In today’s modern world, we are all surrounded by technology. With that said, businesses and entrepreneurs are always looking for new ideas, innovative technologies and digital platforms that will put their business or products in front of the right audience. With digital marketing, they are able to elevate their businesses, attract a wider audience, and distinguish themselves from others in the marketplace vying for the same customers.

Why are digital marketing strategies so crucial to your business?

There are two answers to this question, the first being: the group of potential customers you gain access to, is much larger than the group that you can reach locally. Digital marketing is a cost-effective, measurable tool that will allow you to reach a wider audience, without the leg work.

The second is: your competition is online. Your customers and potential customers are online searching for a business like yours, but because they can’t easily find you, they are choosing someone else. If they have an interest in your business or want to learn more about your brand, the first thing that they do is to look it up online to find that information. In doing so, they expect to find a website and social media accounts, which they will use to decide whether you are the right fit for them or not. If a potential customer looks up your business and they are unable to find it, they will conclude that your business is illegitimate and take their business elsewhere.

To maximize the success of your business, you need to watch what your competitors are doing and learn from it. In most cases, no matter what type of business you have, you will have at least one competitor with an established online presence. When you look at the different marketing strategies that your competitors are implementing, you’ll find patterns of what is working and what is not. Look at what kind of content they are publishing, which platforms are they on, and what channels they are using (i.e. videos, podcasts, blogs, etc.). Pay attention to how they communicate their brand and how they engage with their audience. All of these things will reveal the information that you need to ensure that your digital marketing efforts will be successful.

Below, we highlight some of the most common issues businesses face and how digital marketing can help solve them.

Issue: No One Knows About My Business

Most new businesses, big and small, struggle with getting on the public radar. Whether you are a small business or start-up software as a service company, you should have a strong online presence. With digital marketing, there are a number of solutions that both brick-and-mortar and online businesses can utilize in order to be easily found by a wide audience.

Some options include:

• A Google Adword campaign for specific keywords to help more people find your business.

• A Facebook Ads campaign targeting individuals interested in your business’ services or products.
• Working with online influencers to help increase your reach and share your content.

Branding 

Another reason why people may be unfamiliar with your business is because you have poor branding. Branding is one of the most crucial components of marketing, both traditional and digital. Without consistent branding, your business becomes just another business that doesn’t get a second look.

How do you develop a strong brand?

You have to pay attention to the small details. Everything from the font to the colors that you use will affect the way that your business is perceived by consumers. Don’t forget to make sure that your brand image and voice is consistent across all platforms.

Issue: Not Generating Traffic and Leads

Generating traffic and leads can be a difficult task for even the most experienced digital marketers. The most common issue is being unable to produce demand for content. With so many platforms for businesses to publish content on and more ways to promote to their target audience, it can be challenging to decide where to focus your efforts.

How Do I Generate Traffic And Leads?

SEO aka Search Engine Optimization:
Search optimization is the process of optimizing your website in order to get organic traffic from a search engine page like Google, making it a necessity for every successful digital marketing campaign. If you want to attract customers and clients, you have to make sure that you rank high on search results for keywords that are related to your industry. Strategically implemented SEO optimization strategies will put your website ahead of the competition and front and center, waiting for that click.

Search engine optimization is much more complicated than choosing a few keywords and hoping for the best. Algorithms are constantly changing and updated regularly, which means that you have to update your SEO strategies and techniques accordingly to maximize success.

This may include:

• Changing your keywords.
• Changing your keyword placement.
• Applying SEO parameters to social media accounts and posts. 

When you are creating content, you should ask yourself two questions: Is your content high-quality? What does your audience want to see? Hubspot conducted an online survey, which found that 53% of consumers want to see more videos, while only 14% preferred blog posts. With these statistics, businesses can create strategies that will see more conversions from potential customers and clients. Once you know the type of content that your audience wants, you can redirect your attention to promoting your business, services and/or products in a way that will capture their attention and wallets.

The overarching goal of your content marketing strategies is to gain the trust of your visitors. When they trust you, they are more likely to seek you out and willing to share some of their personal information (i.e. email) in exchange for exclusive gated content. This is the strategy commonly used in order to generate leads. An example of this is a visitor who reads your blog notices a call to action, which is promoting exclusive weekly content. After clicking the call to action, they are then sent to a landing page, where they are asked to input their name and email address. After submitting the form, the visitor becomes a lead as you can add their information into your content relationship management system and you now have a new way of sharing more with them, keeping them engaged with your brand.

Issue: Clicks but no Conversions

When you notice that people are engaging with your website/platform, but not turning into conversions, it does not necessarily mean that your marketing strategy is subpar.

There are a number of reasons this may be happening, such as:

• You may be allocating a large portion of your budget on poorly performing channels that are targeting the wrong audience.

• You may also have a design or copy that may not be the most appropriate tool to attract your target audience, or they may not be sync.
• It’s also likely that your target audience is mostly using mobile phones and your website is not mobile responsive, which is why you are losing them. Implementing mobile-friendly designs with interesting content will increase the likelihood that they will stay and learn more about your business, services and/or products.

How Do I Get More Conversions?

To solve this problem, you should create content that addresses the exact issue that you are facing.

Create Effective Landing Pages

Ineffective landing pages will lead to low conversion. A poor landing page will turn away even the most interested in buyers. When designing a landing page, make sure that your interface is user-friendly, simple, fast, and has relevant content. Online users don’t have a long attention span, so you want to make sure that you get your message, product or service across to them as quickly as possible.

Two-way Communication

Open the lines of communication to get people to notice your brand and your business. Having a great, well-established brand, or a fully optimized website is not enough. If you are not engaging with your audience, that may make them want to look for a different company. 

Listening and reading the feedback that you get from customers will give your valuable market insights, which you can implement in order to enhance their experiences. Customers enjoy engaging with the brands they love, and it’s been proven that brands who are actively communicating and engaging with their followers and customers via social media or their website have a higher recall value.

As technology continues to evolve, the marketplace has become more digital. Consumers are increasingly researching and buying all of their products online, therefore, it is crucial that all of the marketing efforts put into traditional methods of marketing are equivalent to those put into digital marketing. With the right tools and effective implementation, businesses can increase their customer base and conversion in a few short months.