It’s no secret that you need to promote your business to get more customers, and it makes sense to market your products or services wherever your customers are. Modern consumers turn to the internet to find products and services in their areas, which means that digital marketing is the best way to reach your target customers. That said, there are many different techniques you can opt for, so learning how to do digital marketing properly is crucial for success.
At Fannit, our team of digital marketing experts specializes in SEO, PPC, social media marketing, and other techniques.
We have extensive experience creating and deploying digital strategies for a variety of industries, so we’re familiar with the variables that influence the performance of online campaigns.
In this article, we’ll go over the definition of digital marketing, the different techniques that make up this approach, and provide a step-by-step guide to getting started with online marketing.
By learning the basics of digital marketing, you’ll understand the different moving elements that can make up your different campaigns. Not only this, but learning about PPC or pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization (SEO), and all other forms of online promotion will allow you to build a better digital marketing team and significantly reduce your turnaround.
At Fannit, we’ve been helping companies bolster their digital marketing efforts through a variety of channels for more than a decade. As a full-service agency, we specialize in a range of online marketing tactics, so our team is familiar with the different elements to attract targeted audiences in various industries.
In this article, we’ll share everything you need to know about digital advertising and online marketing basics. This includes definitions of key terms you’ll need to consider while creating high-quality content and building different parts of your digital marketing campaign. Lastly, we’ll provide tips to help you stay tuned with the latest updates and relevant changes in the world of online marketing.
Understanding Digital Marketing Basics
Before we dive in, let’s make sure we have an understanding digital marketing is…
Also known as online, internet, or web marketing, this type of marketing focuses on promoting your solutions through internet-capable devices.
There are dozens of different digital marketing techniques you can opt for, but all of these are designed to target specific audiences who are using the internet at a certain stages within their journey to find a product or service you offer.
So, rather than using cookie-cutter strategies, companies need to understand how their prospective customers behave in order to choose the right messaging, in the right places, at the right time.
Check out our article on What Is Digital Marketing to learn more.
Common Digital Marketing Assets
As we mentioned before, there are many different digital marketing strategies you can implement to promote your products.
With this in mind, it’s important to understand that most of these channels rely on similar assets, which means that you can create a set of resources per campaign and adjust these depending on where they will be placed.
Here are some of the most common digital assets that you can use to promote your product or service:
- Design Assets such as icons, color schemes, product logos
- Blog posts
- Videos
- Product demos
- Ebooks
- Infographics
- Digital utilities like business calculators
- Product images
- Company photos
And of course, your website plays a double role, functioning as both an asset and a promotion channel in its own right.
Digital Marketing Types & Channels
There are many channels out there that allow your company to develop successful digital marketing campaigns.
Additionally, many of these are fully compatible and actually compliment each other, so a healthy digital marketing strategy should include a combination of tactics.
While there are many digital marketing strategies available already, new web platforms are constantly being developed.
A lot of these are industry niched. So stay tuned to the latest developments in the world of online promotion to increase your awareness of opportunities for your business’s market.
So, which are the best digital marketing tactics? That’s going to primarily depend on your industry and audience.
Just a few decades ago, video marketing in the form of television ads was the ultimate form of advertising. Today, consumers turn to the internet to find new products and services. Which makes online channels the best way to reach your audiences.
There are so many different digital marketing components that simply creating the right mix can be a challenging, time-consuming process.
This is why it’s necessary to have knowledge beyond digital marketing basics and leverage this profound understanding in the creation of your marketing strategy.
Note that there is no perfect formula to help you find the ideal marketing mix. Your digital marketing strategy should be tailored to your business’s specific needs. So, before choosing the digital channels you’ll use to drive website visitors, take the time to research your business and customer.
Only then will you be able to ensure a great experience from the moment your prospects’ online experiences begin to after they become customers.
It’s important to understand that the term “digital marketing” encompasses a wide range of techniques.
Each digital marketing tactic offers unique benefits, but you also need to create a plan for each one and make sure that it aligns with your main strategy.
Additionally, your target audience will probably employ smartphones and other mobile devices to conduct their searches.
Users behave differently on these devices, so you need to implement a separate mobile marketing strategy designed specifically for these individuals.
If you’re not sure what marketing channels to choose or where to start, you can work with a digital marketing services expert like FANNIT to hit the ground running.
All businesses are different, so you need to keep your goals and resources in mind when choosing the best online marketing tactics for your company.
Let’s take a look at some of the most popular internet marketing techniques available today:
1. Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a type of organic digital marketing that’s extremely powerful for a variety of great reasons.
In a nutshell, SEO strategies help you improve your website in order to boost your rankings on search engines whenever there are relevant searches in your service area.
Instead of picking up a phonebook or keeping business cards, most people now turn to search engines to find products and services.
