Digital marketing is constantly evolving. Nowadays incorporating digital tactics in your strategy can make your approach more flexible, more personal and in many cases, more engaging than using traditional marketing methods alone. Whether the tactics are social media, SEO, email, a website or a combination of these and more making an impact has never been more important. Many brands are using digital marketing to stand out from the crowd and differentiate themselves from their competition. But not everyone knows how to use it to its full potential and some marketers might find themselves feeling lost and frustrated.
Are you facing the same problems? Here are five questions you should be asking yourself:
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What are my goals?
Different businesses have different goals, so it is important to recognize what yours are and how you can provide value for customers while achieving them. Every goal will have a strategy that will be put in place to achieve it. Trying to convert leads into customers? Think about what steps it will take to get there. Creating better content? Generating more website traffic? Increasing social media engagement? Knowing what you want to accomplish enables you to direct your energy into the right marketing campaigns and employ marketing tactics that will move you in the right direction.
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Do I know my audience?
It is great to get people engaged but if they’re not the right target market, then you’re wasting time and money. Use customer segmentation to understand different sets or groups of customers. Then create buyer personas. Personas build a detailed snapshot of your customers by including information such as: what they value in a brand and their personal motivations. To build these personas, you must pull information and analyze data of research from real customers. Find out who your audience is, and you’ll figure out what to post and when to post it while driving traffic.
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Have I done my research?
Digital marketing decisions shouldn’t be made in a bubble. You want to feel comfortable with the decisions that will impact your brand. Brush up on industry trends and see what competitors are doing so you know how you can perform better than the rest. Keep in mind that not every tactic that works for them will necessarily work for you and don’t be afraid to test new tactics and optimize along the way. Consumer research provides insights about consumer behaviors and necessary data that will help you make these vital decisions.
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Am I sharing content the right way?
There are many ways to share content but how do you choose which is the best for you? Understanding your consumer, and all your options for sharing will guide you in the right direction.
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Social Media
Knowing which platforms to post to is important! It wouldn’t make sense if you were only posting to Twitter if most of your audience is on Facebook or Instagram. It is also important to understand what features and tools these platforms have to offer. Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter offer live videos, custom audiences, and smart replies through artificial intelligence. Making sure you’re using the right hashtags and @mentioning the right people is essential!
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Email
5 billion people use email and those people are sending about 196 billion emails a day, 109 billion of which are business-related. It’s clear that email marketing can have a strong influence on your consumers, but are you using it effectively? You need to be paying attention to your delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates, bounce rates, and conversion rates.
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Paid Search
Paid search or pay-per-click (PPC), is a method of advertising to direct traffic to websites through search engine results. You can bid on keywords to make your ads more relevant to a search. Paid searches are measurable and cost-effective. You control every aspect of the ad: the keywords used, ad copy, ad extensions, and the landing page used for the ad, making paid search flexible to optimize.
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SEO
If you are looking to optimize a webpage and increase the volume of traffic being generated, then you should consider search engine optimization (SEO). Keywords and backlinks are essential to SEO and go hand in hand with great content. This takes time though and is a more long-term play and can take months before you start seeing positive results.
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Am I measuring my success?
With the rise of digital marketing, there is no excuse for not tracking your success or marketing analytics, though 74% of marketers say they can’t measure how their efforts impact their business. Comparing certain time periods to one another in tools like Google Analytics can provide insights on trends and allow you to make adjustments as needed. Using analytics can also give you insights into your status quo which can help you set goals and expectations for the future. Tracking analytics on social media can show trends and help you shape your strategy.
Now that you have asked yourself these important questions you can be on your way to digital marketing success!
Charissa is a former social media intern at RDW who has a passion for marketing! When she isn’t creating content you can find her on a nature walk, taking pictures for Instagram, or playing baseball!