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Digital Marketing

Why is digital marketing so important?

“The true importance of marketing in the digital space is often understated. Digital marketing is not just about brand building or having an online presence but about increasing leads and sales. Its importance lies in the ability of businesses to reach a broad audience at a minimal cost. ”

Digital marketing is one of the most crucial components of any marketing plan. It is much more than banner ads and pop ups. Digital marketing gives businesses the opportunity to connect with their target audience at the right place and the right time.

Digital marketing enables businesses to reach and interact with their target audience at every stage of the customer journey . The customer journey will typically include the following stages: awareness, consideration, and conversion. Each stage requires a different approach to digital marketing in order to guide your customer through this process.

For example, at the awareness stage, businesses can use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising to reach customers searching for their products or services. With PPC, businesses can target specific keywords and demographics and serve ads to their most likely customers.

At the consideration stage, businesses can use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to improve website visibility in organic search by using specific keywords and phrases in their content, images, blogs, landing pages, or videos. This improves the likelihood of customers finding your business in search results when searching for something related to your products or services.

Finally, at the conversion stage, businesses can use social media to build relationships with potential customers and encourage them to make a purchase. Social media allows businesses to engage with their customers, share useful content, and respond to customer questions or feedback.

Digital marketing allows businesses to connect with their customers in a more interactive way compared to traditional. By using techniques like PPC, SEO, and social media, businesses can increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, and ultimately generate leads and sales.

PPC

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising is a form of digital advertising in which businesses pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. This can include search and display advertising or social media advertising. A lot of businesses run PPC campaigns because it is one of the most cost-effective ways to drive traffic to a website and can be used to target specific demographics.

One of the most popular forms of PPC is search engine advertising. This includes paid search ads on platforms like Google and Bing. These ads are shown at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) when someone searches for a specific thing. The nice thing about PPC is that you only pay for what is being clicked on so you’re only spending on those interested in your products.

Below are a few more examples of why PPC is so important:

  • Quick results: PPC campaigns can be set up quickly and you could potentially start generating leads and sales almost immediately.
  • Targeted audience: PPC allows you to target specific demographics including, interests, behaviors, age, etc ensuring that your ads are reaching the right people.
  • Measurable results: PPC campaigns provide measurable results in real-time, allowing you to track the success of each campaign.
  • Cost-effective: PPC can be more cost-effective than other forms of advertising, such as billboards, radio, television, print and other traditional marketing tactics.
  • Flexibility: PPC campaigns can be easily modified and updated, allowing you to make changes in real-time based on the campaign’s performance.
  • Brand visibility: PPC can increase your brand visibility and awareness, which can help you establish a strong online presence and build trust with your customers.
  • High ROI: PPC can generate a high return on investment (ROI) when done correctly, making it a valuable component of any digital marketing strategy.

Google Ads is used among most businesses today. Most of your audience already uses it for searches and the rate of people clicking anything on Google is much higher than other search engines with 63% versus Amazon 15%, YouTube 9%, and Bing 6%. Google also has a variety of budget friendly options, and offers a wide range of free tutorials, even if you have no experience with PPC advertising.

Overall PPC is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience and drive traffic to your website. By targeting the right audience, creating engaging ad copy and design, and monitoring your ROI will improve your business's performance. Ad copy should be clear, concise, and include a call to action, and ad design should be visually appealing.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can improve the ranking of your website on SERPs by using relevant keywords and phrases related to your business. Generally, SEO can take some time before you’re seeing any results but it is important to stay the course for several reasons:

  • Organic reach: SEO helps to improve the visibility of your website in organic search results, which means that it can increase the number of visitors to your site without the need for paid advertising.
  • Cost-effective: SEO is a cost-effective way to increase website traffic, as it does not require any ongoing payments or fees like paid advertising does.
  • Improve user experience: SEO can also help to improve the user experience of those who are on your website by making it easier to navigate and more relevant to the user's search query.
  • Build trust and credibility: A higher ranking in the search results builds trust and credibility with your customers, as they are more likely to view websites that appear at the top of the search results as being more authoritative and relevant.
  • Long-term results: SEO efforts can have a long-term impact on your website's visibility and traffic, as long as the website continues to be optimized and updated regularly.
  • Increase brand awareness: SEO can increase brand awareness by making it easier for customers to find your website when searching for products related to your business.
  • Stay competitive: SEO is a vital part of any digital marketing strategy and can help you stay competitive by outranking your competitors in search results.