However, Google and other search platforms employ complex algorithms in order to create a list of results whenever a search is performed.
By focusing on SEO, you’ll adjust the right variables and increase your chances of landing on the top 10 results. Which can heavily boost the amount of traffic you get on your site.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of making adjustments to your website and other areas in order to boost your organic rankings on search engines.
Focusing on your website’s SEO has become a major digital marketing strategy because it allows you to connect with users while they conduct queries on search engines. Many of these individuals use search engines to find products and services, so having a digital marketing strategy crafted to claim the top spots on Google is a great way to engage and convert these users.
Unlike PPC campaigns, you don’t have to pay for the website traffic you generate through SEO. And, search engine optimization can also boost other tactics you implement, including social media marketing, content marketing, email marketing, and inbound marketing, among others.
2. Your Website’s Design and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
If there is one thing you should take away from our digital marketing basics is the power of your website.
Your target audience sees your website as a direct reflection of your company. If your pages are slow, have an unappealing design, and fail to provide relevant information. On the contrary, having a more modern site that contains fast, functional pages packed with useful information can boost your lead generation.
But, how do you make sure your site has all the necessary elements?
Conversion rate optimization, also known as CRO, is the practice of adjusting your content in order to generate a higher number of leads. In CRO, the term “conversion” refers to a sale, quote request, consulting booking, or any other type of interaction you proactively want to achieve.
So, implementing a CRO digital marketing strategy means that you’re constantly reviewing your content and making adjustments to help improve performance. But, for this to ha[[en, you need to familiarize yourself with the different digital channels in your strategy and how they impact your website performance.
3. Your Website’s User Experience and On-Site Engagement
Adjusting on-site engagement variables and focusing on user experience as a whole has become one of the best methods to generate leads online.
Whether your traffic comes from a search engine, content marketing, or email marketing campaign, your visitors won’t become leads if they have a bad experience.
You can improve this by focusing on the variables that, albeit small, have a huge impact on the way users interact and perceive your site. These elements include site speed, contrast, page design, images used, and many other variables.
Moreover, you should also implement conversion and engagement-driving features, including email marketing subscription pop-ups, exit intent pop-ups, and similar elements.
3. Inbound Marketing
One of the reasons why traditional marketing tactics are becoming obsolete is that they target a large group of consumers that haven’t shown any previous interest in the products being promoted.
Inbound marketing takes a completely different approach as this digital technique focuses on targeting would-be customers who have displayed an interest in your products.
But, instead of relying on one single platform, inbound marketing encompasses all digital tactics that can be used to target engaged consumers.
An inbound marketing strategy can include both paid and organic techniques such as pay-per-click (PPC), social media marketing, SEO, and email marketing, among others.
Just remember that these should work in unison to move prospects down your marketing funnel, so you need to produce content that converts.
4. Content Marketing
Content marketing is an online approach where companies focus on developing quality materials in order to attract potential customers.
The idea is to develop top-notch content that displays your knowledge while also helping target customers understand and solve their issues.
In instances where your customers would prefer to hire a specialist, content marketing increases the chances of you being their first point of contact.
In this context, website content can take on a variety of meanings.
Besides all visible parts of your website, your digital content also includes websites, PDFs, ebooks, infographics, white papers, and many other materials that aren’t always on your website.
As with other strategies, all of these should work together and entice customers to contact your business.
The idea behind content marketing is simple: create great materials that your target audience finds valuable. Whenever these prospects need assistance, they will either turn to your content marketing materials. If they can’t solve the issue, the next natural step is to contact your business and get help from a knowledgeable professional.
Although it’s easy to explain, creating a content marketing strategy that actually works is much more difficult.
First off, you need to create a blueprint based on your goals and resources and have the right marketing automation flows in place. Plus, you have to publish a blog post weekly at the least, make sure it’s relevant content, and monitor online reviews for this form of inbound marketing to be successful.
4. Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Pay-per-click advertising refers to a collection of digital promotion methods that allow you to purchase online ads.
PPC is not an organic technique because it relies on paid ads, so you’ll need to pay for every customer that clicks on your ads, enters your site, or completes a certain action.
There are countless platforms that allow you to develop PPC campaigns, but Google Ads (previously Google AdWords) is by far the biggest and most reliable alternative.
This platform allows you to reach a huge percentage of users in your service area while also offering the ability to limit which users see your ads based on demographic data.
PPC is a form of online paid advertising. As you can probably deduce, this type of digital marketing focuses on promoting your goods through paid platforms.
Google Ads (previously known as Google Adwords) has become the best place to run paid digital marketing campaigns. The practice of promoting your company through Google and other search engines is called search engine marketing or SEM.
