Digital Marketing is like any platform or interface, it can seem complex and overwhelming at first. The more you use it, the more familiar it becomes and the more successfully it can be leveraged to achieve key business objectives.
After over 20 years in marketing for a variety of companies, large and small, and teaching marketing and presentation skills, I’ve developed and employed a simple approach to digital marketing that has netted solid results. If you are just entering into a new role in the marketing space, and you’ll be responsible for your brand presence in the digital space, or you are curious to learn more about digital marketing, in this blog I share the approach that helped me and my teams be successful in connecting customers and driving revenue and brand engagement.
Content bank: Investing where it counts
Original content takes time, creativity, and research to produce. It is very much like gold in your marketing bank account. When you make a meaningful deposit of quality content, it can be multiplied and tailored to your audience and platform. One piece of content can become 10 uniquely delivered consumer interactions that can live throughout a campaign or product lifecycle. As consumers respond to the content and interact with it, your content deposit continues to grow. Make your content work even harder for you when tailoring your content to your market segments based on their specific needs, language, and timing. If you aren’t sure about what your customers need and know, it’s best to study all existing data from your current content. Then survey your audience to fill in data gaps with polls, surveys, and competitor analysis.
Keep your content invested well by developing a keyword list that relates to your brand, products, and solutions you provide. Pepper these words and phrases into your content to support your SEO. Leverage back linking and a variety of integrated media for the best web rankings. Give your users multiple ways to access similar content based on their preferences.
Gated Content: Giving it away for free (almost)
Most consumers understand that the best content may be gated, requiring some amount of giving to get from the user. Content that is of high value should be used to gather visitor contact information and a prompt follow-up based on the information provided.
Forms are fabulous when they are simple- We’ve all become more accustomed to completing web forms and completion rates remain high provided the fields can be completed relatively quickly. It's best to be patient, not greedy with consumer forms. While timely follow-up builds relationships and trust, asking too many questions too early in the sales process increases your abandonment rates.
A lead to close process: Align with your sales team
The right content strategy is going to drive potential leads to your platforms. All forms and interactions are key conversion steps in the lead collection and close process. Your sales team is often much closer to the daily challenges and expectations of customers. Interview your sales team to determine the education and interaction needed at each step of the purchase decision process to drive customer and new business acquisition. Marketing teams are internal service providers to the sales team. Arm your team with the marketing tools and sales materials they need to effectively communicate with customers and close deals at each stage of the process. If any part of their communication can be predictable and, therefore automated for efficiency, should be designed and incorporated into the processes. Some examples might include account updates, related content recommendations following a gated content download, shipping, billing, review requests, and referrals.
Analysis and Testing
If I could start my career again, I would still become a marketer, simply because the data we are able to generate across marketing touchpoints validates the work we do. Very early in my career, impressions were more difficult to track and determine ROI. Further, A/B testing can provide nearly instantaneous results to hone campaigns, messaging, and Calls to Action. Access to so much data in real time is an incredible gift that informs marketing campaigns.
Gather and report metrics consistently – teams are most successful when they know their numbers. I recommend analyzing all your data sources based on each specific marketing initiative, as well as by week, month, quarter, and annually. Make special notes of key industry factors and events that may impact traffic and response rates at a given time.
Isolate variables when testing – it is possible when trying to gather many insights that variables can become diluted. Keep things simple and test by comparing only one or two elements at a time. This is also true with forms, surveys, and feedback. We often want to embrace a learning opportunity that can overburden our users. For the best response rates, keep surveys to only a few questions that relate to what you hope to learn, especially for the study.
When a plan includes working on each of these key elements, digital marketing campaigns have greater success. From unique content to an engaged sales team to marketing automation and analysis, each element of your digital marketing builds upon the other. There are many moving parts, and it takes great care and focuses. However, the data will quickly show you that digital marketing is well worth doing. Build your strategy slowly, simply, in coordination with sales and with a data-driven approach, and your efforts will grow your brand.
How do these strategic points align with your perception of impactful digital marketing? What digital approaches have you found interesting? Share your comments.
See this strategy in action on my website's past projects.