Back Up, The Basics are where you need to Start.

In this first post, I want to review the basics of digital marketing. If you are just starting your own online business, you can use this information as a checklist of what you should start working on in order to build your brand and increase your profits.

If you have been in business for a while but are not getting the kind of results you hoped for, use this information to evaluate your current digital marketing mix and identify any gaps.

The Top Digital Marketing Tools for 2016 are:

1. Content marketing
2. Blogging
3. Video
4. Social media
5. Search engine marketing such as Google AdWords
6. Automation

Let’s look at each of these in turn briefly.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is any item you post online in relation to your business which is designed to drive traffic, increase sales, and/or retain customers. Ultimately content marketing is to drive customer sales. Most content will consist of words on a page.

However, these days, you can market with any form of content, so it is important to vary your offerings on your site or blog.

Blogging

Blogging, in particular niche blogging on a certain topic such as cars, planes, or travel, will attract a targeted audience interested in what you have to offer. Your written content should be supported with good images – created in house, professionally generated and shared, or sold through a stock photo site. Image Marketing can enhance your blog posts and all other published content, including videos.

Video

Video is in high demand online and used to entertain and educate. If you aren’t already marketing on YouTube regularly, put video marketing at the top of your to-do list. Pull out your smart phone and start shooting quality content for your viewers.

Social Media

Great images can also be used for info-graphics and marketing at highly visual social networks such as pinterest, Facebook and Instagram, to drive traffic back to your site or show what your products and services are all about.

Make the most of your digital marketing by placing an email address capture box on your landing pages so the visitors to your site will be able to subscribe to your digital newsletter. Email marketing is ideal for building relationships and makes your content marketing, blogging, and social networking efforts measurable. Don’t just think traffic; think engagement with your content.

To get an even higher subscriber rate, consider creating a valuable special report or a 7-day ecourse, one lesson per day or week, to show prospective customers in your niche who you are, what you know, and why you are worth doing business with. Then market the report on the top social media sites that make sense for your niche.

Don’t forget to market your hottest content on niche-related discussion boards, groups and forums, especially places like Facebook groups.

Search Engine Marketing such as AdWords

In order to test your new content or product ideas, consider setting a small budget and using AdWords or other pay-per-click ad services to test the market. Track and test your results, and improve your marketing messages as needed.

If you have a tiny budget, or are struggling to make sense of AdWords, try Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These paid advertising opportunities are less expensive than Google AdWords pay per click, yet much more highly targeted, giving you a better conversion rate.

Automation

Automation such as email autoresponders and blog schedulers keep your marketing going even when you are not at your computer. Work smarter, not harder, with the help of schedulers and other automation tools.

If you’re not using all of these basics, get started today and see what a difference they can make to your business.

Next time I’ll be giving tips on how to turn short-term customers into long-term customers using digital marketing.

Liam