Digital marketing tips, tricks, and the strategy you use are crucial to your business’ success.
Whether you are setting up your first digital marketing campaign or are very experienced with marketing online, we thought we’d share some advice on how you can think differently about success, what that means, and how to achieve long-term.
It’s up to you. You can make 2021 your biggest sales year yet, pandemic or not. Here is how.
Always Measure Your Digital Marketing Results
Analytics aren’t there to be an afterthought. You have endless amounts of data automatically compiled every day based off social media, website use, email, search engine clicks, and marketing. Use those.
No one hits 100% of the time in digital marketing. That isn’t a bad thing. When you fail, if you measure, you can likely identify where you went wrong and can adjust. Pivot to something else and find what works. It’s out there if you search for it. Be sure to keep tabs on your analytics regardless of if you have a campaign going or not. It’s valuable info.
Distinguish Between Metrics That Don’t Matter And Revenues
Websites, brands, and businesses live and die by one thing – revenues. If you’re not making revenues, you’re in trouble.
When we optimize a digital marketing strategy, the most important metric there is is revenues. Optimizing for anything less is can be a major mistake, although in the right circumstances may serve a purpose. Consider why you’re launching a campaign and what you hope to get from it. If it doesn’t eventually get you to a higher revenue point, you may want to abandon and start over.
Don’t Talk Like A Business, Talk Like A Human
A common mistake in digital marketing for start-ups and entrepreneurs is to talk like they’re a business. That is, they promote, promote, and promote. And they advertise, advertise, and advertise. And they market like crazy – instead of simply being a human being.
When you’re writing blogs, writing social media posts, and making content, make your brand human. Be authentic. Treat the audience like they’re a friend. How would you talk to them – maintain that tone. You don’t want to come across like you’re just there to sell someone. Add value to their lives, just like you would if they were a friend.
You Serve Your Audience, Your Customers Don’t Serve You
As a brand starting out on its journey in the world of small business and digital marketing, an entrepreneur might think it’s the goal to find customers for their products or services. It’s the opposite, actually. You want to find products or services for your customers.
Serve your audience and they will keep coming back again and again. Let your customers be your leader. Along the way, you’d be surprised at how many marketing strategies, products or services that come to you.
Look At the Customer Journey And Not Just the Conversion
Conversions are great. They’re wonderful. They’re necessary. That said, they won’t tell you a lot about how a customer came to opt in. All a conversion tells you is that they did. You have to specialize in learning about your customer’s journey. Trace their steps.
There are strong points and weak points in every brand’s digital marketing. You may capture attention with your email marketing but lose them with a landing page that isn’t mobile-responsive, for example. You may have a weak social media presence but a great website delivering high amounts of conversions. Look at the totality of the user journey and improve weaknesses.
Cut the Crap, Be Yourself
The audience is more skilled than ever at deciphering when a brand is being real and when it’s manipulation.
The tone of your digital marketing should be straight-talk, in whatever that means to your audience. Speak in their language. Be real. Be honest. Trying to be dishonest, showy, or manipulative is only going to land you in mediocrity and without the results you’re striving for.
Digital Marketing Isn’t Telling – It’s Showing
Advertising and marketing that tell the audience what to think and what to believe is short-sighted and false. The best digital marketing campaign for your brand shouldn’t be about instructing your customers what you want them to think and feel. No, not at all. Instead, show them.
Tell stories in your content marketing. Show them your philosophy and why your business exists. Share with them the story of everyday customers and how your products or services help them. Demonstrate value. ‘Demonstrate’ is the keyword.
Under-Promise And Over-Deliver
Exaggerating in digital marketing is a bad move. It isn’t authentic and it will cause a lead to get pessimistic about your brand. People like brands that under-promise and over-deliver. Always over-deliver. That is, add more value than the user initially thinks they’re getting.
Don’t hesitate in your customer service channels or with a digital marketing strategy to offer content or something that is above what a customer would expect. A ‘free gift’, a limited-time free shipping coupon for eCommerce, a free consultation, free content, free how-to guides through video or eBooks, or running a contest for a giveaway all fit this advice.
Don’t Waste Your Customer’s Time
Your brand followers are giving you their attention. Don’t waste it. How you do your digital marketing – be it SEO, content marketing, video, social media, email, etc. – relies on you making the most of your audience’s time.
Everything you do content-wise and with marketing should have immense value to it. Content marketing should have a mission. Every second in a video should have a purpose. Your website design should be to-the-point. If you have an eCommerce page, checkout should be fast and easy. Social media posts should have a reason for your audience to care about them. Doing the opposite is how brands lose followers. Every post, piece of content, or marketing message maximizes a user’s time and attention.
Emotion Is More Powerful Than Information
Emotion can move mountains. And it has. Many times. Information and data to a customer is important, sure. Some of them may be looking for specific information and it’s important to provide them that. However, it’s emotion that connects them to you. This is why video marketing is so successful.
When we create a video for a brand, the best videos – and the videos that go viral – are ones that have an emotional influence and where the audience identifies with the video on an emotional level.
Information is Power And So Is Being A Subject Matter Expert
A subject matter expert, or SME, is a brand that specializes in a specific area and who is often sought out by customers and perhaps other stakeholders in their industry for input, advice, guidance, and authentic information.
Build your brand up as an SME in its category. This is you building credibility and through that credibility comes audience. You will have users on your website and social media consuming blogs, videos, and content, which will help gain you more exposure, boost your numbers, and increase revenues at the end of the day.
Content Equals Revenues
When in doubt, produce content. Content equals revenues. It creates awareness. It builds a relationship with followers. It establishes your authority as a brand that knows what it’s talking about. Furthermore, content can stay up for years and continue delivering to your brand thousands of leads over its lifetime. It’s a very smart investment.
They say content is king. This has long been cliché but the saying still holds a lot of truth. From articles and blogs to infographics and video, there is no shortage of content marketing opportunities out there.
Inspire yourself in 2021. Do the best digital marketing you’ve ever done. Even in these unpredictable times, do not let anything slow you down. No excuses. For smart, click-driven digital marketing, reach out to Unlimited Exposure. We’ll help you find the right message for your growing audience.
Leave a Reply