When it comes to digital marketing, we want to make sure that you’ve got all the essential elements covered. So here we are, at your service, showing you our essential 8 step plan to make your digital marketing a success.
1. Develop a professional website
Your number one priority. Your business needs a professional-looking online presence. Nine times out of ten, people turn to the web when they first look for a product or service. And whether you want to generate more enquiries, raise your profile or sell products, having a well-performing website is essential for any brand or business.
2. Ensure your website is Search Engine Optimised
You have your website, now you need to be found. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a powerful process that can help improve the visibility of products when potential customers search. SEO is a form or organic search, where customers enter phrases or keywords into search engines, and the results are listed to their closest requirements. If your site is developed with SEO in mind, organic search can generate positive listings for your business. And it’s very important that your business comes out on top of the rankings, because the difference between a first and second place ranking can be huge. A recent study by Compete.com saw that over 85% of all listings shown are organic. And when it comes to clicks on those organic listings, 53% of people go to the top result, with the second place listing only seeing 15% of click throughs.
3. Consider Pay Per Click (PPC)
By combining PPC with strong SEO with email marketing, you can make your website work even harder for your business. PPC is a form of advertising on search engines or other websites. To have your advert appear on search engine websites, you pay a fee for specific keywords, such as ‘marketing agency Hertfordshire.’ Then, when people search for this term, your advert will appear in the paid for areas of the results generated. Although there are no guarantees that your advert will appear as it depends on the popularity of the terms you have chosen, a well managed PPC campaign can work very effectively.
4. Add value through email marketing
We all receive many emails every day from brands and businesses we’ve either registered with, or have shown an interest in their services. Some we delete, but if we’ve made an emotional connection with them and we genuinely care about what they have to say, we tend to open them. Whether it’s your sports car brand of choice, or preferred holiday destination, businesses that connect with their customer in the right ways can use email marketing to their advantage. UK SME’s are seeing an average open rate of almost 23%, how do you fare? Ultimately it depends on the quality of your email data, a well crafted, accurately timed email with the right subject line which makes a significant difference.
5. Be social
Like it or loathe it, social media is everywhere. So you need to be onboard if you’re not already! We see it in the newspapers, in the media, on advertising, in-store and on the television – every programme seems to have a hashtag. Reviews and recommendations from our peers are key influences when making a decisions and social media is one big open discussion space. People are free to say what they want about your brand – so good, or bad, you need to be listening and responding.
6. Create a video
Video can be a powerful form of engagement. Cisco report that video traffic will account for 80 – 90% of global consumer internet traffic by 2017. So video is set to be hugely important whatever your business. One of the key reasons that video is good for business is that it gets you found. Videos have a 50% higher chance of getting first page Google rankings for their keywords according to Forrester Research. Video also increases email marketing open rates by 5.6% and click-through-rates by 96.38% when compared to emails that did not contain videos, a study by Implix has found. Video can also be surprisingly affordable. Marketing Zone’s website videos start from just £500.
7. Post blogs
A blog is a regularly updated web page or website of news, opinion and experiences. And blogging has so many benefits. It can support your public relations plan, it can help promote your products and services, it can be keyword optimised as part of your SEO strategy, and adding regular relevant content will show Google that you are a credible source of information which will help your organic search rankings. It’s reported that 2/3 of businesses have a blog because it leads to sales. In HubSpot’s study, ‘The State of Inbound Marketing,’ companies that blog reported increased sales. And the more they blog, the more they report an impact on sales.
8. Interact via polls and surveys
Many of us like to get our point across. So asking your customers to part in short and snappy online polls and surveys can be just the right way to hear what they think of your brand or business – especially if there’s an incentive such as the opportunity to be entered into a prize draw. There are many free tools such as Polldaddy and SurveyMonkey which can get you started, and we can help manage these processes should you need us. Surveys can also be a great way forward if you’re launching a new product or service. Knowledge is power and can make all the difference. Surveys and polls can also add interaction to your website or eNewsletter which will encourage engagement.
Marketing Zone are experts in digital marketing. Now you’ve got the basics grasped, ask us to lead you forward to success.