. What are the major one or two issues that are causing them stress and anxiety. What are their fears, what keeps them up at night? Also as important. Who do you NOT want. What type of consumer is your biggest problem, greatest trouble and least rewarding. Your advertising needs to weed them out too.

2. What. What can you uniquely do to take care of them. You need to develop what your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is. What separates you from the crowd of rivals that are yelling for their attention. You Your business must communicate plainly and succinctly what you can do for them to resolve the issue laid out above. Often this stage of the relationship includes How. Do not assume that the consumer immediately comprehends how your option will resolve their problem. Do not leave them the least bit hazy regarding how you will fix their problem.

3. Why. Why they should choose you. Offer real proof of your claims. Social proof, (other pleased clients), a warranty, seek to literally make an offer that they can't refuse and that has no real downside for them.

The whole focus of your advertising is to let your prospects know, like and trust you. There are lots of was to accomplish this in digital marketing. Publishing lots of interesting and helpful content will serve to make you the specialist in the field. Details that is totally free and useful builds trust. Your business could make use of blogging, release an ebook, create an engaging infographic or host a webinar.

It Takes A Touch, (or 7).

Marketing can be compared to dating. It requires time and multiple interactions to develop the know, like and trust. A professional relationship is a relationship after all. Your marketing campaigns need to concentrate on the process|. This is often referred to as an inverted funnel. At the top of the funnel are the "raw" prospects that might come across you through your advertising. As you engage more with them, inform them and help them with your content they begin to trust you. Those that have an interest in your business/service or your offer move further down the funnel, while some prospects will leave. Your campaign needs to concentrate on building the relationship with those moving through your funnel, and how to interact and continue to connect to those that have not given a response and moved along down the funnel. Those that "leave" might not be gone permanently. After all, how many guys hit it off perfectly with their wife right from the beginning. It is expected that the relationship will require time and work.

Another advantage to digital marketing is the ease of which a business/service can develop mant touch points with possible customers. Once they have entered your funnel and identified themselves it is possible to connect with them by means of Facebook, email, text, Google Ads or other social networks. Sales professionals inform us that it takes in the neighborhood of 5-7 touches before the majority of prospects turn into customers. Your digital marketing plan needs to plan for multiple touches to prospects along with re-targeting prospects that have yet to move along in your funnel.

Where To Start the Digital Marketing Journey

Your Website:

For most companies the best starting place to a digital marketing plan is to develop a website. It is incredibly important to be certain that your site is mobile friendly, loads quickly and that all the elements of the website load properly on all types of mobile devices.

It is a simple matter to find companies that will construct a website. However, a lot of site builders are not efficient in writing the content. They do not know your business, your Unique Selling Proposition, and frankly are not copy writers. You want your site to encourage prospects to investigate your business further. You must have content that engages them, addresses their questions and concerns and builds a connection. If you are not secure in your own writing skills your site is one place that a financial investment in a really skilled copy writer is an excellent investment.

Keywords:

You will want to look into the major keywords and keyword phrases that prospects will use to search for your goods or services. This might not be as hard as some make it out to be. Begin with your own experience. What words and phrases would you use for your business and services and your local area. Type these into a Google search. As the pages come up notice how well the results displayed match what you were searching for. Notice as you begin to type your search Google will offer some search recommendations. Write these down. Go to the bottom of the search page and also write down the phrases that google offers as search recommendations. Do this for every keyword and keyword phrase that you can come up with, then search the best of the Google search recommendations that you made a note of. Again, on all the searches go to the bottom of the page and find the best of the recommendations.

Site Content:

When you are crafting or having someone your website pages writtenensure that the best of the keywords and keyword phrases are added in your content. This is how Google and the other online search engines determine what your page is all about and when you should appear in a customer search.

Site Tracking:

Much of the ins and outs of constructing a site are beyond the scope of this short article. Nevertheless, do make sure that Google Analytics, Google Search Console and Facebook pixels are installed and working on your website. These tools will provide you with a means to evaluate traffic to your website down to specific pages and will permit you to track visitors to your website so they can be re-targeted as we discussed above in the topic of funnels.

Many site owners fail to use the data that Google supplies FREE. With Google Analytics and Google Search Console you can track all the web traffic to each page of your site. You can discover where the traffic originated from, (did they find you through your listing on Yelp or your Google My Business listing or basic search). If from basic search what keywords are working best for you? What pages on your website do they go to? How much time do visitors spend on each page? Time on website and "bounce" rate are metrics that Google will use to determine the quality of your web pages and it will effect your ranking in Google. But more important, these types of data will help you to understand how your potential customers feel about your website and the quality of your content.

Learning more about the Terminology of Digital Marketing:

Every business or specific niche has it's own language and key terms related to it. Let's review a few of the common terms utilized in digital marketing.

• Bounce Rate: A measure of the overall quantity of visitors to your page or to an online ad and the number that stay long enough to digest the content as opposed to the number that quickly click away. A high bounce rate is a guaranteed warning for your funnel or content. This measurement lends its self to A-B testing. That is evaluating one factor vs another. For instance, image A as opposed to image B, or Headline A vs Headline B. A caution here is to just test one variable at a time and ensure you have enough impressions for each variable before you conclude which is the clear winner.

