Marketing Digital Transformation
Mohamed Ramadan
Corporate Image & Marketing Manager at ProService ?Digital Workplace & IntraNet Builder ?ISO Registrar ?Quality Management ?ISO 9001:2015 ?Internal Audit ISO19011 ?Digital Marketing ?Newsletter Author ?Open for Business
A digital transformation in marketing refers to the shift from digital complacency to the active pursuit of digital excellence through the proper usage & optimization of your digital channels
What a Digital Transformation might look like for your Marketing?
????Refining Your Digital Channels
The first step in a digital transformation is to assess the value of your current marketing tools and channels. Take a close look at your website, social media, automation tools, analytics platforms, & customer database.
A thorough review of these tools & channels will ensure that you’re adequately armed to drive your company to success.
????Breaking the Silos
In addition to optimizing your digital channels, you need to make sure all of these systems are talking to each other & working together.
When your digital tools are operating in a siloed fashion, you’re missing out on the bigger picture. Logging in and out of five different accounts to track a customer’s journey is not an efficient or sustainable way to operate.
A customer data platform (CDP) can act as the connective tissue that joins these platforms together, providing you with a holistic view of your entire customer base.
??? Optimizing the Customer Journey
The advanced insights you’ll obtain from improved channel integrations will assist you in pivoting your strategy for success.
Equipped with a holistic view of your marketing funnel, you can easily identify weak spots & opportunities for improvement.
You’ll also be able to provide a more personalized, relevant experience for leads and customers alike.
What is the role of Marketing in Digital Transformation?
The most often-cited reason for digital transformation; is to transform the experience into something that customers expect and will enjoy & keep the competition from getting there first.
How to start your digital marketing transformation?
As a marketer or business owner, taking advantage of digital marketing is key to success. The barriers to entry into the marketplace are minimized when compared to traditional forms of marketing.
Not sure where to start to improve your website or social media?
Here are 10 quick and effective ways that you can jump-start your digital marketing transformation:
1. Research competitors and differentiate yourself
Competitor research is important because as a local business, you’ll want to be able to offer additional value in the market. Google Search is a great place to start. You can see how your competitors are positioning themselves within their ads.
Now, you must be thinking, how could I differentiate myself from all the other competitors who more or less provide a similar service???
“If you have no differentiator (and many startups don’t), invent one”:
2. Get your website basics right
Online users are becoming increasingly demanding in terms of the experience they expect from a website. They want a fast-loading website as a minimum requirement.
As a local business, you may not have the budget of the bigger, national, or international firms, but you can at the very least get the basics right.
Website Basics Every Site Needs:
A web content management system (WCMS) is a type of content management system (CMS) that provides an organization with a way to manage digital information on a website through creating and maintaining content without prior knowledge of web programming or markup languages.
Every website uses a domain name (e.g., www.yourbusiness.com). You can get a domain name from a domain name registrar. Costs for domains vary by type (.com, .org, .store, and so on).
In addition to a domain name and CMS, every site also requires web hosting in order to be available live on the web as a website basic.?
No matter which CMS you choose, selecting a high-quality template or theme that comes with the design and functionality you want your site to have is part of your website checklist. It’s a much better starting point for your website, so you’ll be able to build your website in less time. Where you get your template or theme from depends on which CMS you choose to use.
Business website basics extend to key assets that give your site its brand identity. Gather assets such as your logo, a favicon image (or site icon), color scheme, fonts, and the slogan or tagline you want to use on your site.
Quality images and videos make a difference—so much so that poor-quality graphics are one of the fastest ways to make your site look unprofessional. However, professional photography can be expensive. Resist the temptation to use low-quality photos or graphics, and use professional stock photos and graphics instead.
To make informed decisions on your website, you need access to site traffic data, reports, and analytics. Tools like Google Analytics give you insight into how many people visit your site, which pages they visit, how long they spend on your site, how they found your site, and more. This shows how effective your marketing campaigns are, what keywords your site ranks for, and provides ways to strategically optimize and promote your site.
It’s no easy feat to get found in engines, including Google. one way to improve your site’s ability to rank higher in search is by using an SEO plugin. With the help of a SEO plugin, you can edit your page and post snippets, add meta tags, get SEO suggestions for improvements (e.g., using your keywords in your content or permalinks, or adding alt-tags to images), and see your page’s SEO rating.