Not to be confused with search marketing (which includes both paid and organic), SEM PPC ads are performance-based. In PPC advertising, companies only have to pay for interactions like clicks and, in some cases, even conversions. This means that you don’t have to pay for users simply viewing your ads, although this option is also available.
That said, social media platforms can also offer great alternatives depending on your goals and industry.
5. Social Media Marketing and Advertising
Today, companies use their social media accounts for lead generation because these networks have become dependable sources of quality, qualified leads.
Although Facebook is still the most popular social network, businesses can choose from a collection of platforms that include LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. Each of which have their specific tactical use-cases.
Business owners can establish a social media presence through both organic posting and boosting which aids in brand awareness. While Social paid advertising provides a means of targeting specific audiences with creative ads within the context of their use of these platforms.
Therefore, you need to understand your target audience in order to decide whether you should opt for paid social media advertising or organic techniques.
Social media marketing may not be as old as email marketing, but there is no doubt that the former can generate formidable results. This is because consumers now use social media channels like Facebook and Instagram to research companies before purchasing from them.
In addition to designing engaging organic marketing social media posts, remember that you can also opt for paid ads. Social media advertising allows you to place different types of ads throughout networks in a variety of formats.
But, you need to understand the different social media ads options at your disposal in order to build a great campaign.
6. Email Marketing
Some business owners see email marketing as an outdated form of digital marketing. But, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Despite the fact that it’s among the oldest forms of digital promotion, email marketing can help you build a strong connection with your audience.
This technique can amplify the success of the content you produce while driving traffic to your site and generating quality leads.
But, remember that consumers are bombarded with hundreds of emails every single day.
Because of this, email campaigns are arguably the hardest to create and deploy, which is the reason why many businesses find it hard to achieve success.
If digital marketing strategies were cars, email marketing would be one of those classics that can compete with today’s modern wonders.
Email marketing is a superb technique because it can boost your branding, funnel building, and lead generation efforts simultaneously. That said, building a solid email marketing campaign takes a significant amount of time and effort.
Your email marketing sequences need to be divided into different parts to reflect your funnel. Moreover, in addition to promotional materials, your sequences should also include additional content, like posts on your blog, for your digital marketing work to be successful.
7. Video Marketing
Video marketing is an umbrella term that includes all channels that help you share rich media content.
The reason why this technique makes our cut is that video content is more engaging, not to mention the fact that it’s extremely versatile. Videos can be used on your website, but also on social media posts, emails (via link), ads, and other channels.
For your video ads to have the right impact, you need to make sure that it portrays you like a knowledgeable expert.
Besides the accuracy and usefulness of the content, also remember that your audience will judge the production quality and assume they reflect your company as a whole.
Comparing Digital Marketing for B2C and B2B Companies
Business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies target completely different audiences, which means that their marketing techniques are very different.
So, even though digital marketing is suitable for both types of industry, you should choose the best channels based on which category your business is in.
B2C digital marketing techniques tend to be more affordable than B2B due to the fact that the former usually promote lower-ticket items.
This means that these businesses can have a longer marketing funnel that requires nurturing at several stages.
B2B businesses, on the other hand, often sell products that are more expensive than the average consumer good.
This results in a lower sales volume, which means that B2B companies can’t always have a long funnel and may require techniques that result in more direct sales.
The type of business you run will directly impact your marketing strategy. But, remember that you always need to create a tailored plan designed specifically for your organization.
10 Steps to Do Digital Marketing for Your Business
Now that we have a better understanding of the components of digital marketing, let’s take a look at the 10 general steps that most businesses need to take to do digital marketing
1. Create Buyer Personas
Before you start making marketing decisions, you need to know who your audience is and what drives them.
Therefore, the first step you need to take is to create buyer personas, or detailed descriptions of your ideal customer.
The secret to creating buyer personas is to conduct research and gain insights into your potential customers.
In most cases, the best approach is to study your best customer base and attempt to retrace the steps they took to becoming paying clients.
Once you do this, you’ll be able to understand what barriers they had to overcome before making a purchase, which will enable you to reverse-engineer a better approach.
Keep in mind that you don’t have to limit yourself to one buyer persona.
As a matter of fact, you should create a few personas to represent your ideal customers and create marketing campaigns to attract these individuals.
2. Set Your Goals
Even though the main objective is to make money, all companies have different digital marketing goals.
Instead of simply thinking about them, you should write these down and share them with your team so that everyone knows what they are working to achieve.
For example, if you choose to implement a content marketing strategy, tell your team members what materials you will create and how these will help you achieve more sales.Remember to be realistic with your expectations in order to set yourself up for success.
If you set the bar too high or too low, you won’t be able to properly gauge your progress. Your best bet is to look at your business performance over the last 6 or 12-month period and work on improving your numbers gradually.
