Digital marketing tips can help those new to digital marketing take action without overspending. It is worthwhile, too, because digital marketing benefits the solo practice, the Fortune 500 company, and everything in between.
Digital marketing offers the following irresistible benefits:
- A potentially global audience
- Ability to target the desired audience
- Cost-effectiveness
- Powerful analytic tools
But none of this means much if you aren’t sure where to start. Here are 7 digital marketing tips for beginners. Click on one to go to that section. Put these tips to work and prepare to be impressed!
2. Create and Maintain Good Content
3. Integrate Digital Marketing Across Platforms
4. Complete and Maintain Your Google Business Profile
6. Invest In Great Graphics and Photography
1. Understand Your Customers
Unlike mass media advertising of the last century, digital marketing lets you target your marketing dollars toward those on whom it will be most effective. Knowing your audience is essential.
You may have more than one target audience, and that’s fine. But you must know who they are, how they make decisions, where they hang out online, and what makes them tick.
If you don’t have research that tells you exactly who your customers are regarding demographics and habits, you can start by making rough estimates. What gender and age are your customers likely to be? What income level are they? Are they tech-savvy? Do they have young children? Use this and other information to develop a portrait of your ideal customer.
You will learn more details about your customers as you learn to use digital marketing analytics tools (and make more sales). This will empower you to target your audiences with even greater precision.
2. Create and Maintain Good Content
All the digital marketing tips in the world won’t help if you have a lousy website. Your website must be crawlable by search engines and feature plenty of fresh, original content.
Promoting web pages and blog posts on social media and via email can increase traffic to your website. Your content makes or breaks the user experience once there.
Additionally, your website architecture must be logical and easy to navigate. And if you sell directly from your website, the purchase process must be as easy and friction-free as possible.
Optimizing your website to climb the search engine results pages is an indirect form of digital marketing. Don’t neglect the quality of your website in favor of advertising. A great website boosts all other digital marketing endeavors.
3. Integrate Digital Marketing Across Platforms
Most digital marketing takes place on multiple platforms. For example, a company may do email marketing and create ads on Facebook and Instagram.
It is important to have a cohesive brand voice across all platforms and web content. Otherwise, people may wonder if a Facebook ad and an email ad are from the same company.
Brand voice, imagery, and messaging shouldn’t be identical across all platforms. Different platforms use these elements differently, so they should be platform-tailored. But your digital marketing should harmonize across platforms to amplify a singular brand voice.
4. Complete, Maintain a Google Business Profile
If you can only take one digital marketing step, do this. Your Google Business Profile costs you nothing but time and can be immensely powerful.
Follow the steps required to complete and verify your Google Business Profile, and then commit to keeping it accurate, updated, and complete at all times. This will boost your local search prominence and increase your overall online presence.
Ensure that the information in your Google Business Profile is 100% consistent with the information on your website and in your social media profiles. Even small variations in things like addresses (e.g., “Washington St.” vs. “Washington St. NW”) can cause problems. But rest assured, getting your Google Business Profile right is a big step in effective digital marketing.
5. Invest in Email Marketing
Building an email list is building a valuable business asset. Using your email list for email marketing is one of the highest-ROI types of digital marketing.
While you will need an email marketing platform to power email marketing, it’s an investment that pays off repeatedly. Email marketing requires consistency and fine-tuning, but it is a terrific low-cost, high-payoff marketing channel.
Before investing in an expensive social media or search marketing campaign, learn what you can do with email marketing. It makes a terrific “workhorse” marketing channel that you can depend on year after year.
6. Invest In Great Graphics and Photography
With all the stock photography providers and freelance graphic designers available, there is no excuse for bad imagery in digital marketing. Unfortunately, if your marketing campaigns don’t look good, they won’t deliver results.
You may think you know what looks good for a particular campaign, but even hiring a freelancer for a few weeks can elevate the campaign significantly. It’s hard to know whether something will work well on mobile devices or exactly how it will come across on social media. A professional designer knows exactly how to determine these things and ensure they aren’t problematic.
7. Track Results
One of the best things about digital marketing is the plethora of analytics available to track your results. Most social media platforms have their own analytics, as do email marketing platforms.
Using your analytics can be intimidating at first. But understanding and tracking analytics gives you critical information: what’s working and what isn’t.
You can begin with simple analytics and learn the intricacies of your analytics over time. But don’t neglect this amazing resource. It can mean the difference between digital marketing that pays off and digital marketing that does little more than consume your budget.
Putting Digital Marketing Tips to Work
As you master these basic digital marketing tips, you can expand your knowledge and start using other types of digital marketing. You can also learn how to test different versions of the same ad and maximize your ROI.
Tools exist at every level of digital marketing knowledge. Learning to use them is one of the best investments you can make in promoting your company.
We know digital marketing inside and out, and we put it to work every day for companies just like yours. If you’re interested in outsourcing your digital marketing, set up a call with our team.
You don’t want to waste your digital marketing dollars, and neither do we. That’s why we’re ready with solutions for every budget that deliver outstanding results. Let’s talk about how you can use digital marketing to your best advantage.
