Online marketing, or digital marketing, utilizes any sort of electronic device and/or the internet. With the , the importance of digital marketing has increasingly grown, and plays an even bigger role in the success and growth of businesses.
In this guide, we focus on observing the field of digital marketing from the perspective of consumer equipment rental businesses.
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Every company, from large enterprises to small mom-and-pops shops, can benefit from digital marketing. It offers a way to compete in a huge market in a cost-effective way. Digital marketing allows you to have personalized marketing which you can execute without the need for an expensive marketing agency.
Here are some benefits to why your business should invest and focus on digital marketing:
What does digital marketing include?
Digital marketing isn’t a single practice but, instead, is the sum of several elements. Some of the most common examples of digital marketing include:
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most studied fields in digital marketing. Marketers’ interest towards search engine optimization is well justified as conducted in search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
As the amount of web pages in the Internet is counted in billions, the indexing and organizing done by the search engines makes finding relevant websites possible for the Internet surfers. Search engine optimization is a process where marketers aim to increase the visibility of their website in the search engine result pages. There are a variety of ways to improve your search engine visibility.
On-Page SEO
On-page SEO (or on-site SEO) is the process of creating website content that is expected to match the visitor’s search intent and optimizing it for search engines. In the midst of on-page SEO is creating high-quality content that is valuable for anyone who is looking for information about topics that your business is related. In addition to content creation, common ways to improve your on-site SEO is to optimize title tags, content, image alt-texts, internal links, and URLs.
If your website contains the same terms and keywords as the search query, the more relevant the search engines will find you, making it more visible in the search engine result page.
Off-Page SEO
Compared to on-page SEO, off-page SEO is all about the activities you do outside of your website. This can be done by other websites linking or promoting your website, which helps improve your website’s trustworthiness, relevance and popularity in the eyes of the consumer, and most importantly, the search engines.
In practise, this is all about building backlinks. Backlinks are indicators of quality for search engines, meaning the more backlinks a website has, the more reliable and relevant a search engine sees the website’s content as. The most common way of getting a backlink is through a high-traffic website’s promotion, like an online magazine writing an article about your business and linking it.
Off-page SEO can also be non-related to backlinks. Generally speaking, off-page SEO relies on human behavior, so your SEO can be improved also through social media marketing, guest blogging, linked and unlinked brand mentions, as well as influencer marketing.
Technical SEO
If your technical SEO isn’t on point, it means your website is not going to rank. You want search engines like Google to be able to find, crawl, render and index your website’s pages. So in other words, technical SEO is the process of making sure that your website meets search engines’ requirements.
Technical SEO includes A LOT of things, but for the most basic things, your website’s structure needs to be organized, mobile optimized, secure, fast-loading.. Basically everything that makes it easy for Google to access your content.
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Content marketing is closely tied to several other digital marketing strategies because after all, it is content that people consume on the Internet. Whether it is social media, a blog, or a video tutorial on YouTube – it is all content.
So, how can companies utilize content marketing to drive sales? The key is to create the kind of content that is appealing to your potential customers and promote it in the channels that reach your target audience.
Blogging is a great way to tell your audience a little bit more about your products and services as well as share timely news and updates. Blog articles create context and provide practical information of how to get the most out the products the company sells or rents.
In general only creativity is the limit when coming up with the potential blog topics. For equipment rental companies interesting topics could be equipment reviews, travel guides, and customer stories just to name a few.
Furthermore, blogging is a key function if SEO plays an important role in your marketing mix. Using strategic keywords relevant to your business can increase your organic visibility in search engines.
E-books, guides, and other downloadable content
Popular tactic among businesses that rely on building email lists for marketing and sales purposes. Typically, these downloadable content pieces are given out for free in exchange for the person’s email address which can later be utilized in other marketing campaigns. Downloadables are more commonly used in business to business marketing where the goal is to generate leads for sales. However, even for a consumer rental business high-quality downloadable content that is relevant to your potential customers is always beneficial for your brand.
Video marketing is constantly growing its popularity among marketers because the development of cameras (and smartphones) has made the production of professional level videos possible even for an average Joe. Furthermore, video content is engaging. While on social media, it is also proven that .
