You most consider this factors when doing digital marketing as a business owner, you must know that one of the most important things you need to focus on is your digital marketing strategy. However, having an online advertising strategy isn’t only about building a responsive and user-friendly website, there are also various, important factors you need to consider before you begin any digital marketing, all of which will influence your strategy.
Before we can go into details about the factors that make for the success of any Digital Marketing Campaign, we should first define what the term digital marketing means. In the past, it has also been called Internet marketing, e-marketing and web marketing, these alternative terms varying over time, but none of these is broad enough to encompass what digital marketing is today
Many business owners believe that it is all about their website or Facebook page. It is a far more complex and deeper subject, actually covering any ‘electronic’ means (channel) that a customer uses to interact with a business.
It, therefore, covers all Social Media, access through Google, YouTube and any of the many other Search Engines that exist, plus of course Email. And when it comes to the devices, there is the desktop computer, the laptop, the smartphone, and the growing number of devices, like Alexa. Plus, with the Internet of Things becoming a reality, soon a customer’s fridge will be interacting with your business. this is a challenge for you and your Digital marketing and design agency.
Each way in which a customer interacts is labelled a ‘channel’, and the level of interaction can be a complex one, depending on the level of integration (with your business systems) and tactics you apply.
One recent definition is “Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies and media.”
Perhaps then we should refresh ourselves as to what ‘marketing’ is all about?
Defining marketing
The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing, like this:
“Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably”.
It is important to bear this in mind as is it is all too easy to set objectives for digital marketing based around ‘vanity metrics’ such as the number of ‘likes’, ‘followers’ or indeed website traffic. All of these are merely milestones on the route and not a goal in themselves.
In simple terms, digital marketing is promoting products and services online, which are accessible via digital devices, such as smartphones, tablets, wearables, smart TVs, laptops, and desktop computers. Hence, it’s also called online marketing. Digital marketing doesn’t seem to be an option anymore. Now, it’s important for every business to have a digital marketing strategy set in place to reach more potential customers and attain their marketing goals and achieve more sales.
Factors To Conside6r When Doing Digital Marketing
But what makes a digital marketing campaign successful? The success of your digital marketing strategy depends on many factors, which will be discussed in detail below.
- Website Performance
Having a website is a prerequisite to launching your digital marketing campaign. And to drive your digital marketing success, your website’s performance plays a crucial role. If your website is slow loading and difficult to navigate, chances are you won’t earn a significant number of visitors and leads.
For your website to have good performance, it must have the following qualities:
User friendly
Engaging
Helpful
Fast loading
Test your website with Page Speed Insights by Google
- SEO
Search Engine Optimization has had some bad press over the years, notably because it was, in its early days, all about ‘tricking’ Google into giving ranks to pages (sites) that did not in fact deserve them, by taking advantages of ‘holes’ in the ranking algorithms.
Today, with Google’s advanced systems, such trickery is counterproductive because SEO is now being all about ensuring that sites meet Googles stringent rules and ‘assisting’ Google to make the right choice, i.e. giving a page the best rank possible for any relevant search term.
It is a long-term process, but it is a vital part of any digital marketing campaign. It provides the huge and highly attractive benefit of improving a website’s position in the search engines results pages (SERPs) and thus delivers targeted traffic in high volumes. Failure to appear in the Google results is often counterproductive when a customer, having been ‘touched’ via another channel wants more information.
The content of the pages (so called On Page Optimization) should focus on your visitors needs and wants and should cover the questions being asked on the web. You also need to understand the intent behind visitors’ searches (through good keyword research and testing).
Off-page optimization is another vital part of the SEO process, focusing on building links and ‘Social Signals’, these ‘helping’ the search engines to identify how relevant your content is thought to be by others.
Traffic is not enough though; the website must deliver conversions.
Clear Call To Actions (CTA’s), targeted landing pages, and ensuring the site loads quickly and is easy to use are essential requirements. Above all the site must enable the complete customer journey to be made with the minimum of effort, navigation tips and aids being used in support of this aim.
- Set your digital media marketing goals
Your goals help you stay focused on your digital media strategy. If you want to see success with digital marketing, you must determine what you want to achieve with your strategy. Goals depend upon your business’s needs.
Whether you’re looking to gain new leads or earn more conversions, you must think about what your company wants to achieve by investing in a digital marketing strategy. If you’re looking to increase sales, your next digital marketing goal could be raising sales by X%. In short, your marketing goal should align with your business’s overall goals.
Every digital media strategy goal should work towards achieving a larger company goal. Additionally, these goals need to be SMART goals. SMART goals are:
Specific: Your digital media strategy must aim to achieve a specific goal. A vague goal, like “earn more conversions,” won’t help you know if you’ve reached your goals, but a specific goal like “increase conversions by 20%” states precisely what you want to achieve.
Measurable: Your goals must also be measurable. A measurable goal is one that you can easily track, such as “increase traffic by 50%.” With a goal like this, you can visibly see how much your traffic increases or decreases over the course of your digital media campaign. When goals are easily measurable, you can identify key metrics and determine how much you’re accomplishing.
Achievable: Before setting a goal, you need to determine if you have the resources and ability to achieve it. A goal like “increase sales by 50%” may not be achievable for your company and can derail your strategy and discourage the people on your marketing and sales teams.