The most effective SEO strategies are usually split up into two groups: on-page SEO and off-page SEO:

On-page SEO

On-page SEO includes optimizing all content that is on the internet that you have control of. It can help improve your overall website visibility making it more accessible to your audience and search engines. Below are just a few examples of on-page SEO:

  • Optimizing the title tags, meta descriptions and header tags
  • Use of keywords in the content, images and videos
  • Optimizing the website's URLs and internal linking structure
  • Ensuring that the website is mobile-friendly and loads fast
  • Creating a sitemap and submitting it to search engines
  • Creating high-quality and unique content
  • Utilizing schema markup
  • Using alt tags for images

Off-page SEO refers to any optimizations that are outside of your control or website to improve search rankings. This includes all activities outside of your website to increase the visibility, authority, and trust. Below are some examples of what some off-page SEO tasks include:

  • Building backlinks from other relevant and authoritative websites. This can be done by guest blogging, broken link building, and link reclamation.
  • Social media marketing: using social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube to promote your website and build brand awareness.
  • Influencer marketing: working with influencers or thought leaders in your industry to create content and promote your website.
  • Brand mentions and citations: getting your website mentioned or cited in other relevant websites, blogs, or online publications.
  • Guest blogging: creating valuable and engaging content for other websites in your industry, with links back to your own website.
  • Online reviews: Encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews on popular review websites like Google or Yelp.
  • Social bookmarks: sharing your website's link on social bookmarking websites like Diggor Reddit.
  • Forum and community building: participating in online forums and communities related to your industry with links to your website in your forum signature.

While some is outside of your control, off-site SEO is important and carries more than 50% of your ranking factor weight. The ever changing environment can seem daunting at times but your competitors are in the same boat as you.

Social media marketing

Social Media Marketing leverages social media platforms, such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest, to promote a product or service. Social media can be used to build brand awareness, engage with customers, and drive website traffic. It also provides valuable insights into your audience and has the ability to target specific demographics.

One of the first steps in creating a social media strategy is to determine which platforms your target audience is using. Different platforms have different demographics and user behaviors, so it's important to choose the platforms that will be most effective for reaching new customers. The process of knowing your audience to effectively market to them on social media includes:

  • Setting marketing goals and objectives
  • Identifying target audience
  • Creating a content calendar
  • Creating and sharing valuable and engaging content
  • Interacting and building relationships with followers
  • Measuring and analyzing the performance of campaigns

Engagement is a term used a lot when discussing social media marketing which refers to interactions that you have with your followers on social media platforms. This can include likes, comments, or shares. Engagement is important because it helps build relationships with your customers and increase brand awareness. Another huge part of engagement is responding to comments and messages in a timely manner, which helps build trust and authenticity.

You can track the performance of your social media campaigns through the platform itself or you can pay for a more in depth view of your social media metrics through Hootsuite or Sprout Social. This is all depending on your goals. Knowing website traffic, engagement rates, and conversion rates can help you make better decisions in the long run.

Social media marketing is constantly evolving but a very powerful tool to engage with your customers. It’s important to stay current with the latest trends and best practices for each platform you participate in to stay ahead of the competition.

What next?

Digital marketing is a crucial aspect of any marketing plan and the customer experience. It enables companies to reach a broad audience with targeted and personalized messaging at a low cost, making it a game-changer. Continue to familiarize yourself with PPC, SEO and social media marketing and you reap the benefits.

If you need help, look no further than Scorpion. We have 20+ years experience putting together and operating marketing plans for small businesses. We will build you a great website, create a custom tailored advertising plan, create award winning content, and even help you with your video creation. We are a partner to take care of your marketing so you can run your best business.