Images and infographics
Images and infographics help convey a story and make it interesting; whether it would be data, long texts, or complex concepts. The reason why visual content works is that, for example, infographics combine text and graphic elements to visually represent any piece of information. Website visitors spend more time looking at pictures or other visual content compared to reading text, so our brains are naturally hardwired to prefer visuals over text.
Images and infographics are especially good for social media, as they are more eye-catching, shareable, and help create more brand recognition. Additionally, infographics are a huge part of a successful SEO strategy. While creating original visual materials is time consuming and takes a while to learn how to do, don’t be discouraged: according to a survey of all images used by marketers are stock images, and there are endless amounts of which help you to create your very own infographics.
The . That’s no surprise if you think how user friendly form of content podcasts are. Podcasts allow listeners to consume content while they are doing something else, like commuting, cleaning up, cooking, or whatever.
To stand out from the competition and build a loyal audience, you need to come up with a topic that’s appealing to the kind of audience you consider could be your potential customers.
If you are interested in podcasting and are thinking about launching your own, here’s a pretty solid . If producing your own podcast is not your cup of tea, that’s okay. Because most podcasts are open for commercial partnerships, you can utilize the principles of influencer and affiliate marketing to reach your audience.
Increases traffic & conversions
Requires skills and creativity
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a powerful form of digital marketing as it allows companies to reach people that are or could genuinely be interested in their brand. Successful social media marketing combines creatively different forms of communication, content, and word of mouth strategies.
Creating a Facebook business page allows you to engage with your target audience and raise brand awareness. It’s a great way to also stay in touch with your customers, as social media is one of the first places people look at when researching a company. Having a business profile also lets you schedule posts, target specific user groups, collect and display customer reviews, and of course create ads and analyze your success.
While Facebook is more of an informative platform, Instagram on the other hand is an optimal place to showcase your brand and who you really are. It’s the perfect place to engage with your customers and build a community around mutual values.
Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, managing ads and analyzing your performance is easy, and done under the same business tool.
Twitter as a platform is a great way to put your company on the radar. While it does require high activity level, constant posting and interaction with followers and relevant hashtags can help grow brand awareness.
The best performing business profiles are usually the ones that have gone viral for their witty communications (just look at ) but it’s also a great platform for providing customer service.
Linkedin is no longer known as just a platform to network and search for jobs – it’s becoming more and more social and essential when it comes to marketing on social media. In fact, according to LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions Blog, 50% of LinkedIn members report they are more likely to buy from a company they engage with on LinkedIn.
YouTube
There’s no sign of stopping YouTube – since March 2014, there’s been a year-on-year increase in the number of YouTube viewers per day. Even though there is a staggering more than of video uploaded every minute, Youtube really is a platform that caters to all kinds of target groups and niches.
How-to videos, teasers, Q&As and any other type of FOMO inducing videos ( sure know how to make those) are still at an all-time-high in popularity. Even if Youtube isn’t a primary marketing channel, it’s great for content sharing and showcasing your brand, especially with videos becoming increasingly the more preferred type of content across all social media channels.
Enhances customer support & audience engagement
Exposure to competitors
Public negative feedback
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Pay per click is a great marketing method that aims to generate more relevant traffic to your website. You can use PPC campaigns to reach completely new audiences or retarget your existing customers and previous website visitors. As the name suggests, in pay per click advertising a marketer pays a fee for each click of their ads.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the most popular form of pay per click advertising. It is not terribly exaggerated to say that everyone who has ever used Google has seen a PPC ad. Whenever you are searching something from Google, there is a high chance that the first results have a small “Ad” mention in the corner of the search result.
Search Engine Marketing is an extremely powerful method to market your business to customers who are already searching for information about similar topics or services your company has to offer.
With 2 billion users worldwide, Facebook is definitely a platform you want to incorporate in your online marketing. In addition to Google Adwords, Facebook’s Business Manager is another major platform that offers PPC advertising opportunities, and it doesn’t require huge investments in order to get good results.
