Digital marketing simplified

A little confused about how to approach your digital marketing? If you’d like a straightforward way to think about it, this post is for you.

The marketing landscape

We can split marketing activity into 3 main areas; website, digital marketing, other activities – and for most businesses, as a general rule, this sequence is also the order of priority.

Firstly you need a great website. You can think of your website as the hub of your marketing, the destination for your potential customers to learn about your business, to be engaged and then enquire. All your marketing activities will either directly, or indirectly, send people to your website, so it needs to be as good as you can make it.

Digital marketing is next… because chances are, most of your customers will find you, and be directed to your website, via digital channels; search engines, social media, email marketing, Google Adwords & other digital advertising.

Once you have your website and digital marketing set up, you can think about other activities such as sponsorship, workshops, print advertising etc.

Planning

Your digital marketing can be split into 5 core channels…

• email marketing
• online advertising & online PR
• social media – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn etc.
• search engine optimisation (SEO)
• pay per click – Google Ads, Bings Ads etc.

You need to select the right channels for your business, the ones which your audience, your potential customers, use frequently. You also need to think about how you’re going to engage your audiences, your budgets (2%-10% of turnover is often quoted), goals and what your KPIs will be… so you need a marketing plan.

Delivery & reporting

Once you have your marketing plan, with actions and timings, you need to implement it. To do this you will need access to creative and technical expertise. Your aim is to engage your audience as effectively as you can, so it’s worth taking time to produce high-quality content… advertising, written content, landing pages, videos, photography, infographics etc. You can then use this great content across all your chosen channels… add your KPI measurement and ideally a neat online marketing dashboard to display ongoing performance and you’re away!

So we hope this short overview is helpful. If you find you need some help planning and delivering your marketing we’d love to help. We have all the skills and experience needed to help you with any aspects of marketing; strategy, website, digital marketing and graphic design… just drop us a line.