DIGITAL MARKETING

One of the reasons why digital marketing is taking over traditional marketing channels is the ability of Internet marketing tools to interact with targeted audiences in real time. Interacting and providing your customers with proper engagement points can give you an insight of what your targeted audiences want.

WHAT IS DIGITAL MARKETING?

Digital marketing is the promotion of products or brands via one or more forms of electronic media and differs from traditional marketing in that it involves media channels e.g. Facebook, tweeter, LinkedIn etc. This method enables an organization to analyse marketing campaigns and understand what is working and what does not work in typical real time. It monitors things like what is being viewed, how often and how long, sales conversions, what content works and doesn’t work etc. Internet is the channel most closely associated with digital marketing, other include wireless text messaging, mobile instant messaging, mobile apps, podcasts, electronic billboards, digital television and radio channels. 

Importance of digital marketing skills will enable one to use electronic media to let consumers have access to information any time and any place. Gone are the days when the messages people got about your products or services came from you and consisted of only what you wanted them to know. Digital media is an ever-growing source of entertainment, news, shopping and social interaction, and consumers are now exposed not just to what your company says about your brand, but what the media, friends, relatives, peers, etc. are saying as well and they are more likely to believe them than you this time. People want brands they can trust, companies that know them, communications that are personalized and relevant, and offers tailored to their needs and preferences.

Digital marketing and Value Proposition.

A value proposition is a business or marketing statement that one has to use toward summarizing why audience should buy your product or use your service. This statement convinces a potential consumer that one particular product or service add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings. You will need this statement to reach the targeted audience who will benefit most from using the company's products, and this helps maintain will an economic moat.

Breaking down 'Value Proposition' to fit Digital marketing Platforms 

This is a promise you will be giving to your audience or prospects. It is an easy-to-understand reason why they should purchase your product or service. Your value proposition should be a clear statement that explains how your product solves an agony, communicates the specifics of its added benefit, and states the reason why it's better than similar products on the market. The ideal value proposition is concise, and it appeals to audience strongest decision-making drivers.

Creating a Successful Value Proposition for Digital marketing Platforms

A company's value proposition communicates the number one reason why a product or service is best suited for your audience. Therefore, it should always be displayed prominently on a company's social medias and in other user touch points. It also must be intuitive, so that audience can read or hear the value proposition and understand the delivered value without further explanation.

A successful value proposition has a bold headline that communicates the delivered benefit to the audience. The headline should be a single memorable sentence, phrase or even a tagline. A sub-headline is often displayed below the main headline, expanding on the explanation of delivered value and providing a specific example of why the product or service is valuable. The sub-heading can be a short paragraph between two and three sentences, with bullet points below the sub-heading to list the key features or benefits of the product. This allows audience to scan your message quickly and pick up on the product features. Added visuals increase the ease of communication between business and consumer.

Value propositions can follow different formats, as long as they are unique to the company and to the audience it is servicing. However, all effective value propositions are easy to understand and demonstrate specific results from audience using a product or service. They differentiate a product or service from any competition; avoid overused marketing buzzwords; and communicate value in less writings.

USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A STRATEGY

I believe the best strategy plan when it comes to strategic plans are tools-agnostic, and set forth objectives and metrics that supersede any particular social venue. When you are working on digital media strategy for major companies, the plan and the deliverable is quite a bit more comprehensive, but it is based on this scaffolding and thought process.

The following steps should guide you through your plan:

1.      Build an ark- This can happen by creating a functional team to help conceive and operate the rest of the strategy.

2.      Listen and Compare-It’s an old social media strategy but listening and comparing is still a good advice that is more often ignored. This will enable you to gate guidance from your customer and competitors on how you should be active in social media, if you broaden your social listening beyond your brand name it will be easy for you to run your social Medias successfully.

