Do you want more leads?
Do you want to grow your sales?
Is everyone telling you that you need a Digital Marketer?
How do you go about finding one when you don’t really understand what they do?
The headlines
There are 8 core disciplines that can improve traffic to your website, enhance your customers’ online experience and build your brand reputation.
These disciplines are supported by a plethora of tactics which can be used to help deliver the results you are looking for. These tactics are evolving super-fast, so don’t worry about trying to stay on top of them all – a good Digital Marketer will help you to focus on the right strategies for your business and help you choose the right tactics to achieve your goals.
So what are the 8 disciplines?
- Your site
- Mobile
- Content Marketing
- Paid Search
- Adaptive SEO
- Social
- Marketing Automation, Artificial Intelligence & Customer Relationship Management
- Analytics
Your site
Today’s customers are impatient, and will abandon your site if your site doesn’t perform well, so make sure your site speed is strong.
Google regularly crawls your website to assess the quality and relevance of your content – help it along the way by having unique page headers and a sitemap.
Mobile
In 2020, 61% of all searches were done on a mobile device (Source : Google)
Still not convinced?
88% of searches for local businesses on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours. (Source: Nectafy)
To meet today’s customer expectations, your site must be mobile responsive.
Content Marketing
Google ranks a site based on authority and relevancy based on your site content.
Google’s algorithms no longer look for a keyword repeated multiple times as a marker for how your site ranks on google – it’s now way cleverer than that. Google’s AI understands similar words & context and interprets natural speech.
Google sees newness of content as a plus on the relevancy score, so make sure that if you aren’t regularly introducing new products, that you are refreshing your blog or testimonials.
To score highly on authority, google is seeking out “how tos” which it considers to be in context of the site, customer reviews and links to & from other sites who are also considered to be an authority in your site subject.
Write your content on topic, succinctly & naturally, refresh it regularly, and seek out reviews and backlinks that endorse your content.
Paid Search
Done well, this is the quickest way to get traffic to your site.
Done badly, it’s a very quick way to drive up your cost per acquisition.
The good news is that it’s very straightforward to control your spend – just make sure that you track the results and adapt your campaigns accordingly.
Adaptive SEO
Think of Adaptive SEO as a virtuous circle. It’s got a slower burn time in getting traffic to your site than Paid Search, but over the long term it costs less and lasts longer.
Social
If you think that Social Media is just something that the kids do, it’s time to think again.
Social Media is a great place to both get noticed and to drive engagement with your customers.
If you can interrupt a thought process as potential customers are scrolling through their newsfeed, you can really engage with people as these platforms continuously request a conversation.
You can also advertise on Social Media – it’s much more affordable than google, and you can target who sees your ads in unbelievable detail.
Also, Google now owns YouTube, so remember that video views & all your other Social Media activity goes towards your Google rankings, so post curated content regularly.
Marketing automation, AI & CRM
We all need a bit of help at some point, don’t we?
Once you are dealing with volume of posts, emails, contacts etc you can really drive efficiency by investing in automation tools.
Analytics
They say that what gets measured gets managed.
Google Analytics and Social Media Analytics provide incredible insights into what is happening in your digital world. Just don’t get lost down rabbit hole! Decide the key performance indicators you are going to measure regularly and track and respond to trends.
Don’t let that stop you having an enquiring mind and challenging yourself with insightful questions – just remember there is no point spending time extracting dat if you’re not going to do anything about it.
Useful data drives action & changes behaviour.
So do you need a Digital Marketer on your team?
Possibly, possibly not.
The digital world is changing so fast it’s hard for an individual to stay on top of all of the relevant trends, so you may prefer an external view.
You may or may not need someone full time. If you don’t, agency teams can look after your account on a part time basis, acting as part of your team.
Digital Marketing involves technical, copywriting, graphic design & analytical skills – agencies are set up to juggle these differing demands as and when they are needed.
Never be afraid to explore and ask questions – that’s how you learn.
