When you learn, teach. If you get, give — Maya Angelou.
The internet is a thing of beauty. I know you know!
Yes, it has pluses and minuses. If used in the right manner, the benefits are informative. The internet has a lot of possibilities for reaching out to more people.
Businesses are still getting a foothold in the market despite the strong competition. Even when you consider the1.9 billion websites seeking attention on the internet.
How I Regained My Mojo.
I wrote about dealing with uncertainty in my previous article.
I signed up for Udemy lessons to boost my digital marketing skills a while back because, well, why not? Digital marketing is the way of the future. It will continue to have a big impact on small and big businesses alike.
If you are not self-disciplined, self-learning might be tough. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Especially for those of us who lack motivation. So I struggled to keep at it for a while and figured I needed to enjoy the process.
I looked for an on-site digital marketing class. A location where I may learn more about the jargon used in the subject. Where I could meet other people interested in it, and also get mentored in person.
I came across Virals n Signals Digital Agency and signed up for their cohort. Did more research and read up on all things digital marketing.
So here’s a simple overview of what I have been able to grasp so far.
What is Digital Marketing?
It’s as straightforward as online marketing. Digital marketing is all marketing initiatives that involve the use of various channels to promote your business online.
You can find almost anything and everything on the internet. Although “almost” may be an understatement for the internet these days, you get my point.
The Purpose of Digital Marketing
Because of technological advancements, digital marketing has become increasingly important in today’s environment.
It allows you to engage with your consumers in real-time, and they get to interact with you as well. It is what you should choose if you need a customized approach to each aim of your business.
The goal of using digital marketing is for brands to promote their products and services. To also connect with current and potential customers.
With digital marketing, damage control is also simple.
Advantages of Digital Marketing
- It allows you to reach a much wider audience.
- It enables you to reach out to the relevant audience.
- It is less expensive than running adverts on billboards or television commercials.
- It provides opportunities for instant input, corrections, and results.
- It’s a lot easier to track and measure
Let’s look at some of the digital marketing strategies you’ll need to thrive online as a small business owner. There are various channels that can reach out to your audience. Although, you can’t achieve all your business goals by using all the channels.
You must determine which of the channels has the most of your target audience and focus on that channel.
Your goals could revolve around generating leads, increasing brand awareness, and increasing conversions. Increasing your revenue, in a nutshell.
Depending on the goals, you can work with a digital marketing agency to design a mix of strategies for you.
Types of Digital Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization aka SEO
- Search Engine Marketing aka SEM
- Affiliate Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Video Marketing
- Mobile Marketing
- Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
- Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) Marketing
The Digital Marketing Framework
The framework will help you create a strategy to reach your target audience. It also helps you stand out from the competition. It’s the internet and you’re not the only one offering to sell something.
If you’ve read the 48 laws of power, you’ll know how valuable strategy is in your personal life.
Depending on the type of business you run, you’ll need different tools and strategies. But you must first understand the fundamentals.
Here’s What Every Small Business Owner Should Understand Before Marketing Their Business
- What: your offer — What problem are you attempting to solve?
- Who: your customers — Everybody cannot be your customer. Whose problem are you trying to solve?
- When: your customer’s journey — You need to be aware of every stage of the sales funnel. For example, why should I buy what you’re offering if I’m not even aware I have a problem you can solve? You must inform me I have a problem that you can help me with.
- Why: your marketing aim — Why are you trying to go online to market your business?
- How: your message — How do you intend to pass this message across? Do you want to come to me to tell me to buy a toothbrush? I already have one. Why am I going to buy yours?
- Where: channels your customers use — Where can you find these customers? For Instance, do you sell clothes? Your target customers are majorly on Instagram. Do you sell online courses? You can find most of your potential customers on LinkedIn looking to improve their skills.
- When+how+where= Marketing Tactics — These three can help you reach out to your audience faster.
Understanding your why = objective is critical, as it allows you to track your progress. Knowing all of this entails having a solid marketing plan.
A solid strategy will assist you in leveling the online playing field.