3.      What’s the Point?- You can use social media to accomplish several business objectives but the best social media strategies are those that focus more narrow rationale for social. Ask yourself do you need to primarily use social media? Then which social media do you what to use e.g. Facebook, tweeter, Instagram or LinkedIn. What for? Create awareness of your brand and sale. Is it for you to get loyalty and retention of your customers? This can happen by answering their questions through social media. Then Pick the media you what to use and stick to your objectives

4.      Select Success Metrics- This will help you to determine actually if you are making difference in your business through the digital marketing or not. If you are not making any difference what are your key measures should you use to evaluate social media strategy effectiveness. Evaluations will enable you transcend against all odds and engage your addressees. 

5.      Analyse Your Audiences-Know whom will you be interacting with on social media platform’s. This can be done by knowing the demographic and psycho-graphic characteristics of your present or prospective customers. This empowers you to get to new leads that can lead to success of your business.

6.      What’s Your One Thing? - It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you sell, your product features and benefits aren’t enough to create a passion-worthy stir. How your organization appeal to the heart of your audience, is what is important. Disney isn’t about movies, it’s about magic. Apple isn’t about technology, it’s about innovation. What are you about identify what makes you unique?

7.      Create a Channel Plan- Always choose the write channel to use in your digital marketing. Only after you know why you’re active in social media and how you’ll measure social media strategy success should you turn your attention to the “how” of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn and the rest. This channel plan should be distinct, in that you have a specific, defensible reason for participating in each.

Networking goes hand in hand with running a successful business. But many of us dread walking into a room and introducing ourselves to a bunch of strangers. Social media has changed everything if you can get your messaging well you can reach many people without any fear.

CHOOSING THE BEST PLATFORMS TO USE FOR THE BUSINESS

Social media is a really valuable tool to expand your knowledge, learn from your audience with a good value proposition you can reach many audiences hiding behind their gargets. I highly recommend a use of social media as a way to brand a business and to build a sustainable business.

You should put this in mind:

1.      Any platform can have a great effect so long as you speak to your audience’s language.

2.      Know what your audience really wants and give it to them (a deal, useful information, their voice to be heard)

3.      Tell touching, powerful stories to connect socially with your audience

4.      Employ high quality visual content always

5.      Always remember that quality is better than quantity, if you can offer both then GREAT

The following are the best platform to use:

        i. Facebook- Facebook has managed to gather a wide following with more than a billion active users. It revolutionized how people socialized and made the internet the new way friends and family can connect and express their feelings through posting text, images, and videos. Users have become too attached to Facebook and with the advancement in the mobile phone technology, more and more people are accessing this platform using their phones and this is what make Facebook the best.

      ii. Twitter-Availability of good analytics and management system from twitter has integrated systems for managing the social shares and all the other data you will need to estimate the reach eventually. Also there are other analytic systems available for tracking the same. It is also simplicity and short enables you create short description of your product. With 140 character limited twitter can work very well if you write it catchy.

         iii. LinkedIn- LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network with more than 562 million users in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide and the number is increasing. But marketing is not only about numbers game -- it's about reaching the people that matter most to your business and this is what LinkedIn is offering. Marketing is focusing on the people who have already shown interest in your products and services. Luckily, LinkedIn makes it easy to identify your audience and determine which audience segments are engaging with your various types of content.

KEY METRICS FOR DIGITAL MARKETING

In the digital marketing age, not only are measurable metrics and other analytical data are possible and available in real-time, the need to measure these data is paramount as evidence to success. In a constantly and rapidly changing business landscape, the need to measure digital marketing success as efficiently as possible has increased in importance more than ever before. Every digital marketing tool available has some means of measuring success made available through the various metrics business owners can obtain.

The metrics are:

1.      Traffic Metrics

These metrics are primarily measured and monitoring during the traffic generation stage and are very important for both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) digital marketing techniques.