• Call to Action: The response that you desire your page visitor to take. It could be to submit a contact form, get the phone and call, click a "Buy" button. One reason that most sites convert really inadequately is that they do not have a clear and compelling call to action. Much thought and testing needs to go into your call to action for every page or advertisement that you put online.

• Conversion rate: The ratio of visitors to your page vs the number that completes your call to action and buys, submits a contact form, call or otherwise move further along in your funnel.

• SEO: Search Engine Optimization is the procedure of optimizing your web pages for higher "ranking" in the online search engines. Most sites that are discovered on page 2+ in the search results page get practically no traffic from their web presence. For this fact alone lots of businesses elect to guarantee that their sites are optimized for the online search engines, Google, Bing, Yahoo, and so on

• Content Marketing: Is the process of making use of great and engaging content to boost brand name awareness, consumer trust or traffic development. It can take the form of blogging, ebooks, infographics or videos video, ebooks or infographics.

• Organic Results: Is to rank in the search engine result page (SERP) listed below the paid ads. The online search engines will feature the paid ads at the top of page-1 and if there suffice bidders ads will also be displayed at the bottom of page-1 too. After the paid ads Google will have the 3-Pack or Map which features 3 local businesses for the primary search inquiries. This Map 3- Pack is the outright premimum location for a local company to have. It appears on page one "above the fold" and features business Google reviews. The businesses listed in the top 3 receive the highest click through rates on page 1.

• PPC or Pay Per Click: The term refers to paid advertising on the SERP's. A company will bid on a keyword or keyword phrase with purchasing intent, such as "plumbing professional in Tempe Az Denver, Co Dallas, Tx". The winning bid will instantly be featured at the top of the search results page where they are the 1st impression for the searcher. If the searcher clicks their listing they will be directed to the businesses site or landing page where the business has an opportunity to convert the click into a customer. The marketer will just pay the search engine if somebody clicks their listing.

Social Media Marketing:

An astute company understands they wish to be discovered everywhere that their prospective clients are located. Today that indicates having a presence on social media. Every business need not be located on every social media outlet, but it is crucial to discover where your customers spend time and be certain to be discovered there. A rough generalization of a few of the most popular social media platforms follows:

Facebook is among the biggest with billions of users. Hundreds of million people check in the platform every day. A general age spread would be 25-55 years old. Facebook has an amazing data base of their users. An organization that wishes to promote on Facebook has a much better opportunity to narrow in on a very focused audience with Facebook's user data. Nevertheless, the marketer needs to keep in mind that folks do not go to Facebook to go shopping. They are looking for entertainment and social interaction. Your advertising must fit right in with the flow to be effective. A hard core sales pitch will not work.

Twitter has about a 20% market exposure online. Users tend to be younger than Facebook. More in the 18-29 age group. Communication on Twitter is short and suscent. Advertisement costs run a little high so mastering Twitter as an ad platform takes expertise.

LinkenIn is more known as a B2B platform, but it is plainly the best alternative in that space. It is taylored for an older more business professional. Having stated that, it host about 1-billion members. In the B2B space it is well worth discovering how to use successfully.

Pinterest is a visual platform which has a higher female . If a company has a services or product that lends its self to those factors Pinterest is a practical advertising platform.

Marketing with Video;

Many businesses have in fact not even started to realize the power of video marketing. YouTube is the number two search engine by volume, in the world. Individuals respond to visual stimulus much more than the written word. Video is becoming increasingly more popular on all of the social media platforms. In short video is the best untapped resource for local business/service organizations to engage with their choice prospects.

Video is best for short clips that fit in well the flow of social media platforms. A company owner can highlight a special service, show off their company local area, or supply an "explainer" video to help prospects to comprehend the benefits of their product or service.

Videos that engage an audience will be "liked" and "shared" across the internet. That type of totally free exposure is the dream of every business owner. Video's do not always need to be large, expert productions. Numerous video clips shot with a cellular phone have gone viral on the internet. The real secret is producing content that touches your target market.

Email Marketing:

Another untapped resource for lots of local services organizations in today's digital marketing landscape is email marketing. Developing an email list of satisfied prior customers and then keeping quality content and compelling special offers in front of that core audience is just common sense business. Email marketing can be rather affordable and extremely profitable. It is nevertheless, important for the business owner to keep premium value in mind. It is not sensible to just constantly pitch to that audience. That is the quickest path to a mass unsubscribe. The business must supply true premium value and engaging content that keeps their customer list opening and responding to the e-mails.

The Bottom Line:

The bottom line is that really every business can benefit and grow with a solid digital marketing plan. The marketing plan does not need to be excessively complicated but it does need to be well crafted and implemented. Digital marketing today provides a broad spectrum of platforms to connect and engage with prospects. The sensible business will work through multiple channels to reach their targeted audience and develop rapport.

Digital marketing is ideal for smaller or medium size companies on a limited budget. A few of the chances are free to begin with. Paid advertising online has exceptional technologies to track efficiency and makes it simple to test and customize a campaign early on before serious money is burned .

If you would like assistance with developing your Digital Marketing Plan in JoplinMo 64801 or the surrounding Four States, Call Gideon Marketing.

Gideon Marketing

4200 McClelland Blvd

Joplin, MO 64804

417-385-3537

https://gideonmarketing.com