Understand the difference between strategy and tactics
Strategy
This is the foundation on which all your future marketing efforts and tactics are set up. There are different strategies to view your digital marketing. These are 4 basic strategies:
Model:
The model is your business. What you offer, your packaging, your pricing, your servicing. It is how you deliver whatever you deliver to your market. Build a business to solve a problem.
Market:
These are the people you are going to serve. Be focused on who is going to get the best result from your product or service. Your target audience.
Message:
This is where you clarify and connect with your ideal target audience. Address their problems, and frustrations, as well as how your company may help them. You can give reviews to explain its effectiveness.
To craft unique messages, you must first understand who your target market is.
Media:
This is where you are going to do your marketing. What digital channels do you intend to use? Where can you find your target market?
Tactics
Tactics are how you are going to execute your strategies above. The actionable steps you can execute that you will put into practice.
For Instance:
- What contents are you going to post?
- What level of consistency or schedule do you have planned out?
- What is the best time to post on social media?
Consider the principles of the consumer behavior of why people do what they do and focus on mastering it. Apply that to whatever channel you wish to use.
The right mix of strategies with a touch of creativity will push your brand to your target audience. Convert them to leads. However, these strategies are not something you master overnight.
As a small business owner, you don’t have to master all the strategies, but at least be aware of them and how they work. You can outsource most of these tasks to a digital marketing agency or specialists.
What is the difference between Organic and Paid?
Organic is anything you create for free. You didn’t pay to promote it. Organic shows up on the news feed of those that follow you. Organic limits your audience's reach.
Paid is to pay. To create content, and pay networks to promote, and distribute it outside your network. You spend money to get faster results. Paid media allows you to reach a large audience.
Organic marketing puts you in the face of those in your network, while Paid marketing puts you in the face of those outside your network. Using both strategies will give you the right mix.
Direct Response Marketing and Brand Awareness Marketing
Direct response is creating an ad or running a campaign to get an immediate response or results. It lets you know how many leads, sales, or conversions your marketing campaign has yielded.
Brand awareness is creating awareness about your brand. Building trust and being a thought leader in your industry. We can measure it through trust and authority in your industry.
You can’t run a brand awareness campaign and expect a direct response result. However, you need a mix of both. This could be one reason your marketing isn’t working.
Search and Discovery
For search, they have an intent. People go on search engine platforms (google, YouTube) to find an answer or a product. To learn how to do something, or buy something.
Discovery is when people are just casually browsing. They may have an intent, but they are not actively looking. This is where you, as a business owner, need to get creative and entertain them to grab their attention.
So you can decide to market by teaching people how to use your product or service or do something relating to why they would eventually use your product or service.
Or you can get creative with your marketing by entertaining your potential customer to get their attention so that they can use or buy your product or service. For example — share a Coca-Cola campaign.
Product and Services
Products are tangible. You can see, hold, or taste. To market a product, you need to show how the product works, what it looks like, and show its benefits of the product.
Services are intangible. You can’t hold them. Service requires you to pay in advance. For service-based businesses, market the end result.
Show your customers the problem they have, and the dissatisfaction they struggle with. Then show them how they can feel better after working with you.
How you can help them solve the problem they are facing. Service requires your customers to trust you.
You can’t market a service-based business the same way you would a product-based business.
Summary
For online businesses, digital marketing has been a necessity so far. Digital marketing is a broad phrase that covers all activities that use the internet to create, collect, analyze, and communicate messages about a brand.
Email marketing, content marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and internet videos are all part of it.
There are numerous strategies to choose from, and the best one for your business may be determined by your industry, product or service offerings, and target audience.
To thrive as a business, you need to understand what digital marketing is, the fundamentals, and the right channels to use.
As a result, you must understand how to market your company online.
If you don’t have the time but you need to establish a solid online presence to attract more customers. You should invest in a digital marketing agency. An agency that has the resources and experience required for this purpose.
Marketing takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master. My path to mastery has begun.
I hope I was able to help with understanding the term. I will buttress more on the different digital marketing channels in my next articles.
Thank you for reading until the end and let’s keep in touch! You can follow, clap or drop a comment to let me know what you think.
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