Digital Marketing
There are many forms a business can communicate its message … BUT, with the average person being subject to over 1,000 different messages how do you cut through all the noise.
That’s where digital marketing plays a pivotal role for all businesses. Digital Marketing is ever-growing and expanding and with new technology comes new channels to explore each year. However, most businesses still don’t understand the fundamentals and don’t use the channels in an optimum way, thus not seeing the results they expect compared to their competitors.
Digital Marketing allows you to communicate your message instantly at speed, with accuracy based on audience data and allows you to measure the results to show efficiency. The main channels that any business should consider as part of their digital strategy are:
Search Engines:
There are 2 ways to push campaigns through Search, organically (SEO) or Paid (PPC):
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – is a process that seems like a black art but in fact, is FREE and primarily uses your Website and Content to increase your organic ranking across search engines such as Google and Bing. However, it’s time-consuming and most businesses outsource the work to agencies who have specialist in-house staff. Results also take longer to deliver but if done right is very rewarding in driving traffic and delivering on-site conversions.
PPC (Pay Per Click) – is a process where you focus on the relevant keywords that consumers may search for in search engines such as Google and Bing and pay to have your ad appear at the top of Google for that keyword Search. This comes at a cost per click of the ad. A click can cost anything from pennies to £20+ depending on the competitiveness of the keyword. A highly effective and results-based channel that delivers ROI instantly, you have more control but requires investment and time.
Social Media:
Social Media is the fastest growing digital sector for spend as there are many platforms businesses can use to target consumers such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Snapchat. With improvements in technology, new channels like Tic Tok are on the rise. Each platform has 100’s of millions of users with Facebook and Instagram both having over 1 billion users worldwide. A great place to reach your target audience with specific messages.
There are two forms of social media advertising … Organic Social Media which is posting messages on profile pages and driving consumer engagement or Paid Social Media which are sponsored posts helping you drive leads, sales and conversions from your desired audience.
Most business should opt for Paid Social Media as Organic Social is a falling art form and has substantially less reach. With Paid Social Ads you can target your desired audience by location … from city to postcode, by age, gender, income, job titles and key product/service interests allowing you to focus your messages at your audience directly. This channel requires a lot of testing with the message but is really rewarding in terms of ROI when done right.
Video Marketing:
As technology improves with the introduction of 5G, consumers want information quickly but they don’t want to read it anymore. There is an increase in consumers wanting information quickly and the best form to do that is short videos. This is why key social channels such as Tic Tok are on the rise but also why Facebook and other social platforms allow (and even favour) video content.
Another key channel is YouTube, the World’s 2nd largest search engine after Google (also owned by their mutual parent company, Alphabet). You can now direct your message to consumers in short video messages before they consume video content they are interested in. Very effective and rewarding but does require you creating video content, so an extra cost to consider.
Finally, Mobile devices are the highest device usage across users in the UK, as consumers surf the web and play on games … in-app video ads and messages can also be targeted to users with mobile devices across key sites and apps.
Summary:
Digital marketing is a growing trend and now a necessity for all businesses to adapt to in order to drive sales and growth. There will be a lot of trial and error but very quickly you will be able to control specific channels and deliver measurable results.
With a digital strategy in place, you will already be a step ahead of most of your competitors. Read more within this section to get a better understanding and find a supplier who can truly help your plans with proven abilities and skills.
Digital marketing thinking from Yorkshire Powerhouse
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