What’s the deal with Digital Marketing? - A bite-sized guide for the non-marketer

So what’s the deal with digital marketing, anyway?

Alright, so bear with me here as some of this might be redundant. What I’m attempting to do here is to give an overview of some of the most frequently asked questions regarding digital marketing.

Why am I doing this? Well, I think there’s a lot of confusion out there between the various strategies, tactics, and tasks associated with this dynamic and ever-changing field.

Maybe I’ll add a little to the noise, but maybe you’ll find this guide useful.

Do you have an idea of a “Dream Client?” You know, the one that you would kill to land as a client? Or the client who you just know would benefit from your service, almost as if it was handcrafted for them? Well, Account Based Marketing is just the ticket.

Probably the easiest way to explain Account Based Marketing is by flipping the traditional Sales Funnel upside down and reverse engineering the process with a specific client or account in mind.

For example, imagine you’re a paper distributor such as Dunder Mifflin Paper Company and you wanted to be the sole supplier of paper products to companies that specializes in stationary and letter-pressing. Well, instead employing more general marketing strategies to cast a wide net, you would focus your energies on building the relationship with these unique clients as individuals, rather than as a market as a whole.

Content is everything. Everything is content. No, but seriously though. Content is anything from blog posts to youtube videos. From podcasts to how-to guides. Book reviews, animations, music, photography, paintings, puns and more.

Are you starting to get the picture? I hope I’ve framed it well enough. But the question was what is Content Marketing, not just content! Content marketing is the practice of using content to achieve a goal aligned with your marketing strategies.

Remember, your best pieces of content are the ones you would use or consume yourself! Also, while text might feel like the most accessible, don’t be afraid to explore across different mediums!

Here are a few common types of content you can try:

Email marketing is as simple as the emails that always show up in your email inbox day after day! What I’m getting at here, is email marketing is not as effective as it once was.

Though not totally obsolete, email marketing is certainly on the way out. With a very low open-rate compared to SMS marketing, email marketing requires a compelling subject line with an immediate call to action, or undeniable value in the message body.

If knowing your audience is important, knowing how your audience consumes technology and marketing is essential. The way each generation consumes, learns, and ultimately uses technology is vastly different. Make sure you’re properly aligning your efforts with this in mind.

Imagine your Grandmother. Now imagine your little cousins. What device are they using? What website are they on? What are they using their technology for?

You’re probably imagining pretty specific answers to these questions.

Grandma is on Facebook on her desktop computer. Your little cousins are using their tablet to watch streamers and vloggers on YouTube. There’s even a good chance that you’re reading this article on your phone! That’s Generational Marketing!

Inbound Marketing is basically just attracting your target customers through targeted efforts. The keyword here is attracting.

As opposed to its counterpart, Outbound Marketing, Inbound Marketing tactics work like a magnet to attract to you. Inbound marketing is a generally less expensive route to go, because you’re able to cast a very specific net towards those who are already looking for information around your topic.

So imagine if you hired Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to promote your brand for a month. That would be a pretty awesome influencer campaign. Now imagine if you and The Rock worked together for 15+ years on a variety of awesome marketing campaigns. Why, that would be a Brand Ambassador.

See where I’m going with this? Influencer Marketing can best be described as a mutually beneficial relationship between an individual and a brand. An influencer doesn’t need to be a highly paid celebrity!

Remember, thanks to social media we live in a digital age where everybody has a voice and an audience. Find like-minded individuals and see how you can benefit each others brands.

Outbound Marketing covers some of the more traditional forms of marketing and advertising by essentially acting like a loudspeaker to call attention to your brand.

While often much more expensive with a lower return on investment than its counterpart, Inbound Marketing, these tactics shouldn’t be totally neglected. Just make sure you’re being intentional with your budget and efforts.

SMS Marketing refers to the use of Text Messages to reach your customers directly. This can be a very successful method for alerting your customers about specific deals, sales, and offers. However, there is also a significant risk to SMS Marketing.

Make sure you’re using the following best practices to ensure a smooth and successful campaign:

Narrow your focus and segment your customer database as thoroughly as possible!

