Every day people connect with each other through the power of the internet. Going online has made it easier for people to stay in touch despite a large distance separating them from each other. Businesses have also begun to take advantage of the internet’s power to connect people. Using the internet, companies have begun to use websites, search engines, social media, and even email to find potential customers.

The business’ efforts to connect to customers online is called digital marketing. Digital marketing is any form of marketing that uses the internet to find prospective customers. You can see digital marketing happen when you visit a website for photography gear.

Once you leave the photography gear website, you notice that your online ads begin to consist of promotions for photography gear. That’s what digital marketing does. Companies find ways to send a message to the customer by reminding them through advertisements and more. 

However, Digital marketing is not limited to online ads. You also see digital marketing efforts on social media, blogs, affiliate marketing, email marketing and much more. A majority of digital marketing efforts use images to help convert advertisements into a click and potentially into a sale.

This begs the question… Why is digital marketing so important to businesses today? 

  • 64% of buyers will click a Google Ad when they are looking for items to buy online
  • Digital Ad spending is predicted to reach over $375 Billion by 2021]
  • According to Lyfe Marketing, almost 60% of marketers think influencer marketing will become a critical part of marketing in the next three years.

Among all forms of digital marketing, the one constant is good content. Here’s why good content makes digital marketing so successful:

Content Marketing

about-img.jpg

The Michelin Guide was subtle but, effective.

What makes content marketing different from other forms of marketing is the fact that you want to give your customers more knowledge about a product. You don’t just show them a product and sell it right away. You inform the customer of the benefits of using the product and what you can do with it. 

The end goal of content marketing is to help them gain more knowledge about a product they purchased or intend to purchase. 

No matter what form of digital marketing you will use, all of your efforts will rely on good content. Creating good content will keep your customer reading your newsletter, watching your Instagram video, watching the latest advertisement, 

A popular example of successful content marketing is the Michelin Guide. You wouldn’t associate the tire company with the food guide until you realize that the guide was invented to convince buyers to purchase Michelin tires. Instead of blatantly selling the tires, Michelin sold a food guide to convince people to use Michelin brand tires on their journey to the restaurant.

The products share the same company name but, they serve different purposes. Content marketing helps you make a sale by selling your products in a subtle manner.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

An organized website where sports fans can find their team easily.

SEO is the act of optimizing your website in order to rank higher on search result pages. The main intention of SEO is to bring more visitors to your website.

There are several kinds of SEO techniques you can use to improve the ranking of your website:

  • On-Page SEO: On-page SEO is a process where you optimize your pages to reach the first page of Google’s search results. An optimized webpage usually includes the following: 
  1. Content that users are looking for. Content is king. No matter what kind of website design you have as long as you have good content that people are looking for, people will visit your website.
  2. A user-friendly interface. Users can go from one page to another easily. 
  3. Pages are mobile-friendly. The form of the website will change depending on the page you are using. However, the content will still be the same.
  4. Pages load quickly to prevent users from turning away and going to a different website.
  5. You only need 3 clicks to get to the page you want. (3-Click Rule)
  6. Proper metadata is included so that users and the search engines will have an idea of what your page is all about. Metadata is data used to describe data. 

We can find metadata in many places such as your music files. The metadata of a music file would include the artist name, song title, the release date of the track and more. 

In SEO, the metadata is the text that you will see on the search results page. The meta title is usually the big, blue text you will see that changes to purple when you click on it and is the first item you will see on a search result. It is the title that will give readers their first glimpse of the article. The meta description is the smaller text you will see right under the URL that gives readers a summary of the page.

  1. The URL is clear and easy to understand. Users will know what the page is all about by reading the URL.
  2. Images have Alt Text: When your images have alt text the search engine will have an idea what the image is. If your image does not have alt text then search engines will only recognize the file as an image without any distinct features. It’s just a picture. Having alt text will give search engines a description of what the image is.
  • Off-Page SEO: Off-page SEO is an activity that involves you optimizing your website by backlinking. Backlinking is when you mention a link back to your website in any form.  

One way to perform backlinking is by talking to other websites and write guest posts on their pages. In your guest posts, you will place a link back to your website. The link back to your website helps build your website’s credibility based on who Google views your website. 

Another form of Off-Page SEO is placing a link to your website from any platform. You can place a link to your website on social media, your newsletter, your YouTube video and more.  

C:\Users\steven.tan\Documents\The Importance of Good Phoptos in Digital Marketing\diff-btween-onsite-offsite-seo-ducks-1.png

The rubber ducks are your pages, the water is the links to your pages and the bathtub is your website.

The Digital Third Coast provides an informative and humorous analogy of off-page SEO in the form of a bathtub with rubber ducks.

