Download digital marketing plan–
What is digital marketing?
Digital marketing is the key to reaching the right customer demographics at the right time and place with the right sales pitch for your products/services on the right device through various online channels. The major components of digital marketing include SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Paid Advertising (PPC), Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, and Affiliate or Referral Marketing. The benchmark of an effective digital marketing campaign is the ROI (Return on Investment). While planning a Digital Marketing strategy, it is crucial to set up clear goals and estimate CPA (cost per acquisition) to achieve the desired return on investment.
Key Elements of Digital Marketing-
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Optimization, by definition, means optimizing your website for the search engines like google, Bing, or yahoo to achieve top rankings in search results (SERPs) for your website-related keywords. SEO is the most cost-effective technique to get a large number of people to visit your website without spending money on PPC advertising. SEO has two components- On-Site SEO and Off-Site SEO.
On-Site SEO-
Search engines like Google are all about user experience. Google wants to show its users the best possible search results for their queries. On-Site SEO (also known as On-Page SEO) is about optimizing all the elements on your page to help the website rank higher for desired keywords in the search results. On-page SEO is performed by enhancing the quality of the content (remember, content is the king), site structure, and HTML codes on the website.
Off-Site SEO-
Once the On-Site SEO is in place, the next focus should be on Off-Site SEO (also known as Off-Page SEO). The external signals from other websites, forums, or social media platforms that help search engines determine your website’s reliability, popularity, authority, and relevance come under the preview of Off-Page SEO. It is akin to getting recommendation letters for a job. By getting recommendation letters from reputable and authoritative people in your industry, you improve the chance of getting hired. Similarly, getting relevant backlinks from trustworthy and authoritative websites increases the chance of getting the coveted top search result positions.
Paid Advertising or Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)
Paid advertising is the fastest way to gain a lot of traffic and leads. Google AdWords and Bing Ads are best for advertising the website products/services in various ad formats such as expanded text ads, product listing ads, display ads, image ads, etc., on google and yahoo/bing network respectively. Content and native ads platforms such as Taboola and Outbrain are ideal for promoting articles and remarketing the products. Paid social media ads are preferred for building brand awareness and generating social signals for the website quickly.
Social Media Marketing
Social Media is vital for generating brand awareness and connecting with customers. Social media signals are also one of the ranking factors for search engines. When more and more number of people like, comment, or share your content /website urls, the better the website ranks on search engines. Building and maintaining social media profiles on all major social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest is the best way to connect and promote your products/services to the targeted audience demographics.
Email Marketing
The first step in email marketing is to get the users to subscribe to your newsletters. Offering discounts on the first purchase or providing useful information in white papers, e-books, or buying guides are popular techniques to encourage people to sign up for the newsletter. Personalized newsletters help build strong relationships and gain the loyalty of the customers. Loyal customers respond positively to future promotions and up-sell efforts. They are more likely to leave positive reviews and refer other people to the business.
Affiliate and Referral Marketing
The e-commerce marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay are the best places to sell your products and reach millions of people. If you have your own e-commerce website, it is still a good idea to sell on e-commerce marketplaces to build brand visibility and gain customer trust. Depending on the product type, you can get good traffic to your website from these e-commerce marketplaces. Creating an eBook and selling it on Amazon Kindle works well for blogs and service-based websites.
Setting up an affiliate or referral program for your website through ShareASale or Commission Junction can get you a lot of potential customers via affiliate links on different blogs and coupon websites. On the other hand, if you are willing to be an affiliate for other websites, you can earn a commission for recommending the website to your visitors.
Referral programs such as refer-a-friend are designed to generate word-of-mouth publicity and incentivize users to tell more and more people about the business. When combined with social media, referral programs can generate more leads and sales than any other marketing program.