It’s also a great and flexible tool: you can create image, video, or carousel ads, which will be displayed on desktop or mobile devices, as well as Instagram and Messenger ads. You can set your objectives (brand awareness, lead generation, traffic, or conversions) and audience (basic audience, detailed audience, or retargeted audience). Best part is, Facebook is constantly updating their algorithm, which helps with ad optimization.
LinkedIn is a great tool especially for B2B marketing purposes. With the same idea as Facebook Advertising, you can set objectives, and create audiences based on your needs. However compared to Facebook, you can create incredibly specific targeting criteria which can be based on job titles, company names, company sizes, and LinkedIn Groups.
Display ads
Display ads are usually images, videos, or gifs which you can see on designated ad spaces on social media platforms and various websites. There are three main display ad campaigns: acquisition (clear CTAs that encourage booking or purchasing), general brand awareness, and the most common one: retargeting.
Retargeting campaigns are a great way to get your website visitors or previous customers to re-engage with your brand. Based on specific segments, you can for example target your general website visitors, or those who left your page during the check-out phase. This way, you get to improve your customer retention rate, while customers get targeted by relevant ads which match their interests.
Display ads can be created either directly through a social media channels business manager, or through , which works across multiple channels and helps create cross-channel marketing solutions.
Native Advertising
In native advertising, your promoted content is blended into the content of the website where the ad is shown (not the same as content advertising though). Because native advertising doesn’t look like a display ad and is seamlessly blended into the website, your readers may not realize they are consuming paid advertisement. This leads to consumers looking at native ads more than display ads, creating an 18% increase in purchase intent.
Your native ad can be, for example, a promoted article in a web magazine’s news stream. Since native ads are so common, they’re relatively easy to spot. Nonetheless, if a consumer clicks on an article they’re interested in and unknowingly get redirected to another website, they will feel misled.
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Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a sales and marketing strategy where you, the product or service owner, let ‘’affiliates’’ that are targeting the same audiences as you, recommend the product to their viewers or readers. These affiliates are usually social media influencers, bloggers, large media websites, and paid search focused microsites.
In return for the referred customers and increased sales, the affiliate earns a commission each time someone makes a purchase using either a unique link or a promo code. The commission can be based on either pay per sale, pay per lead, or pay per click, making this a very cost-effective marketing tactic which is seen more and more online thanks to the popularity of channels like Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram, and so on.
Branding is at a risk
Fraudsters are always a risk
Influencer Marketing
By definition, influencer marketing is a method where brands ask people with authority within their community or audience to endorse the products or services of the brand. The influencer gets compensation in the form of money or products for promoting the brand in her channels.
For most of the people, the most visible form of influencer marketing is seeing athletes and celebrities being sponsored by well-known brands with deep pockets. However, in the era of social media, the number of companies, both large and small, utilizing influencer marketing has skyrocketed. This has happened because the social platforms have generated a whole new group of influencers, such as bloggers, with a strong fan base, making influencer marketing more affordable and targeted even for smaller niches.
Furthermore, the forms of influencer marketing are more diverse nowadays and enable many creative ways to reach people through the influencer. Influencer marketing is a powerful strategy even by itself but it can also be used to support your other marketing efforts for example in other mediums.
An important aspect in influencer marketing is to carefully select the influencers whose fan base is similar to your target audience. This way the communication between the influencer and her fans sounds natural and not too pushy.
Have to be careful when choosing influencers: they might have a negative effect on the brand
Measuring results not as straightforward
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most traditional forms of digital marketing, and it is especially great for conversions, and building customer loyalty through personalization. As an example, companies often send out on their customers’ birthdays, offering discount codes or gifts. This on the other hand helps build the customer relationships, and develop customer loyalty.
While you’d think that the constant email spam would have decreased the effectiveness of email promotions over the past years, it has done the opposite. A survey reveals that of respondents were influenced by email when it came to purchasing decisions, while another showed that out of in 2019, email marketing had a conversion rate of 2.3%, compared to 1% for social media.
