The combined sales from mobile devices are expected to hit $2.5 trillion this year. Over the years, consumers’ purchasing behaviour across the world, has dramatically changed; customers now have a predisposition to research marketing content, in the form of social media, videos, landing pages and influencer testimonials, before making purchases online. Emarketer recently recorded that an estimate 2.71 billion consumers will shop online in 2024 (1), and 89% of these consumers are likely to make online purchases after watching marketing videos (2). It is high time to devise a digital presence for your business, if you have not already; digital storefronts and interfaces are expected to be the gateway to your business, for years to come. This becomes especially pertinent for businesses in tech, fintech and saas, as their consumers tend to search, contact and engage such services online.
In this article, we will outline some steps to take to spearhead a powerful digital marketing pipeline for your business.
1. Build Brand Messaging
To execute successful digital marketing strategies, you will need to get acquainted with your own product. Determine the unique selling points your business may have, and the ways in which it can serve your customers. Once the information has been consolidated, you can devise creative brand messaging that you will communicate to your consumers, positioning your brand successfully as the go-to choice.
Brand messaging refers to the overall communication strategy that defines how a brand communicates its key values, personality and unique propositions to its target audience; it is communicating to your audience, as your business. The consistent distribution of this messaging to consumers, can build great rapport, customer loyalty and brand awareness over time. Some positive and unexpected advantages of digital brand messaging are: word-of-mouth marketing, strong brand identity and a growing digital customer base.
Your marketers will need an entire brand identity on hand, to communicate what your business does, what it’s about and how it’s different. The brand messaging rolled out should resonate strongly with your customers and your business values. The interfaces that your messaging can be emblazoned with, are products, packaging, marketing campaigns, events, design, communication channels and other focal brand collaterals.
2. Understand Your Customers
Customers are at the heart of any business, driving business growth, recognition and revenue, amongst many other things. You will need to gain very good understanding of your customers, in order to attract and hold their attention.
Studies on your target customers can range from identifying their needs, preferences, attitudes, motivations and buying behaviours, to the goods and services they patronize. Some of the market research techniques we previously touched on here, can be utilized to carry out very effective inquiries into your target consumers. Understanding your customers can be the cornerstone to building better products, successful marketing strategies and eventually, business growth.
3. Research Your Competitors
For your business to find its unique footing and competitive edge, information on contending businesses and the general state of the market can help vastly. More often than not, businesses in the same industry share almost the exact same customer base. Studying the panoply of rival products and their accompanying marketing strategies can help you gauge what works and what doesn’t.
After completing your survey of the market, your business will be better able to define differentiating features that help set your product and strategy apart in the market.
4. Activate Digital and Social Media Marketing with the Right Content
Now equipped with just the right information, your business can proceed to set up appropriate channels that can function as effective brand interfaces. A selection of relevant social media platforms, along with a brand landing page can be assembled. Customers are, now more than ever before, more likely to research reviews, brand stories and product details before making their purchase decision. Allowing them to search for, reach, learn information from and interact with your business pages, will be beneficial for your business. Digital marketing of your products and brand can be executed through your website, social media, and CRM platforms.
Traditional forms of marketing, such as editorial advertisements and outdoor print advertisements can rake up exorbitant costs for your business, a dilemma for any business, much more so for those that are just starting out. On the other hand, the costs required in digital marketing can be fine-tuned according to budgets laid out. Digital marketing is ultimately cheaper than traditional marketing methods, and its payoff can go the distance, despite its low cost.
On your business social media, website and other interfaces, regular and related content can be doled out to target audiences. Such digital marketing ultimately aids brand awareness and affinity over time; moreover, content marketing is totally free of charge, and stimulates organic, even word-of-mouth marketing. On top of this, advertisements can be placed on such channels to activate further conversion and sales. Compelling CTAs and landing pages for click-throughs should be added for efficacy.
In a research by Google, paid mobile Youtube ads are found to be 84% more likely to capture viewer attention than traditional TV commercials (3). In the same vein, TV ads (30.6%), social media ads (27.7%), website ads (22.3%), mobile ads (20.6%) and video ads (16.9%) all feature in the top 15 sources of brand discovery (4).
Digital marketing, when performed correctly, can influence customer bases, conversion numbers and revenue streams very effectively.
5. SEO Strategy
Allowing your site to be found easily on any search engine is a given for digital marketing success. Search engines are the crux of the worldwide web, around which digital activity happens. Whenever a web browser has a query that needs answering, resorting to a search engine is usually the first move taken.
Before orchestrating effective SEO strategies, you should perform some research on businesses that you would like to align with, and the searches performed that led customers their direction. By targeting just the right searches, you will be able to position your website for attracting the right audience. Again, the costs of search engine ranking and optimization can be adapted to fit any budget. All that is required is compelling marketing copy and design; appealing and distinctive campaigns can help set your website apart from the rest.
Search engines rank content based on usefulness and user experience. Be reminded to keep to quality guidelines and best practices for your site’s ranking success.
6. Proactive Outreach with Email Marketing
You can also choose to proactively reach out to your customer base with email marketing campaigns. After collating a list of customers from newsletter signups on your page, you can organize fortnightly or monthly runs of on-brand news, direct to your customers’ inbox.
Email marketing can be wildly effective, as you will be targeting customers who have already reacted positively to your marketing campaigns. It has been proven to have a 73% return-on-investment; affiliate marketing has a 47% return-on-investment comparatively. On average, your business can expect a return of $42 on every $1 spent on email marketing.
Some techniques for successful email marketing are: personalizing messages, segmenting subscribers, optimizing messages for mobile interfaces, and sending emails at just the right time.
Deploying a number or all our strategies outlined above, is sure to give your digital business a boost. If you are looking to partner with an agency for brand strategy, social media marketing, email marketing, SEO or market research, Splash and Drips will be able to deliver comprehensive solutions that meet your needs.
Sources:
- https://www.emarketer.com/content/global-ecommerce-forecast-2022
- https://www.wyzowl.com/video-marketing-statistics/
- https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-strategies/app-and-mobile/youtube-mobile-advertising-statistics/
- https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-july-global-statshot