The bathtub represents your website, the rubber ducks are your pages and the water are the links that lead to your page. Filling your bathtub (website) with more water (links) will make it easier for people to see your rubber ducks (pages). All of this water will help you reach the top of Google’s search results.

Selling your product with SEO involves utilizing the internet by optimizing your website and by applying backlinks to build your website’s reputation.

Online Newsletter

One of the most common forms of digital marketing today comes in the form of online newsletters. Visit any e-commerce website and there is a high possibility of a popup display telling you to subscribe to the website’s newsletter for exclusive discounts and more. 

What you may not realize is that sending e-mails to customers is more effective than you think. Campaign Monitor released a study on e-mail marketing statistics explaining why it is still so effective:

  • An email is 40 times more effective at acquiring customers than social mediums such as Facebook or Twitter.
  • Companies can earn as much as $44 in return for investing in $1 on e-mail marketing.
  • 90% of users chose to receive email newsletters instead of receiving updates from a company through social media.
  • Companies who send over 100,000 emails a month see a 94% Return on Investment.

These numbers prove that sending e-mails is still an effective form of digital marketing.

You can use online newsletters to bring back customers who haven’t dropped by your website in a while. You can bring a customer back by sending them a discount code to convince them to visit the website again. 

Marketers can also use newsletters to keep customers updated on the latest information about their products or the latest events that occurred with the company.

Influencer Marketing

Facebook, Instagram, are two of the most popular social media networks today. Many businesses use a form of marketing on social media called influencer marketing to promote their products. 

Influencer marketing is a combination of the old celebrity product endorsement you see on television and a digital marketing campaign. You can see influencer marketing in action with personalities such as Kylie Jenner using her Instagram account to promote the latest product. 

However, influencer marketing isn’t just about Kylie Jenner promoting a product. She built her own loyal following who will purchase the product because she endorsed the brand.

Influencers can be anyone with a loyal following. You don’t always have to be a major celebrity to be involved as an influencer in influencer marketing. The key in influencer marketing is looking for people who have a loyal following in specific industries. Your aim as a marketer is to sell to your chosen influencer’s audience. 

The product you want the influencer to endorse should not just be any product. Successful influencer marketing involves catering to that influencer’s market. For example. Kylie Jenner’s audience may not be interested in the latest entry in a popular video game series so you won’t choose to work with her as a personality to promote the latest video game. 

You want to choose to work with a personality that has a following that is interested in video games. When we mean that an influencer can be anyone it can be a popular celebrity promoting makeup or a Utah video game streamer who is endorsed by brands. That streamer could also get help from anyone to make sure his online brand is present beyond his video game streams so they can build a loyal following that will purchase products they endorse. 

However, the streamer will need to get help from local businesses such as a Utah SEO company. The company can create a website for the streamer and make sure that every time their name is searched on Google, the website of the streamer will be the first item that appears. 

Influencer marketing works because the brand is not pushing a product in the audience’s face. The influencer is talking to the audience directly instead of the brand putting on a giant light-up sign telling people to buy their product.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click is a form of digital marketing where you pay an amount of money every time a user clicks on your ad Depending on the kind of website you advertise on, there is a different payment plan you can choose from.

Facebook: On Facebook, you can choose the audience you want to cater to and customize a post, photo, video or slideshow and publish them to your newsfeed. 

Instagram: Facebook’s sister company has a PPC program of its own where you pay a certain amount of money to Instagram so you can make people see your post or story to do several things:

  • Lead more people to your website.
  • Follow your Instagram account.
  • Convince buyers to make a purchase from your store.

Twitter: On Twitter, users can pay the company to place a set of posts to the news feeds of targeted audiences. You can set a goal to bring in more website visitors, twitter followers, app downloads and tweet engagement. 

Paying for ads may not guarantee a click but, PPC would guarantee that people will see your ads. 

Different Strategies to Choose From

There is a wide variety of digital marketing available for companies to use. You can use content marketing to be subtle about selling your product. Optimizing your website with good content and an easy to use website with lots of backlinks will help you make a sale. Sending online newsletters with discount codes or calls to action to convince customers can convince users to visit the website again. 

Digital marketing has a wide variety of options you can choose from. Whether you’re paying to buy advertising space, sending newsletters or subtly implying the product you sell, you have numerous options to use digital marketing in your business.

About the Author: Paul Staten is the co-founder and CEO of SEO Werkz, a Utah SEO Company. He is famous for delivering his twins at home and trying out for American Idol and being immediately rejected. In 6 years of Operation, Paul and his team have helped hundreds of small business earn a positive ROI in the digital space. His leadership has earned the company a place in the Inc. 500 as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the US. You may connect with him on LinkedIn.