What I can do for you as your digital marketer.

Online marketing community MarTech describes digital marketing like this:

 “Far beyond the simple ability to use social media, digital marketing requires understanding of consumer habits and motivations, the ability to synthesize  analytics, and communicating effectively with clients.”

One main part of this quote that really sticks out to me is that very first line, “Far beyond the simple ability to use social media…”. I really do think there are a lot of people out there that, when I tell them that I am in the field of digital marketing, immediately assume that means I deal with the social media accounts of a company and maybe its website.

I want to put an end to this.

While the chance of informing every single person on this planet that digital marketing doesn’t just means social media managing is a bit unrealistic, I can definitely take steps to help inform those around me. Thus, this blog about all of the amazing things I can do for you as a digital marketer—more so than just keeping your Twitter up to date.

Within the last couple of months, I have been writing about subjects like A/B Testing, Coding, Search Engine Optimization, Inbound Marketing, Paid Social Media, VR, and so much more. I’ve taken courses on a couple of these different subjects and even gotten certified in some of the online analytics platforms I wrote about (yay HubSpot Academy and Google!). Here is a general outline of the main things I’ve learned from all of this, and why I think it’s important for you to know what I am capable of:

“It depends”, always. Marketers and psychologists alike have been using this phrase for a long time. In both my marketing/branding and consumer/buyer behavior classes that I’ve taken in college thus far, the phrase was used at least once every lecture. Because the marketing world has gone from a product-centered world to a consumer-centered one, marketers must rely heavily on consumer’s behaviors and ways of making decisions, and as well all know very well, the human race is quite indecisive. What may be a great marketing tactic for one company might not work very well for another, simply because consumers react differently to each product. Thus, asking if a certain tactic will either work or not for your company is a rather narrow-minded question to ask. Instead, questions like “What does the consumer want?”, “How would I apply this tactic to my brand specifically?”, and “If I change this aspect of the technique, will it change the consumers ultimate decision to convert or not, in the end?” are a much better approach.

In some ways, “It depends” is the basis of all marketing techniques. In A/B Testing, we are essentially testing what version of a website or website page a consumer will like better. Though we are not necessarily asking why they like it better (most business owners just want what works and they don’t really have time to worry about the reasons why), we are accepting the idea that consumers will like one page versus another depending on certain aspects of the page. The goal is to take the aspects that the consumer does like and compile them into one, making that your official page that consumers see.

We also see this phrase a lot in Native Advertising. While there are a lot of unwritten rules out there about disguising your advertisement as something else (cloaking is bad!), Native Advertising “walks the line” in terms of being too much within its surrounding content that you don’t realize it’s an ad and being a part of the ad just enough that its not annoying but you can still tell its not just the regular content from the site. In the end, there are marketers who, if you ask if they think Native Advertising is a good tactic or a bad one, will respond, simply, with “It depends”.

Its not just about having the certification—its about knowing how to use it. Many people take the Google Analytics Certification Exam or HootSuite Academy Certification Exam, or some other sort of online certification exam, and many pass them. However, there has been a lot of controversy with the fact that some of these answers are found online.

While one could go and Google all of the answers while taking the exam, its pretty obvious that this isn’t going to help them in the end. Imagine someone having the certification on their resume, and then being hired because they claim to know how to use that platform. What if that person didn’t actually know how to use it, or had forgotten it all? Chances are the potential employer is not going to be impressed.

When getting certified, its important for someone to actually their time to learn all about the platform. Knowing one platform can surprisingly help when dealing with another, because once someone has the basics down, its easy to add in other factors (for instance, knowing how Google Adwords works may be helpful in taking the Facebook Ads Exam, simply because the platforms are both doing similar things in similar ways). As it has been said so many times before, “don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk”.

Coding Matters. To my surprise, once I wrote my article about the basics of HTML and CSS, I was stumbling upon instances left and right where knowing how to code would be incredibly beneficial. In both mobile and email marketing, I noticed that both required a basic amount of code in order to do them successfully. For instance, creating a great email with not just words, but actual visual content as well, requires some basic forms of code. Want to have a landing page that looks fitted not only on a desktop screen, but on a mobile one as well? Use codes to create an Accelerated Mobile Page (or AMP) for the most efficient and fluent experience possible for your mobile user.

Content is king and conversion is key. Using great, relatable content is something ever user will appreciate. If not, they will leave your page and you instantly lose out on a possible conversion. Using relevant keywords of all sorts is an important part of PPC and Paid Social—without them, your website is most likely going to end up on page 564 of the organic search results, because there are that many websites also competing with you (who haven’t paid for their ad to show up on the side of someone’s search results). Use interesting and related keywords and bid on that ad space so you can meet your potential leads and customers where they’re looking for an answer.

Speaking of keywords, something interesting that I noticed while writing these blog posts was that there were a couple of posts that really took off and actually got quite the views. For instance, my blog on Paid Social Media—as of today, December 7th—ended up with a whopping 202 views, 57 likes, 1 comment, and 11 shares, and I’m not even sure I have 202 connections on LinkedIn yet!

I was shocked when I logged on the next morning after posting the blog and already saw the first 20 likes I had gotten overnight. I was completely new to blogging and LinkedIn, yet my post notifications were going insane!

So what caused all of this ruckus? My best guess is my use of keywords. Many people who I am connected with are in the marketing world, so using key words and phrases like “Paid Social Media”, “Digital Markers”, and “use paid social successfully”, as well as linking quality articles and major businesses to my blog really got my blog the attention I never realized it deserved, both from my circles, as well as random marketing people from around the world. How awesome!

While normally I’d love to give people a shout-out (though I don’t really think my blog is that famous yet), I am not entirely sure about mentioning actual names of those wonderful people who viewed, liked, commented on, and shared my blog…especially since there's a very good chance that they'll read this one as well (fingers crossed). Consider this your group shout-out, friends!

While my articles may not be the most exciting platforms in the world to learn more about digital marketing on, I hope that you have found them beneficial in some way or another. They may not be as cool as this infographic that better explains what exactly a digital marketer is, but a lot of my blogs discuss the topics listed on it. And that counts for something, right?

Because it is the holidays, I have unfortunately decided to take a break from my marketing blogs. However, this does not mean that they will stop! I’m hoping to continue my research so I can help better my skill set by finding new and relevant information on the DigiMark world and sharing it with all of you. So, for those of you who have enjoyed these blogs so far—stay tuned! Your relevant content on digital marketing will return shortly, after the holiday break.

Also, be sure to check out this great Happy Holidays everyone!

Cheers,

Aubrey McNeil