3. Evaluate the Best Channels for Your Business
As we covered already, there are many different platforms where you can promote your goods and services online.
From social media ads to search engines that drive organic traffic and everything in between, you can promote your business in a variety of ways.
But, this doesn’t mean that your marketing strategy should include all of these.
You should focus on spending your marketing budget on the platforms where your audience spends the most time.
For example, if you sell retail products for young adults, there’s a strong chance that creating a paid social advertising plan and running social media ads should be part of your strategy.
4. Implement the Right Tools
Now that you have an idea of which digital channels you will opt for, you can start acquiring the tools you’ll need to run your campaigns.
The tools you need to develop campaigns for paid search advertising, social media, and organic traffic acquisition are different.
So, you either need to identify the best set of tools or find a powerful solution that includes all the features you need.
Having a marketing team or experienced digital marketer can eliminate countless hours of researching and testing.
So, if you’re already under a lot of pressure, you can rely on digital marketing lead generation specialists like Fannit to take care of your social media channels and other platforms.
More helpful reading: https://www.fannit.com/blog/marketing-tools/
5. Create a Step-by-Step Blueprint. Make a Plan.
Once you have all the tools you’ll need, you can start creating a step-by-step plan.
You need to be as detailed as possible when developing your marketing strategy and make sure that your digital marketing campaigns are aligned.
Get a free guide digital marketing resource: https://www.fannit.com/blog/digital-marketing-campaigns-fail/
This means that your branding, message, tone, and other elements should be the same across all platforms.
When you create your actual strategy, you’ll be able to accurately predict how much digital marketing work needs to be done.
Use this data to create a time-sensitive content creation, posting, and distribution schedule to hold yourself accountable and stay on track.
FYI—We have a full article on Creating a Digital Marketing Strategy.
6. Automate as Much as You Can
While it’s true that running a digital marketing campaign requires a significant amount of work, you can use marketing automation software to expedite repetitive tasks.
Email marketing is a great example.
Instead of sending out a manual welcome message, you should make sure that your email marketing platform allows you to automate this message while also customizing recipient data, like name, automatically.
The main goal of marketing automation is to support your lead generation, so avoid automating actions that require a human touch, like developing blog content.
Search engine bots can detect when web content was developed solely for the purpose of good search engine optimization (SEO), which can actually produce a negative impact on rankings.
If you’re having difficulties developing content for social media platforms or search engine marketing ads, you can always partner with digital marketers that specialize in generating leads through these channels.
7. Deploy Your Strategy
After creating your digital marketing plan, it’s time to deploy your content. The deployment process will look very different from one business to the next.
Some companies will simply start producing better content that results in higher search engine rankings, while others may unveil entirely new websites.
Whichever the case may be, remember to always target channels that your audience members use the most and stay on top of any trends that may affect your digital marketing campaign.
The world of online desktop and mobile marketing is always changing, so keep an eye out for new social media platforms, search engine optimization best practices, and similar updates.
More helpful reading: https://www.fannit.com/blog/digital-marketing-strategy/
8. Ensure that Customers Can Reach You Easily
A lot of businesses invest resources into building digital advertising content, but not many focus on keeping open communication lines.
Whether it’s to ask about a product, request a quote, or leave feedback, your customers should be able to reach your company.
In the past, this represented a major investment for businesses.
Today, techniques like social media marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) allow businesses to provide attention seemingly around the clock without having to spend a small fortune.
9. Establish a Unique and Valuable Identity
Having the right branding elements is essential, but you need to go beyond and establish a unique identity to build a trusting relationship with your audience.
Rather than posting mission and vision statements, you should integrate your company identity into your digital marketing campaign and make sure that your content reflects your business culture.
While many businesses only use Google Ads for generating prospects, you can also use paid search engine marketing platforms to establish a unique company identity.
That said, creating a wholesome strategy that helps you establish an identity through more subtle techniques often yields the best results.
10. Track Progress and Optimize Your Content
It doesn’t matter what type of digital marketing strategy or digital marketing campaign you opt for, you should track the performance of your content and optimize it.
The optimization process consists of making adjustments to your content based on its performance.
So, if you notice you’re attracting traffic from unrelated search terms, you may need to adjust your content and eliminate the keywords that are triggering these rankings.
Every paid search engine marketing and organic promotion channel has distinct metrics.
So, you need to familiarize yourself with the metrics you need to monitor and know what range these values need to reach in order to be successful.
Ready to Do Digital Marketing for Your Business? Fannit Is Here to Help
We hope that our article above has helped you learn digital marketing and what you need to develop a successful strategy.
If you want to find out more about building a custom digital marketing strategy for your business, contact us today and we’ll be glad to help.