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You might not know this, but website statistics show that nearly half of all site visitors will exit a site if it doesn’t display the company’s contact information. In other words, missing website basics like failing to display your information is a fast way to make your business appear untrustworthy. At the least, display your business’ name and address and give site visitors a way to contact you, such as via email or phone. As part of your website checklist, you may want to include some or all of this information: Business name and mailing address, Physical address (especially if customers visit your location), A toll-free, vanity, or local phone number Hours of operation / Contact email address or web form, e.g., “Contact us by email”
You know your business and staff will need email, but you might be wondering why you need a generic professional email address as part of your website checklist. The answer is simple: to display it as part of your site’s contact information. When displaying your email address on your website, it’s best to create a generic email address such as “[email protected]” and set it up to automatically forward to an individual or department in your organization. This keeps individual email addresses protected from spam and enables continuity as it can easily be forwarded if the person responsible leaves your company.
Local service providers, from chiropractors to photographers, hairdressers, and yoga studios, should add an online appointment booking system to their website checklist. It turns a website into a 24/7 marketing and sales tool, able to accept bookings and reservations at any time with no need to have someone available to answer a call.
Lead magnets are simply an offer or incentive for site visitors to convert and become leads or customers. It’s a website basic for any business that wants its site to serve as a marketing tool. To create a lead magnet, think about your target audience and your unique selling proposition (USP). Identify an offer that is valuable to them, such as one that solves a problem they have or gives them something your competition can’t. Here are a few examples of lead magnets: Downloadables (e.g., e-book or checklist) / Free trial, sample, or demo / Free consultation / Feature-limited free version, such as for software /Instant discounts (e.g., sign up for our newsletter to get 30% off your order) / Lead magnets are just one way to leverage digital marketing to fill your sales pipeline.?
The next item on our website checklist is to add live chat functionality. This gives your site visitors direct access and immediate answers and enables you to engage with hot prospects in real-time. It’s especially beneficial for sales-forward businesses or those that provide a high level of customer support.
A sitemap is a directory of the web pages your site consists of.?
3. Improve Google My Business Listing and Customer Reviews
Your online reputation as a Marketer/business owner could be the deciding factor when a prospective customer is searching for your product/service. Luckily, with Google My Business, you have a level of control when it comes to managing how people perceive your business.?
4. Create interesting blog content
If you’re in a very competitive industry – and most local businesses are – you would need to think about a content strategy that will drive results. Working with smaller businesses, it’s often the case that it’s highly unlikely to rank on the first page of Google for a broad term related to their product/service. Write the perfect blog post?by: Putting the audience first, Making sure it’s SEO-friendly, Correct tone of voice & Showing readers they can trust you
5. Consider Google Ads
Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users. It can place ads both in the results of search engines like Google Search (the Google Search Network) and on non-search websites, mobile apps, and videos.
6. Create professional visual content
Content is "king" and content marketing is an industry in its own right. Your content will form an important part of your digital strategy.
Video is an area that is growing at an incredible rate
Big brands understand the power of video marketing and constantly create big-budget video campaigns
You might not have the big budget, but you can always partner up with a talented local video agency/freelancer to get your own video campaign started.
7. Improve your local SEO
Local SEO is important if you are primarily a local business. Google My Business is a major part of that.
Link building as always is equally important as Newspaper sites & Bloggers
8. Develop Email Marketing
Another digital strategy fundamental for your business is email marketing.
The use of email within your marketing efforts to promote a business’s products and services, as well as incentivize customer loyalty. Email marketing is a form of marketing that can make the customers on your email list aware of new products, discounts, and other services. It can also be a softer sell to educate your audience on the value of your brand or keep them engaged between purchases. It can also be anything in between.
Email marketing is a powerful marketing channel, a form of direct marketing as well as digital marketing, that uses email to promote your business’s products or services. It can help make your customers aware of your latest items or offers by integrating it into your marketing automation efforts. It can also play a pivotal role in your marketing strategy with lead generation, brand awareness, building relationships or keeping customers engaged between purchases through different types of marketing emails.
9. Focus on a primary social media channel
Social media marketing strategies are continuously changing along with constant platform updates.
Often small business owners ask, which platform should I focus on?
The answer is simple…
Focus on the social media platform most relevant to your business and where your customers are most active.
If the nature of your product/service offering is B2B then LinkedIn and/or Twitter are natural choices.
For B2C businesses, Facebook and/or Instagram might be better choices.
For B2B businesses, LinkedIn might be the better choice.
Whatever you decide, have a primary social media channel that you’ll focus on growing. As a small business owner, you probably won’t have the required resource to manage more than one channel effectively.
10. Partner with local influencers
This is definitely an area of digital marketing that is growing, and perhaps your business should consider it too.
Now, influencer marketing isn’t just for the fashion industry.
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In conclusion, these tips help Marketers as well as business owners to understand the Marketing Digital Transformation?
It is the urgency for transformation
Digital technology is reshaping almost every industry.
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