What is digital marketing and how can I do it well?

When traveling abroad it’s helpful to know the language of the country you’re visiting, to have an interpreter, or at the least, a quick reference guide for phrases and words so you can order a coffee, book a hotel, or buy a souvenir. Likewise, when operating a company in a digital age, it’s important you learn to speak the language of digital marketing.

Let’s take a look at a few digital marketing tools you can use to convert potential customers into paying customers. We’ll also examine some tools you can use to market to current or past customers and convert them again.

Digital marketing is simply marketing that takes place online and does not need to be mystifying in any way. With more and more business being done online, now is the time to engage your target audience this way. With 3.5 billion smartphone users worldwide and an average daily spend of 3 hours online, it’s imperative your company has an online presence when marketing your products and services to prospective customers. Think of the potential!

Fresh new customers… how do you get them? How can you be sure that the net you are casting is placed in the right pond and spread wide enough to catch the fish, er, people that are going to become your new customers?

The first steps are to establish your digital presence: create an attractive, easy-to-navigate website; build your social media pages as well, including high quality photos, contact information, and links (back to your website!); and start posting regularly so people can learn more about your business.

Now that you’ve created your website and social media accounts, everyone will come flocking to you, right?! Business will be booming! Yes?? Well, maybe. The key to ensuring that when people search online for your products and services they find you is found in SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

The basis of SEO is about getting the right people to the right place, your website. By utilizing appropriate and strong keywords, quality links and content, as well as meta-tags, you’ll be well on your way to attracting new customers to your site and store.

But what about those who have found you and visited your site, but didn’t buy anything? Here we find the “not quite” customer. They’ve interacted with your company in some way, but didn’t make it to the final step in the buying process. They left things in their “shopping cart”, they never registered for your e-course, or they didn’t sign up for your newsletter.

How do you get them to give you another chance? You know if they tried your product or gave you an opportunity to serve them, they would love it!

Retargeting is a solution. Consumers are 70% more likely to convert with retargeting. Simply put, you add a piece of code to your website, called a “pixel”, that can track those who have visited your site, but have “bounced off”. You place an ad on another platform (this can be a specific social media site or other sites or platforms on the web), and as that “almost customer” continues their online endeavors, they’ll see your ads, reminding them of your products and services. Retargeting ads average a CTR (Click Through Rate) 10x higher than display ads.

Once someone has purchased from you once, ideally they will again, right? But how can you stay top of mind and actively engage your customer base to make sure they do? This is where your social media presence plays an important role. These platforms make it simple to interact with your customers, to strengthen your community, and grow your reach. Happy customers talk. Let them be talking about you! And sharing with others… your posts, your products, your services.

As you gain customers and build your contact list, remarketing is another tool you can use to stay connected. Remarketing is simply staying connected with and reminding current or past customers you have more to offer them, and this is typically done through email. Consider sending regular emails to your community. Share new products and include discount codes and special sales. Reward those who shop with you regularly with incentives and exclusive access to content or deals.

Learning a new language can be daunting at first, but with implementation and practice, it can become second nature. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Can you focus on just one of these strategies to strengthen in your marketing approach this week?

Whether it’s enhancing your SEO, website appeal, social media engagement, or retargeting efforts; investment in digital marketing will serve to build your brand and draw your next favorite customers your way.

Have questions or want to discuss how to implement these strategies and more into your digital marketing plan? Click here to set up a call with a marketing expert today!