The traffic metrics includes:

i)       Overall Site Traffic -Significant changes in how traffic flows to your site can give you an insight on how effective a particular digital marketing technique initiated is effective or not. When measuring site traffic, don’t just focus or rely on page views or the number of hits your website gets but also on how many unique visitors your website get per week or per month. The more unique visitors your website receives, the greater the chances of getting potential customers.

ii)      Traffic Sources- Knowing where your site traffic is coming from and what particular sets of keywords brought them there can give you an insight as to what keywords or keyword phrases you should focus more on your digital marketing campaigns. Search engines still proved to be the primary source of website traffic according to various studies, but you can also leverage on other traffic sources that may prove beneficial for your business. 

iii)    Mobile Traffic- Mobile internet is proving to be a strong digital marketing arena as more and more people across the globe access the internet through their smartphones and other internet-capable mobile devices. This deserves much more attention from digital marketers as these can open new doors for greater and more diverse revenue sources. This metric can also provide and insight on how business you can effectively structure and plan their content – resulting in better engagement with both mobile and non-mobile website visitors.

2.      Conversion Metrics

Digital Marketing converting website traffic into business leads or outright sales is the primary purpose for your digital marketing campaign. This goal should be at the core of your digital marketing efforts, with the following providing insights as to what particular metrics are important during conversion.

Conversion Metrics Includes:

    i. Conversion Rate (CVR) -Measuring how many website visitors actually gets converted into leads or sales is a valuable and tangible metric that defines your digital marketing success. Whether your goal is to gather valuable information about your website visitors and potential customers, or convert site visits into sales, monitoring your Conversion Rates can give you a great insight as to what particular aspects in your digital marketing campaign will deliver the best results.

     ii. Cost Per Lead (CPL) -The success of a digital marketing campaign depends on how well your website and content convert website traffic into leads or paying customers at minimal possible costs. Cost Per Lead (CPL) is a metric that defines the lead conversion ratio of a particular campaign and corresponding cost, giving insights to the business owner or marketer on how profitable their campaign is or not.

      iii. Average Page Views per Visit-Driving good traffic to your website is one of the most important and foremost components in your digital marketing campaign, and how well you can entice them to stay longer on your web pages and digest your content. The more page views generated from each visit the more chances for engagement with website visitors, eventually influencing them to get converted into leads or paying customers.

       iv. Average Cost per Page View- The amount of investment poured into a paid digital marketing channel like pay per click (PPC) can be controlled by knowing the average cost per page view and the amount of revenue you can generate from a particular page. Your cost per page view should be significantly lower than the revenue you can generate from the page in order to gain profit from your campaigns.

3.     Revenue Metrics

Ultimately, the success of your digital marketing campaign can be measured properly by revenue metrics. These will tell you if a particular campaign is profitable or not so you can make adjustments on how you can improve your content for better engagement, higher conversion and bigger revenues.

The revenue metrics include:

    i. Return on Investment (ROI) -The Return on Investment (ROI) can be aptly measured by website traffic that are eventually converted into new paying customers. This metric will also help you identify which area in your digital marketing campaign is driving sales and revenue, and which areas should be given more room for improvement.

    ii. Cost to Acquire a Customer (CAC)-ROI is measured by the number of new paying customers for a given time period. The cost for acquiring these new customers on the other hand is defined by getting the total of your marketing and advertising costs for a particular time period divided by how many new paying customers were generated during that same period.

Social Media Sites to Consider for Your Brand

Using Facebook?

Despite all of the controversy surrounding Facebook, marketers are not leaving the platform. In fact, the number of US marketers using Facebook for marketing purposes increased slightly this year to 86.3%, according to eMarketer forecasts. We expect a similar number of marketers will continue to use Facebook next year.

Using LinkedIn

It’s where most Fortune decision-makers and executives like to spend their spare time.

The best part?

More often than not, they’re actually scrolling through actively looking for valuable content to read. There isn’t the same barrier you need to break down like on other social platforms like Facebook. They’re not there to find Buzzfeed quizzes, wedding photos, or memes. They’re looking for content that can change the way they do business, which is most definitely music to the ears of a B2B marketer.

Still, if you haven’t dug into LinkedIn yet, the time you need to commit could be frightening. Not to mention you need to know how to cut through the noise if you want to make it all worth it.