Today’s consumers are online more than ever and businesses both large and small have found an opportunity in digital marketing. It’s not only more cost-effective than traditional marketing, but it allows businesses to track conversions, target specific audiences, interact with consumers on their mobile devices, build brand reputation and consumer trust, and gain higher ROI’s. So, what is digital marketing and how can you implement it into your marketing plan?

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is your website, your Facebook page, your ad on the local radio station, your blog post, your email newsletter – It pertains to any marketing asset or tactic you’re using online to grow your brand and advertise. If your business is engaging with online channels, you’re investing in digital marketing. Below, we’re going to dive deep into the multitude of ways you can make digital marketing work for you.

Your Brand’s Digital Assets

Engaging with your consumers online is crucial to survival, growth, and sales in today’s market. In fact, 69% of adults from the age of 18 – 65+ are online today. While it’s more than likely that you already have some of the digital brand assets below built out – It’s important for you to know all of the various digital assets you can invest in for your brand.

• Your Website: Your website is your brand’s platform to showcase all your digital assets in a way that’s authentic to your message. It’s an opportunity to gain traction through SEO and build your credibility with curated content and an optimal user experience.
• Blog Posts: Blog posts are content you create and host on your website. From there, you can distribute your content through your online channels. Write your blog posts in a way that adds value and context to your target consumer, while also optimizing them for SEO.
• Ebooks and Whitepapers: An ebook or whitepaper is any content you’ve formatted to be read on a digital device. They’ll include text, imagery, and possibly hyperlinked content.
• Infographics: Infographics are captivatingly visual ways to help consumers decipher information. They’re informative, educational, and are more engaging than using dense copy.
• Social Media Channels: Your social media channels are your brand’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, MassRoots, etc. profiles. Focus on channels where you believe your target customers are interacting with most and begin building a relationship with them online.
• Earned Online Coverage: Through PR, social media, and online reviews, you are building a reputation and earning coverage. These are digital assets that will either positively or negatively affect your brand.
• Online Brochures and Lookbooks: Brochures and lookbooks are great for placing your product or offering in-context with your value for your consumer. It’s an opportunity to position yourself in a way that showcases you in the best light.
• Branding Assets: Your branding assets are your logo, your font, your color palette – your brand identity. It’s how consumers recognize you online and across the multitude of digital channels. Investing in your branding assets are core to building a strong foundation for brand awareness.

Digital Marketing Tactics

Now that you’re versed in all the various digital marketing assets, let’s dive into how you can advertise your business online with the below tactics and strategies.

Online Marketing Tactics

• Content marketing: Content marketing is focused on increasing traffic, generating leads, and growing brand awareness. Create content – whether it be an image, article, or ebook – and distribute it across your various digital channels.
• Social Media Marketing (SMM): Social media marketing is an extremely cost-effective and measurable tactic involving the creation of social media ad campaigns. Re-engage with past customers, reach out to new ones, and engage with your existing fan base.
• Pay-per-click advertising (PPC): Gain visibility, traction, and traffic online through pay-per-click advertising. Google AdWords is a good starting point for investing in this tactic.
• Search engine optimization (SEO): SEO is focused on increasing your ranking on search results pages. It’s crucial when it comes to your visibility online and enabling your customers and target demographic to easily find you and your digital assets.
• Website Marketing: Website marketing is a multi-faceted approach to increasing traffic to your website through SEO, PPC, and through your other digital channels. An example of this would be including a link to a social media post or email newsletter that directs the user to a piece of content on your website.
• Display Advertising: Display advertising is considered to be anything from a banner advertisement on a website, to an image, audio or video advertisement. It has countless formats and applications giving it the ability to reach thousands or millions of viewers when placed strategically.
• Affiliate marketing: This is performance-based advertising where you pay a commission to an affiliate for promoting and selling your product. Similar to revenue-sharing, it’s the added financial incentive that makes this tactic successful.
• Influencer Marketing: A rising trend and a form of affiliate marketing, influencer marketing is about identifying online profiles with large, highly engaged followings and having them position your product or offering to their audience.
• E-commerce Marketing: E-commerce marketing is a data-driven tactic focused on bringing awareness to your online storefront and tracking sales as conversions. Capturing sales is a highly measurable metric.
• Email Marketing: Email marketing, still considered to be highly relevant and engaging, is focused on building relationships through email communication. This could involve a ‘Welcome’ email sequence where you’re introducing your brand to a new subscriber or it could be your weekly newsletter that a mix of value-add and promotion.
• Mobile Marketing: Mobile marketing involves targeting users on their personal mobile device using either push-notifications through an app or sending them messages per their geo-location. A form of mobile marketing is text message marketing.
• Text Message Marketing: Text message marketing is done through SMS, iMessage, or other relevant chat apps. You can advertise VIP promotions or updates in exchange for them signing up for your list.
• Online Public Relations (PR): Public Relations, a marketing tactic that has been used for decades, is focused on influencing your customers, gaining credibility, and increasing brand awareness. This is typically accomplished through gaining mainstream media coverage.
• Online Reputation Management (OR): Whether it’s on Yelp!, Google or Four Square, your brand’s reputation is being interpreted online through the various review platforms of our age. Online reputation management is focused on becoming actively involved with encouraging customers to post reviews and responding to those users who have done so already.

Offline Marketing Tactics

• Enhanced Offline Marketing: Enhanced offline marketing is accomplished through electronic billboards, digital product demos, digital product samples, etc. While they do exist outside of the online realm, their digital format is what makes them relevant to your marketing plan.
• Radio Marketing: Radio advertising, a traditional form of marketing, can be accomplished through commercials and/or sponsorship. Identify channels that align with your target demographic and position your messaging appropriately.
• TV Marketing: TV marketing, yet another traditional tactic, is focused on positioning your brand in a commercial or through teleshopping. This could also include an advertisement on YouTube.
• Phone Marketing: Phone marketing is accomplished through cold calling customers or leads. While you must be respectful and careful with how you approach this tactic, many businesses still find this to be effective.

Implementing Digital Marketing

Reach new customers online and invest in building out your brand’s platforms to engage in the areas where consumers are spending a majority of their time – Online. Digital marketing is a well-choreographed approach to utilizing the various tactics and assets above to advertise your business, increase brand awareness, and ultimately – make the sale. If you’re interested in learning more about digital marketing, reach out to us.