In the twenty-first century, you cannot run a successful business without the successful implementation of a digital marketing strategy (and if you think you can, you’re wrong). Digital marketing is at the forefront of the marketing and advertising industry in 2019, and there are many different ways to successfully go about your strategy to grow your business.
When you combine these different scopes of digital media marketing, your opportunity for successful marketing, and therefore successful sales, increases dramatically. Let’s take a look at the different types of digital marketing, and which one (or ones) makes sense for your business.
1. Influencer Marketing
You don’t need to be in the world of digital marketing to know that influencer marketing has exploded in popularity over the past few years. Whether it’s hiring a social media influencer to create content for your own social media, or hiring an influencer to advertise your product on their own platform, this can be an extremely effective way of marketing your product or business. However, this may not be the best way for your specific business to gain popularity and reach potential customers.
When it comes to hiring social media influencers, your business has to be offering an extremely relatable, preferably low cost, everyday product or service, and it has to tie in with the influencer’s brand. This might not make the most sense for your business, if you are, say, a local dentist’s office who is trying to attract new patients. It will always be beneficial to have your own social media page, but hiring out a social media influencer for a service that is not used every day, and is targeting a small, specific area, wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense.
2. Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing can benefit virtually any business. The best part about it is that it’s free, and you don’t need a high skill level in order to create a social media post. You don’t need to hire a professional to create a social media account if you have a basic understanding of the platform, and if not, it is easy to learn. Simply having a social media account on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is a great way to find more followers, and increase your business and reach long-term goals. However, you do need to be adding regular content.
A social media page will not be useful if you do not have anything on it, so you are going to need to make sure that you have at least one person on your team that is able to take on this strategy. While not necessary, and it is certainly advantageous to have someone who is knowledgeable about social media metrics to take on this role.
Although social media accounts are free, some campaigns can be run on most social media platforms that ensure your product or service is getting seen by the right people. This is important, especially if you are a local business and don’t have a large budget. It is possible to advertise your business to only those in the surrounding area and to pinpoint your target audience even further and increase brand awareness.
3. Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a great option for most companies in order to increase foot traffic to their website or blog posts. When it comes to SEO, this is not a paid advertising type of way to promote your website – this is more subtle, but can be just as effective. Search engine optimization is the act of making sure your content is being seen as the most relevant by search engines.
In this day and age, we all know that if we want information on virtually anything, the first place we go is to our Google search engine. The correct use of search engine optimization makes it so your website is coming up first (or at least on the first page) of thousands of possible search results for that topic. If your business has a blog or a considerable amount of written content, SEO is for you.
There are plenty of ways to make sure that your blog or website is correctly formatted to optimize your search engine visibility but making sure you have included plenty of key search words is one of them. By correctly implementing SEO, you can exponentially increase your website’s exposure and brand awareness, and ultimately create more success for your business.
4. Content Marketing
Content marketing is more of a broad term and can include many scopes of digital media marketing. Creating content on your product or service means that you are consistently creating in order to best advertise and represent your business. This can be in many different forms, whether it’s posts on social media, blog posts, videos, articles – the list of possible content is endless. Making sure that you have a designated person on your team (or even multiple designated people) to consistently be putting out content is a great way to increase the chances of your product or service getting seen.
The more content you have, the more likely it is that your search engine ranking will increase, and you will become more visible. After all, you are giving search engines more and more chances to pick up on keywords and phrases that your possible customers are going to search for.
5. Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing could make the most sense for your business if you are more inclined to advertise your product through your own advertisements. Whether that be a photo advertisement, a text advertisement or a video, search engine marketing is generally implemented through a PPC (pay per click) system. This is achieved through search engines placing your advertisement on a related website or social media platform that includes the same target audience. Because it includes the same target audience, you are more likely to get clicks on your similar product or business. You then get charged based on your advertisement getting clicked on by potential customers.
While these are not the only forms of digital marketing that your business can choose from, they are certainly some great options that have a high potential for success if implemented properly. Keep in mind, not every form of digital marketing is worth investing your company’s money into.
You want to make sure you do your research on where your money will be best spent, as some forms of digital marketing will make little to no sense for your company. Do your research, see what makes sense, and watch your traffic grow!
