You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for some guidance on where to start with digital marketing. We know that it can seem daunting to jump into this area, but we want you to feel confident in your knowledge of what’s out there and how it can help you.
| Takeaways |
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| 1. Understand the Financial Potential: Learn how digital marketing jobs can pay well and impact your income. |
| 2. Craft Effective Strategies: Discover the steps to create a winning digital marketing strategy for your small business. |
| 3. Explore the Financial Rewards: Uncover the potential riches that digital marketing can offer for your brand’s growth. |
| 4. Monetize Your Digital Skills: Find out how to make money through various digital marketing opportunities. |
| 5. Open Career Opportunities: Learn how digital marketing skills and experience can lead to exciting job prospects. |
Determine Your Target Audience And Develop A Buyer Persona
Your target audience and buyer persona are two of the most important components to defining your marketing strategy.
Your target audience is the group of people that you want to reach with your advertising efforts. A buyer persona is a fictional character that represents a segment of your target audience, and it’s critical to know who these people are before developing any marketing content or strategies.
For example, if you’re selling baby products online then an ideal buyer might be a young mother in her late 20s who has recently given birth.
Knowing this information helps you develop messaging that speaks directly to this person as well as other members of her household (the husband or father).
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Define Your Goals
Be ambitious, but realistic. The best way to set goals is by first defining the problem you’re trying to solve. Think about what’s holding you back from living your life as you’d like it and then brainstorm ways that digital marketing could help solve those problems.
Once you’ve figured out what your goal is, put some thought into how long it’ll take before it becomes a reality. It’s tempting to think that everything can be achieved overnight but if we were all able to do this, would anyone ever spend money on things like books?
Setting short-term but achievable deadlines for yourself will help keep you motivated when times get tough (and they will).
Start With A Website Audit
A website audit is the first step in any digital marketing strategy. A website audit will help you get to know your current site and its performance, identify issues on your site that could be hurting it and guide you through the process of making changes.
Web audits can be daunting at first, but they’re not as complicated as they seem once you know what to look for.
A website audit is not just an assessment of a specific page or feature on your site – it’s an overview of all of the areas that make up a strong online presence:
- How people (and search engines) find your site?
- What pages exist on the site? Are they optimized for SEO? Do they have relevant keywords? Do they have enough content?
- Is there anything missing from those pages that would help people understand what you do? Are there any broken links or 404 errors?
- Is the design effective for engaging users and encouraging conversions such as email signups or purchases (if applicable)?
- Does it meet accessibility standards set forth by WCAG 2-AAA guidelines?
Choose The Right Digital Marketing Tactics
While the term digital marketing may seem like a mouthful, it’s actually just another way for you to communicate with your audience. To make sure you’re doing this in the right way, ask yourself these questions:
- What are my goals? How will I measure success?
- Does this tactic fit my goals? Does it help me reach those goals more effectively than other tactics would?
- Is this tactic relevant to my audience? Will they find it valuable or interesting enough that they’ll share it with their friends and colleagues?
- And is there a way for them to take action on the information provided through this tactic (e.g., signing up for an email list)?
- Will using this particular tactic help me reach my target market while staying within my budget and resources (time/money)?
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Write Compelling Copy To Engage Your Visitors
Use a conversational tone. If you’re writing a blog post on the topic of marketing, don’t use language that’s too formal or stuffy.
Write as if you were talking to someone at a cocktail party: relax and let your personality show through in the words that flow from your fingertips onto the screen (or paper).
Create Landing Pages To Convert Visitors Into Leads
Landing pages are a great place to start when it comes to creating your digital marketing strategy. Landing pages are designed to convert website visitors into leads, and they’re a great way of getting more traffic for your website.
All you need is a landing page or two that you can use as the first step in the conversion journey.
Implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Best Practices
SEO is a necessary piece of the puzzle for any digital marketing campaign. Optimizing your website for search engines is an important step in getting visits to your website.
It may seem like it’s just about keywords and links, but there are many more factors involved in getting visitors from Google and other search engines. Here are some tips you can use:
Focus on long tail keywords instead of short, generic ones. When people search for “digital marketing services”
Or “digital marketing agency near me,” they want someone who understands their needs and has experience working with companies just like theirs, not every company who claims to offer those services.
Instead, focus on phrases such as “How do I create a content strategy?” or “I want to start an Instagram account but don’t know where to start! Can anyone help me?”
These phrases show that people aren’t aware of how much work goes into creating successful content or using social media platforms correctly (or at all!).