Requires consistency and the right tonality & strategy
Building a relevant audience takes time
Marketing Automation
By definition, marketing automation is technology, like software, that manages and automates repetitive marketing processes across multiple channels. Automating tasks helps to focus on the bigger picture and strategy, saving a significant amount of time by not having to manually perform the same task each time. For example, you can send out a series of pre-written emails at regular intervals.
Marketing automation works in a ‘’if this, then that’’ methodology, meaning you can create workflows that target people based on their behaviour and preferences. This way you can send personalized messages based on the customers’ previous purchases, for example, which again leads to increased customer loyalty. In fact, are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.
Helps develop a deep understanding of your customers behavior
Enhances customer experience
Takes time to set up and perfect the processes
Automation tools and integrations might be costly
Mistakes will be magnified
Online PR
Online PR’s (also known as digital PR) goal is to improve SEO through building quality links on relevant publications. It uses a link-building tactic that involves a piece of creative content, which includes backlinks to your website.
For example, an online PR piece could be an article in the local sports magazine with links leading back to your sports rental shop’s website. While increasing brand awareness, the backlinks also help improve your website’s search rankings on Google.
There are also easy ways to measure the success of an online PR campaign:
It’s not as controlled as PPC
Might get costly
No guarantee of results
Mobile Marketing
When you think about the term ‘’mobile marketing’’, the first thing that might come to mind is cold calling and marketing text messages. While these still are effective and relevant marketing tactics, these should be utilized with caution. Especially during times like these when the importance of security and privacy is at an all time high, unauthorized calls and text messages can feel intrusive and ultimately, have a negative effect on the customer.
In the meantime, with using mobile phones to go online at least some of the time, it creates a unique opportunity to create omnichannel engagement. Everything from in-app ads, social media, to website ads, being mobile active means a bigger possibility of reaching your target audience. Just consider this: of the global population have smartphones, so optimizing your online presence and marketing efforts is growingly important.
Optimized social media platforms.
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Landing page optimization for mobile screens
Variations of mobile devices
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
A conversion rate optimization is the percentage of visitors who completed a goal achievement, whether that would be registering on your website or going through with their purchase.
Conversion rate optimization, or CRO, is the process of constantly enhancing your website and content in order to boost your conversions. This means making sure your website is designed to be appealing to your customers. Since conversions can happen anywhere like the homepage, price page, blog, it’s even more important to have your website all-round optimized for conversions. This means having a well-structured and designed website, with relevant content and clear CTAs.
Creating a Marketing Strategy
Just like with anything you do with your business, you need a clear plan and strategy for your marketing efforts. Especially because there are so many different aspects of both offline, and online marketing to take into account, realistically you would need a whole marketing army to get all of the previously mentioned things executed.
Good thing is, you don’t need to implement each and every one of these practices. This guide is here to familiarize you with the different possibilities digital marketing offers in 2020, and for you to gain a better understanding of which methods would benefit your business the most.
Fortunately it’s not too complicated to come up with your own effective marketing strategy. Here’s the steps to get you started:
Create buyer personas
Creating buyer personas gives you a better idea of who your current customer base consists of and how you’re reaching them, as well as defining your potential customers and ways to reach them. Buyer personas include everything from age, location, hobbies, and what their needs are. By having clearly defined personas or target audiences, helps create the right marketing strategy for your business.
Choose your channels
Like we’ve mentioned before, you would need a small army in order to implement every single thing in digital marketing. Fortunately, you don’t need to, and you can choose your channels based on what you already have and are familiar with (eg. social media) and slowly start to build your marketing efforts according to your resources and goals.
Research your competitors
By researching and benchmarking your competitors, you can identify and highlight your competitive advantage and really differentiate yourself from competitors. It also helps you understand the market and trends better, as well as see what works best and where your marketing efforts might be lacking.
Decide on your messaging & creatives
You might already have your branding down, like colors and logos, which is great! With marketing however, you also need to decide on all of the visual elements and copies. Of course, resources have a big impact on whether you and your teams create your own visuals, or if you use the services of a professional, either way having a clear vision of what your brand should sound and look like is a must.
Set SMART goals
If you’re unfamiliar with SMART goals, it stands for:
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