Don’t overuse! This is a very powerful tool with a high conversion rate and an incredibly high ability to generate loyalty and customer retention. Don’t abuse the trust. Nobody likes to be spammed.

Make it compelling! You need to make sure you’re using an offer that is so irresistible, there is no way it can be turned down. Let me put it like this, if you have a 98% open rate, you better have a 98% conversion rate too.

Okay, okay. I think it’s safe to assume that we’re all familiar with social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. While you can certainly employ expensive paid techniques such as PPC (Pay-per-click) or Influencer marketing, there are tons of other things you can do to capitalize on your social media platforms.

Social Media and Content go hand-in-hand! Make sure you’re sharing, repurposing, and repackaging your content to suit each social platform. Similarly, make sure each social platform is consistent with one another and is all working towards the same goal aligned with your marketing strategy.

Take your social media channels seriously! Whether you’re dealing with a customer, posting an update, responding to a review, etc. make sure you’re being courteous and professional. No matter what the circumstance is! Emoji’s are fine, and and conversational abbreviations are fine as well.

Just be sure you’re not only attentive to your audience, but to your medium as well.

Social networks are not all the same! In fact, they’re all very different! Though the way we use them may be similar, they’re all serving distinctly different purposes, whether it be a professional network, a visual-based network, a music-based network, etc.

Make sure you’re keeping this in mind as you use each platform to maximize your efforts and impact.

Your Brand Identity is not just the way you portray your brand to the world, it’s also the way the world perceives your brand. These two will always go hand-in-hand.That’s why it’s vital to ensure your tactics are accurately reflecting the values you stand for, as a brand.

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. These are the data and metrics that you care most about and track changes of diligently . Some common KPIs might include visitors to your website, likes or followers on a social media platform, or even time spent reading an article or piece of content.

Pay-Per-Click or PPC Marketing is as simple as it sounds. You pay, they play. Whether it be Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, Instagram Sponsored Ads, or another publisher, you shell out some cash and in exchange you’ll receive clicks. Each publisher has their own way of doing this, so it’s important to read the rules and guidelines and plan your campaigns accordingly!

Remember, your PPC campaign shouldn’t be a set-it and forget it. Instead, make sure you’re checking in from time to time to ensure that what you’re doing is actually working. If it’s not, try something different!

It’s important to not have a PPC Campaign be the entire strategy for that platform. If you’re not organically tending to your channels, no amount of money is going to show a return on your investment.

Alright, so this one might not be specific to digital marketing, but I think it’s worth mentioning. A sales funnel is essentially the process through which a sale is made. Think “I’m Just a Bill” a la Schoolhouse Rock.

But for marketing and sales. Awareness becomes an interest becomes a decision becomes an action. Digital marketing tools allow you to track, trace, and test the funnel to ensure it’s a smooth ride for your sales team. Make sure you’re not just acting without analyzing your results. You should have trackable goals in place for every piece of your marketing strategy to make sure you make the most of every effort.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the practice of optimizing your page to be the first result you see when searching for a keyword or phrase. There are many factors as to how and why a page will rank where it does, but the process can be most easily summed up as ranking by trustworthiness. A websites trustworthiness will be determined by a variety of factors and signals, both simple and complex.

Here are a couple of easy solutions to ensure you’re optimizing the low hanging fruit.

Make sure your site has an accurate and high quality meta-description! A meta-description is basically just a description used specifically by search engines to catalog your website. If you want to read more, here is an article from Yoast , a popular SEO Tool for WordPress that can explain it much better and quicker than I can!

Make sure your content is relevant and of substance! Need I say more?

Don’t use keywords excessively! Don’t do it! Just don’t! Not only does it look unnatural to the humans who read it, search engines will penalize you for it.

Your URLs can work for you! That’s right! Look at the URL of this page. See how you can read it? Well, so can Google! That’s right, hyphens essentially signal a ‘space’ to Google. This can also be applied to images as well to make sure every piece of content on your page is fully utilized!

I hope you learned a thing or two or at the very least enjoyed the journey. Either way, you made it to the bottom of the page, so something caught your attention.