Are you struggling to reach potential customers online? Without a strong digital marketing strategy, you could find it difficult to boost brand awareness. If people don’t realize your business exists, you might not generate leads or sales, either.
In fact, about 61% of marketers say lead generation is their number one challenge. About 79% of leads never convert into sales, either.
With an effective marketing strategy, you can generate awareness, website traffic, leads, and sales.
Not sure where to start? Here are 15 tips that can help you develop an effective marketing campaign.
With these tips, you can get in front of customers and leagues ahead of the competition. Without a digital marketing strategy, your competitors might get those leads instead.
Don’t risk it! Instead, give your business the boost it needs to succeed with these tips today.
1. Gather Audience Research
Before anything else, take the time to research your target audience. The more you know about your customers, the more likely you’ll appeal to their needs. Otherwise, they’ll turn to a business that’s better at understanding them.
Determine who your customers are based on demographics and psychographics. For example, you might consider their:
- Location
- Household income
- Age
- Gender
- Marital status
- Education
- Language
- Pain points
- Buying behaviors
- Interests
- Hobbies
Consider separating your customers into distinct buyer personas. Then, create a separate content marketing strategy for each group.
Segmenting your target audience into groups will help you personalize your content. Personalization could help you connect with your customers on an emotional level. You can demonstrate empathy and show them you understand their needs.
Then, you can provide them with a solution to the problems they’re facing. Your customers could start to rely on you more often for help as a result.
2. Establish Brand Guidelines
About 59% of consumers prefer shopping from familiar brands. If your brand is inconsistent, consumers might not recognize you. In fact, about 90% of consumers expect brands to remain consistent across all channels and platforms.
It can take an average of six impressions before you start producing brand awareness. Unfortunately, you only have seven seconds to make your first impression. You better make every second count!
Establishing brand guidelines will help you maintain brand consistency.
Each time someone sees your branding, awareness will grow. In time, people will learn to recognize your brand. You might have an easier time remaining top-of-mind as a result.
The next time someone needs your product or service, they’ll recall seeing your brand.
Establish your brand guidelines before you develop the rest of your marketing strategy. Developing your branding based on your customer research, too. Your brand will help you appeal to your target audience.
Your brand guidelines should include your:
- Vision and mission statements
- Voice
- Tone
- Personality
- Color palette
- Logo styles
- Imagery styles
- Font styles
Keep these notes in a document to share with your marketing team. Make sure everyone is on the same page.
Then, update your website, print materials, and social media accounts to reflect your new branding. Make sure your brand remains consistent as you develop the rest of your digital marketing strategy.
3. Update Your Website
Your company website will become the backbone for the rest of your digital marketing strategy. You can use your site to appeal to customers and demonstrate your value. The content you create can educate and entertain your audience.
If your website is old, outdated, or unappealing, however, you could risk scaring customers off.
In fact, design has a 75% influence on a website’s credibility. About 88% of consumers won’t return to a site after a bad experience.
About 90% of the 4.28 billion mobile users worldwide prefer exploring content from their mobile devices, too.
If you want to set the rest of your marketing strategy up for success, consider updating your website.
First, run your website through Google’s:
- Core Web Vitals
- PageSpeed Insights
- Mobile-Friendly Test
The Core Web Vitals are a series of user-centric ranking factors. Appealing to the Vitals will ensure you’re creating a positive user experience (UX). A positive UX ensures your site is easy to use and explore.
Remember, people will leave your site if they have a bad experience. If they leave, your bounce rate will rise. A high bounce rate will cause your search engine rankings to drop.
If your rankings drop, people might struggle to find you online.
Once you improve the UX, make sure your site is fast and mobile-optimized, too. They won’t wait for pages to load. If the content is difficult to explore on smaller screens, people will leave.
Improving the user experience can benefit your search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising strategies.
4. Start Creating Content
Once you update your website, take the time to develop your content marketing strategy. Adding fresh content to your website will ensure it never looks stale. Otherwise, people might make the mistake of assuming you’re out of business.
Take the time to learn about the keywords your customers use to find your business online. You can use tools like:
- Answer the Public
- Google Keyword Planner
- SEMRush
- Google Trends
- Ahrefs
Look for longtail keywords (composed of four or more words). These keywords are more precise. Try to find keywords that are phrased as questions, too.
Then, start creating content that answers the questions your customers are asking.
For example, you can create:
- Blog posts/articles
- eBooks
- Webinars
- Videos
- Polls
- Quizzes
Make sure your content is informative and credible. You can use your content to establish EAT (expertise, authority, trustworthiness). Posting content online could help customers trust your business.
5. Optimize With SEO
About 68% of online activities begin with a search engine. Consumers are already searching for your product or service online. You can help them find your website content with search engine optimization (SEO).
SEO is a cost-effective digital marketing strategy you can use to get in front of customers who want your offerings.
In fact, SEO generates 1,000% more website traffic than organic social media. Leads from SEO have an almost 15% close rate, too.
As you start creating content for your blog, optimize it using the keyword research you gathered.
You can work with a team like Weber & Co. to develop your strategy.
6. Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platforms like Google or Facebook Ads allow you to create eye-catching digital ads. These ads can appear on social media platforms, other websites, or in a Google search.
Use your keyword research to determine which keywords your customers are using to find you online. Then, start creating text and visual ads. When someone clicks on one of your ads, they’ll reach a landing page on your website.
You can optimize your landing pages to generate more leads and sales.
7. Nurture With Emails
Add a form to your website for email subscriptions. Consider using a lead magnet, such as an eBook, to encourage people to subscribe. You can also entice them with coupons or exclusive deals.
Then, create a drip marketing campaign to nurture your leads.
You can automate emails to send based on behaviors and triggers, too. Nurturing your lead will help you remain top of mind.
8. Gather Reviews
Ask your happy customers to start posting their comments and reviews on your Google My Business listing. Then, use a plugin to feed those reviews to your website.
Generating reviews will help boost your credibility. You could encourage future customers to trust you, too.
9. Stay Social
Once you start developing your content marketing strategy, consider reformatting your content for social media. Then, add a link to your website to generate more traffic.
Staying social will help you engage your target audience. You can remain top of mind and continue educating them about your offerings.
Don’t use sales language on social media. Instead, take the time to answer questions and engage your audience.
10. Go Mobile
Don’t neglect using mobile marketing strategies this year, too.
For example, you can use geotargeting. Reach mobile users and direct them to your store to generate more foot traffic.
11. Host Contests
Consider hosting contests on your website. Then, market them on social media.
For example, you can encourage people to tag their friends in a post to participate. You could expand your reach as a result.
12. Work With Influencers
You don’t have to develop your digital marketing strategy alone. Consider partnering with a social media influencer this year.
Influencers can promote your product or service to their existing audience. You can generate more brand awareness and reach future customers online.
13. Create Video Content
As part of your content marketing strategy, consider creating more video content this year.
You can use videos to educate and entertain your audience. Share your videos on social media to boost views.
You can also use live video with Instagram Stories to engage customers online.
14. Track the Trends
Once you start developing your digital marketing strategy, keep making updates. For example, you can track the latest social media or SEO trends.
Consider appealing to voice searches or featured snippets to boost your rankings.
15. Analyze and Adjust
Make sure to review the results for each marketing campaign you create. Once you analyze the results, look for ways to make improvements. Improving your campaigns will ensure you make the most of your budget.
Take the Lead: 15 Tips for an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy
Don’t let your competitors get ahead this year. Instead, use these 15 tips to develop a strong digital marketing strategy. With these tips, you can take the lead with ease!
Get ready to boost your business with these marketing strategy tips today.
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