Every type of business can benefit from digital marketing.
It’s a bold statement, but it’s also a true statement. Digital marketing is your online effort to capture the attention (and hopefully sale) through various digital channels, both free and paid. Digital channels can include your website, content, social media platforms, email marketing, performance through search engine optimization, and advertising.
If every business can benefit, then why is your business not getting the attention it deserves? Strategy.
Digital channels are the tools available to you, but how you use them in your business makes all the difference. Just like in your garage, the hammer laying in the tool drawer is perfectly capable of building a house, but nailing random boards together isn’t going to necessarily get you there.
We often see business owners leaving their digital marketing strategy to luck. They’re creating social media profiles, but not engaging with the audience they’ve captured. They’re launching a new website, but not continuing to publish new content.
Sound like you? With a few foundational elements, you can take back your digital channels and develop a digital marketing strategy that works for you!
Apply Your Personas
When working with new clients, I usually get the nod or eye-roll when I mention the word “personas.” Maybe you’ve developed these fictitious characters before and have some preconceived notions about their use. Or perhaps you’re a hard numbers type of person and can’t get past creating the characters in the first place. Whatever the issue may be, you need to find a digital marketing agency that can help you refine and implement your personas. That’s right – after creation, you need to APPLY their roles, goals, and challenges to every aspect of your marketing.
When you craft a new social media caption, think of which persona you’re writing it for. Same with all content, including blog posts and free downloads. Launching a new service? Great! Which persona are you targeting and does it help solve their challenges? Personas are fluid and should be revisited regularly to ensure they continue to capture your ideal client. Gaining qualified leads is not based on luck, it’s based on how well you target your personas!
Use Your Feedback
When you checkout at the grocery store, the clerk asks, “Did you find everything ok?”. This is an everyday example of feedback. If you communicate that you couldn’t find the mac and cheese because they reconfigured the store for the millionth time, it allows that clerk the opportunity to help you locate it. Collecting feedback and online reviews can help you gauge whether or not your personas and marketing strategies are working! That means going above and beyond reading reviews at your monthly team meetings or posting them in your Slack #kudos board. Analyze your customer feedback to determine how to improve your products, services, and customer experience.
Measure Your Metrics
Marketing is a creative field, but it’s backed by cold hard numbers that show performance and the coveted return on investment. A marketing strategy is not one size fits all. So how do you find the right size? Metrics. You or the digital marketing agency that works with you should deliver reports that gauge each campaign’s success.
One must-have is Google Analytics. GreenCup Digital installs and configures Google Analytics on every website we develop. For us, it’s industry standard and will aid in your decision-making concerning new digital marketing channels. It can measure traffic, average time on site, and what social ads are driving the most leads. You can also find various metrics through your social media accounts, email service provider, and so much more. Learn how to measure your marketing success with metrics here!
As your digital marketing strategy continues to grow, these analytics will provide valuable insight into what’s working and what’s not. Small business owners don’t just get lucky when content resonates with their target audience or ad spend is carefully allocated; it’s metrics, and they’re crucial to making informed decisions for a more profitable business.
Adjust Your Strategy
Digital is constantly evolving. Algorithms shifting, new platforms emerging. In the world of digital, you HAVE TO adjust continually. Typically it takes 3-6 months to find your sweet spot when implementing a new strategy or digital channel into your business. Once you begin hitting numbers you like, it takes constant adjusting to maintain or elevate those numbers. Sure there are some cases where you can “set it and forget it” or apply a few automation tricks to help alleviate the demand of your marketing strategy, but otherwise, you have to be reviewing your services against your personas, feedback, and metrics.
Digital marketing can benefit your business, but it’s not by luck or chance – it’s by strategy! Developing a strategy around the digital marketing channels in your business can help guide your business decisions, attract your target audience, and best of all convert to sales. But first, you have to engage on social media, create new content, manage website updates, gather feedback, and understand your metrics. And just when you think you’re on the right track, it’s time to adjust your strategy to help support a new algorithm update. That’s where working with an agency as an extension of your marketing department can support you. Reach out to GreenCup Digital to learn about customized techniques you can use to find your digital marketing pot of gold – no luck required!