By targeting these niche markets with specific questions that people really want answers too (and not just keywords).
You’ll be able to build trust with potential customers by providing helpful information about topics they care about most–and then follow up with them once they’re ready for more guidance from us.”
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Include Call-To-Actions On Every Page To Increase Conversions
Call-to-actions (CTAs) are a key part of any digital marketing strategy. They’re the links and buttons that prompt visitors to take action, whether it’s downloading something or filling out a form.
Make sure your CTAs are visible and easy to find so they can be used by consumers. Don’t hide them in obscure places like the footer or sidebar; instead, use them consistently throughout your site so customers know where they are and how to use them.
If you have multiple CTAs on one page which you should! make sure each is relevant and clear about what clicking it will do for users.
Test different CTA options against each other, too: Does including a phone number increase conversions? Are two separate links more effective than one big button?
Design For Mobile Devices First
There’s no getting around it: mobile devices are the future of digital marketing. In fact, a majority of internet searches take place on mobile devices now. That’s why you need to design your website with mobile users in mind first and foremost.
- If your website is already optimized for desktop and laptop computers, consider hiring an expert to help you rework it for mobile devices.
- If you don’t have enough time or money for that kind of overhaul, start by making sure that all the main pages on your site (home page, about page) are easily readable when viewed on a phone or tablet screen.
- You can also check out Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool which will show whether or not your website is optimized for smartphones and tablets
Optimize For Local SEO (If Applicable)
If you are a local business, then you need to optimize your website for local SEO. Local SEO is how Google ranks your business in search results based on where it is located and what the user is searching for.
In order to optimize your site for local search engine results, go through each of these steps:
- Define Your Local Market
- Define Your Local Competitors
- Get Your Business Listed on Local Directories (if applicable)
- Create a Custom Landing Page for Your Business that lists all of its products/services (if applicable)
- . Optimize Your Website For Local SEO
- . Use Local SEO Tools To Track Your Progress
Optimize For Voice Search (If Applicable)
You’ll want to optimize your content for voice search if it’s a natural fit. If you can, make sure there are no typos in the text that might come up in a voice search query.
It’s also important to use clues like cardinal directions (southwest) and proper nouns (the White House) when relevant because these help Google narrow down results by location.
You may be wondering what happens when someone searches with words like “chocolate chip cookies recipe” or “best songs Taylor Swift”.
That’s where Google will then try to match what they said into similar sounding words and phrases that could answer their question, like “chocolate chip cookie recipe” or “best song Taylor Swift.”
Then it looks through all its data about who has shared recipes for chocolate chip cookies with us before and ranks those results based on how many clicks those links have gotten from other people looking for recipes before them in other words: popularity and ranks those highest first.
This is really important because this means you can potentially rank for long tail queries which means being able to get traffic from people searching specific things related but not exactly what you’ve optimized your content around yet!
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Utilize Social Media As A Customer Service Platform
Social media is a great way to engage with customers, so it’s no surprise that many businesses use social platforms as customer service platforms.
Social channels are also a great way to reach customers and build brand awareness, but they can’t be used exclusively for marketing purposes.
You should never neglect the value of social media that are not directly related to promoting your business these networks provide you with valuable insight into what people think about your product or service, which may help you make improvements down the road.
Create A Content Marketing Strategy
Before you start, it’s important to define the problem. For example: “I want more traffic on my site.” Not good enough. Why? What do you want them to do when they get there? Do you want them to buy something? Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter?
Do you just want more visibility and exposure so that potential customers know about your product/service/brand in general?
Once you’ve answered this question, create a content marketing goal related to it something like “I want 100 new email subscribers within six months” or “I want 20% more website traffic than I had last month.”
As an example from fitness, let’s say your goal is simply “I want to run 2 miles without stopping once by the end of March.”
That seems pretty ambitious! But if we break it down into smaller pieces (i.e., setting intermediate goals), we can see that in order for our final achievement (2 miles without stopping) to be feasible and realistic, certain milestones need to come first:
- Running 1 mile without stopping once by February 10th
- Running 1 mile without stopping twice by February 15th
Produce Original Video Content
When you produce original video content, you have the opportunity to engage your audience and inspire them. You can also use it to educate customers about your products and services, promote your brand or business, and even sell more products.
The best types of original videos include:
- How-to videos that teach people how to do something (like make a delicious lasagna)
- Instructional videos (for example: “How To Use The Hypnotic Power Of NLP In Your Life”)
- Interviews with experts on relevant topics (for example: “Interview With A Celebrity Nutritionist Who Shares Her Secrets To Helping People Lose Weight”)
Start An Email Marketing Campaign
Email marketing is a great way to get the word out about your business. You can use it to communicate with customers, provide useful content, and stay in touch with prospects.
