Starting a Journey into Efficient Digital Advertising for Your Own Site
What kind of online information generation strategy should I adopt? Your content creation approach mostly relies on the particular demands of your audience throughout the different phases of the buying course. Start by creating ideal customer profiles (use these easily accessible templates or makemypersona.com) to decipher the key objectives and difficulties your viewers confronts in relation to your personal company. At its heart, your digital material should aim to help them in achieving these aims and overcoming these challenges.
Further, you should assess when your target audience would be most receptive to absorbing this content, in alignment with their position in the buying course. This is referred to as information mapping. The main aim of information mapping is to align content to:
1. The qualities of the individual engaging with the information (ideal customer profiles are integral here).
2. The closeness of that individual to finalizing a transaction (their lifecycle stage).
Regarding the presentation of your content, there’s a abundance of options to try with. Here are some suggestions we advise for each stage of the customer journey:
- Blog posts. Highly effective for augmenting your organic traffic when combined with a powerful SEO and keyword approach.
- Infographics. These are extremely shareable, which amplifies your chances of discovery via social platforms when others circulate your information. (Utilize these free infographic templates to kickstart your efforts.)
- Short videos. These are also incredibly shareable and can expose your business to new viewers by hosting them on platforms like YouTube.
- Ebooks. These are outstanding for lead acquisition as they tend to be more comprehensive than a blog post or infographic, implying that someone is more likely to exchange their contact data to access it.
- Research reports. This high-quality type of content is also outstanding for lead generation. Research reports and new data for your field can serve in the awareness stage as well since they are commonly picked up by the media or sector press.
- Webinars. Being a more detailed, interactive variant of video information, webinars serve as an successful consideration stage content formatting as they provide more comprehensive information than a blog post or short video.
- Case studies. Detailed case studies on your webpage can be a powerful type of information for those on the brink of making a purchasing decision, as it aids in positively influencing their decision.
- Testimonials. If case studies aren’t well-suited for your business, having brief testimonials scattered around your website is a commendable alternative. For B2C brands, consider testimonials in a broader sense. If you’re a clothing brand, these could manifest as photos showcasing how others have styled a shirt or dress, sourced from a branded hashtag where people can contribute.
Awareness Stage
Deliberation Stage
Decision Stage
Charting the Course for Digital Marketing
- Define your goals.
- Identify your target audience.
- Establish a budget for each digital channel.
- Strike a harmonious balance between paid and free digital strategies.
- Create engaging material.
- Optimize your digital assets for mobile.
- Conduct keyword research.
- Iterate based on the analytics you measure.
Initiating digital marketing demands the clear identification and definition of your goals, as these will dictate your strategy. If your goal is to boost brand awareness, you may desire to concentrate on reaching new viewers via social platforms.
Alternatively, you may wish to surge sales for a particular product — in this case, focusing on SEO and optimizing information to draw potential buyers to your webpage is paramount. If sales are your goal, you might desire to experiment with PPC campaigns to drive traffic through paid ads. Regardless of the specifics, shaping a digital marketing strategy becomes considerably easier once your company’s overarching goals are established.
We’ve touched on this earlier, but the benefit of digital marketing lies in the possibility to target specific audiences. However, this benefit is meaningless without first pinpointing your target audience. Your target audience can vary depending on the channel or goals you have for a particular product or campaign.
For example, you may have noticed that your Instagram audience leans towards younger individuals who prefer amusing memes and quick videos, while your LinkedIn audience comprises older professionals seeking more tactical advice. You’ll need to tailor your information to cater to these unique target audiences.
Your budget should reflect the various elements of digital marketing you utilize. If your focus is on inbound techniques like SEO, social platforms, and content creation for an already established website, the silver lining is that you don’t need a considerable budget.
However, for outbound techniques like online advertising and buying email lists, some costs will be incurred. The extent of these costs is dependent on the level of visibility you want to gain as a result of the advertising.
A well-rounded digital marketing tactic generally necessitates a mix of both paid and free elements for optimal effectiveness. For example, you can invest time in creating comprehensive buyer personas to better understand your audience’s needs and generating high-quality online content to convert them, which can yield strong results with minimal ad spend.
However, if paid advertising forms a part of your digital strategy, you might see quicker results. Ultimately, strive to grow your organic (or ‘free’) reach through content, SEO, and social media for sustainable success.
Once you have discerned your audience and determined a budget, the next step is to create content for the various channels at your disposal. This could take the form of social media posts, blog posts, PPC ads, sponsored content, email marketing newsletters, and more.
Mobile marketing forms a critical component of digital marketing. In fact, smartphone usage accounts for 69% of time spent consuming digital media in the U.S., while desktop-based digital media consumption constitutes less than half.
This means that optimizing your digital ads, web pages, social media images, and other digital assets for mobile devices is crucial. If your company has a mobile app that facilitates user engagement with your brand or allows them to shop your products, your app falls under the purview of digital marketing as well.
Effective keyword research is fundamental for optimizing your webpage and material for SEO and ensuring people can find your business via search engines. Keyword research for social media can also assist in marketing your products or services across various social channels.
To create a sustainable digital marketing approach for the long term, it’s vital for your team to learn how to pivot based on analytics.
For instance, you might notice that your audience isn’t as interested in your Instagram content anymore but is highly engaged with what you’re posting on Twitter. Or, you might find an older webpage isn’t getting the visitors it used to. This could be an possibility to either refresh your Instagram strategy or update/remove the underperforming webpage.
Digital marketing provides businesses with extraordinary opportunities for continuous growth — it’s up to you to seize them.
Taking the Plunge into Digital Marketing
If you’re already utilizing digital marketing, you’re probably reaching certain omhbmg segments of your audience online. No doubt, you can identify areas of your tactic that could benefit from some refinement.