Realistic: Similarly, to achievable, your goals must be realistic. You might be able to achieve a goal like “increase Facebook likes to 4000,” but if you’re trying to do that within a short amount of time, it may not be realistic for your business. Measurable milestones will help you reach those goals that are more difficult to accomplish.
Timely: Your goals must have deadlines. With enforced deadlines, your teams will be more motivated to keep your digital media strategy on track. Without a concrete deadline to push your teams to accomplish your goal, your goal runs the risk of falling by the wayside.
SMART goals help you stay focused and know what you’re aiming to achieve.
- Identify your target audience
You need to know exactly who you’re marketing to with your products or services. Identify the common points between your customers, and segment them into groups according to their:
Location
Age
Income (occupation)
Goals
Needs
Interests
And priorities/values
The easiest way to do this is by using customer lists, surveys, and interviews to create representations of your ideal customers (called buyer personas or marketing personas) based on real data, not assumptions.
- VIDEO MARKETING
YouTube’s blog recently stated that they now have 1 billion unique customers every month and that 6 billion hours of videos are watched every month – which was 50% more in March 2013 than it was in May 2012.
Video marketing is also an essential part of your website and in the days of smart phones, digital cameras and free video editing software it has never been easier. Videos can be embedded on your website and can also be uploaded to, and shared in YouTube. Videos have the ability to show clearly which products and services your company can offer – most people will prefer to watch a 1 minute video than read a page full of text.
- Use High Quality Content only
Last on our list, yet not least significant is the fact that you have to use high-quality photographs, videos, and articles. These things are utilized as tools for increasing your brand awareness, which is why you need to guarantee that the content you create is HQ, interesting, as well as fun for your consumers.
- Marketing Automation
There are many different marketing automation tools available today, each one allowing for some of the repetitive processes to be taken over by technology. Examples of this are the automated sending of emails or ‘Join My Network’ requests on Social Media.
Any automation has to be carried out with care, as, if it is allowed to become robotic, it could have negative effects. More and more businesses are, however, incorporating automated elements into their digital marketing campaigns. Statistics show that about 70% of marketing leaders are using some form of marketing automation platform. Indeed, these tools speed up and streamline the processes involved, without them it would be difficult to manage all your digital marketing efforts.
- Social Media Influencers
Social Media is a vital Digital Marketing Channel and one that cannot be ignored, because it is the best way to create a feeling of community and associate this with your brand. It’s a great tool for marketers and allows the creation of a large number of personal interactions, which in turn can promote long term loyalty.
Social media can also be a valuable tool for monitoring feedback about your business or brand. This is useful as when you change something about your website, business, or launch a new campaign, you can instantly find out how your users feel about it.
It is also an excellent way to provide customer service, many users preferring to contact you via social media, rather than send in a support ticket.
However, building a connected online community is not an easy task, and for best results it is vital that your dedicated social media team utilize a content plan, this detailing the message and when it is going to be sent.
Using it correctly to attract and engage with potential customers by using original content, can bring in huge amounts of traffic and potential sales.
The biggest issue is in selecting the correct type of content. It has to be of the right type though, posting a series of funny cat videos or memes does not fit in with many brands.
- Determine your product’s unique value proposition
Every product and service needs to have something about it that makes it valuable to customers. If you can’t showcase the value, people won’t know why they should buy your product or invest in your services. To identify your product’s value proposition, ask yourself these questions:
What need does my product fulfill?
Customers buy products or use services to solve a problem or to improve their lives. You must determine how your product or service benefits your customers, so you can showcase the value. Take some time to identify the unique value of your product or service that will address those needs and concerns.
Ask questions like:
What problem is my product solving?
What does my product do that makes life for my customers better?
How does my product solve the problem better than my competitors?
What capital and means do I have to bring that value to customers?
How can I sustain my product’s unique value?
Where is my business qualified to compete in the business environment?
In other words, what is your niche market? You need to determine which niche your products and services fall into to compete successfully.
If you enter into a market that doesn’t fit your products and services, you’ll likely have a hard time making an impact on that niche’s audience, and you won’t be able to out-compete your audience. Identifying your niche allows you to determine the value of your product compared to your competitors. You can see what you offer that’s better than their product and vice-versa.
- Budget
Your budget allocation for each marketing campaign also plays an important role in the success of your online presence. Before you even think of pursuing a digital marketing campaign, you need to determine how much the strategy would cost you to avoid any delays or interruption while the campaign is ongoing. In this way, you could maximize your efforts and gain the best results.
Consistency: It is necessary to constantly promote your company. Even when you do not get results immediately
Using the correct digital marketing channel: It is essential to know which channel to focus on if the desired results are to be achieved
Choosing the correct audience: The correct audience is as important as choosing the correct digital marketing channel
Conclusion
In order to ensure the success of your digital marketing, there will be a wide range of things that you’ll need to consider and do. However, by following some or all of the tips mentioned above, you’ll certainly be able to make the entire planning easier, less time-consuming, and less stressful for everyone involved.
So, now that you’re aware of all the things you’ll need to focus on, you might not want to lose any more of your time – after all, time does equal money in the business world. Instead, keep all of these tips in mind and start creating a digital marketing strategy that will suit your needs.