To start an email marketing campaign:
Create an email list. You’ll need a list of people who have opted-in to receiving emails from you that is, they’ve given you permission to send them messages by providing their contact information (email address) or other details that identify them as interested in what you have to say (like name, location).
Make sure that any information about these subscribers is stored securely on one of your systems; otherwise, it could be obtained by hackers or spammers who might then use it illegally.
People are more likely to subscribe if they feel like they’re getting something valuable from their relationship with a company–even if it’s just access to interesting articles or discounts on products they want!
So make sure the value proposition matches both sides’ needs–don’t assume that everyone wants what’s best for YOU!
Develop An Advertising Strategy Using Paid Search And Social Ads
When developing a campaign, it’s important to be clear on what your goals are. This can be a little bit tricky because you might not know how successful your campaign will be at first.
It’s best to think of more specific goals rather than broad ones like “increase traffic” or “boost my brand.”
You should also define the problem before making solutions, so make sure you understand the current state of your website and the main issue that needs fixing.
To figure this out, take some time (a few hours) doing research on similar sites in your industry with comparable traffic levels as yours.
Then, look at their SEO and content strategies and decide if there are any ways they’re doing things better than yours.
If they’re doing something poorly but getting better results from it (like using spammy anchor text), learn from that and see if there’s anything you could change about how you do things now so that the outcome is different for you in the future!
If possible, try not only looking at other websites but also what people are saying about them online by checking out review sites like Yelp or Trustpilot.
The reviews may give some insights into why certain businesses have done well while others haven’t been able to keep up with competition–and then use those insights when coming up with ideas for improving quality scores over time.”
Acquire essential knowledge about digital marketing careers in our article, Can You Get a Job in Digital Marketing Without a Degree? Find Out!. Learn how skills and experience can open doors to exciting opportunities in the digital realm.
Get Published On Industry Sites And Publications
A good place to start is with your website, but it’s also important to get published on industry sites and publications. You can also consider publishing your work in local newspapers or magazines that are relevant to the businesses in your area.
When deciding where you want to be published, think about which publications will have the most impact on potential clients. This could mean anything from online magazines with an audience of millions or niche-focused blogs with a modest audience of hundreds (or less).
Once you’ve settled on a publication or website that fits this criteria, create a list of them so you can submit articles regularly without having to reinvent the wheel every time!
Conclusion
Digital marketing is a complicated, ever-changing field. It’s important to know that you’re not alone in this journey and that there are many different ways to get started.
As we’ve seen, the first step is to understand your target audience so that you can develop an effective strategy for reaching them.
Once you’ve got some solid goals in mind, then it’s time to start thinking about how best to reach those goals through digital channels like social media advertising or email marketing campaigns!
Of course, there are also other tactics like blogging (which we covered earlier), content creation and sharing across social media platforms all of which can help build up your visibility online through word-of-mouth recommendations from customers who love what they do at work every day 🙂
Further Reading
Vistaprint’s Small Business Digital Marketing Checklist: A comprehensive checklist to help small businesses optimize their digital marketing efforts for better online visibility and customer engagement.
Digital Marketing Tips for Small Businesses: Learn valuable tips and tricks to enhance your small business’s digital marketing strategies, increase brand awareness, and drive growth in the digital landscape.
The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Guide: Dive into this ultimate guide that covers everything a small business owner needs to know about marketing, from crafting effective campaigns to measuring success.
FAQs
How can I improve my small business’s digital marketing efforts?
To improve your digital marketing, focus on understanding your target audience, creating engaging content, optimizing your website for search engines, and utilizing social media and email marketing.
What are some cost-effective digital marketing strategies for small businesses?
Cost-effective strategies include content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and leveraging local business directories.
How can I measure the success of my digital marketing campaigns?
Use key performance indicators (KPIs) like website traffic, conversion rates, click-through rates, and return on investment (ROI) to measure the success of your digital marketing campaigns.
Should I invest in paid advertising for my small business?
Paid advertising can be beneficial for small businesses looking to reach a wider audience quickly. Start with a small budget and test different platforms to see which ones yield the best results.
How can I build a strong online presence for my small business?
Building a strong online presence involves creating a professional website, actively engaging with customers on social media, obtaining positive online reviews, and consistently sharing valuable content.
Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.