ACA­D­E­M­I­CAL­LY SPEAK­ING, there is no such thing as dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, just as there is no such thing as dig­i­tal den­tistry or a dig­i­tal auto-mechan­ic. All the activ­i­ties deployed into shap­ing a trade rela­tion­ship with cus­tomers and prospects, like devel­op­ing a web­site or a blog, social media chan­nels, or paid dig­i­tal adver­tis­ing are the only mar­ket­ing that exists. After under­stand­ing that, we now need to move towards cre­at­ing an omni-chan­nel mar­ket­ing solu­tion for your enterprise.

I believe in that we all need to engage buy­ers wher­ev­er they may be, and obvi­ous­ly that means hav­ing a state-of-the-art web­site with every pos­si­ble opti­miza­tion and an organ­ic strat­e­gy that works, a real social media pres­ence, the right invest­ments and plan­ning for paid adver­tis­ing. Every­one, no mat­ter how big or small also needs to invest wise­ly in data intel­li­gence and rela­tion­ship man­age­ment. Email mar­ket­ing and mul­ti­me­dia con­tent pro­duc­tion are also vital to ensure we get the most out of our com­mer­cial offer.

SEO AND SEA, ARE WHAT SEM IS

68% of all web traf­fic orig­i­nates on search results. Paid adver­tis­ing is always a good idea for local busi­ness­es, espe­cial­ly in com­pet­i­tive local mar­kets, but it should not be the only invest­ment in mind when you’re mar­ket­ing your busi­ness on SERP’s. I offer my clients SEO that speaks for itself on the bot­tom line. This dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing tech­nique is cycli­cal in how it works. In a very over-sim­pli­fied sense, SEO is about rank­ing first in online search­es and stay­ing in the first organ­ic search posi­tions. What does that say to a client whose run­ning a retail store in the real world? Not enough.

Its not only about get­ting cus­tomers to click and read through your land­ing pages, with in itself takes a lot of con­sid­er­a­tions and plan­ning into account, but also mak­ing sure that some­thing good for your busi­ness hap­pens. Whether that be some­one call­ing you to place an order or some­body shar­ing a link with some­one else who will. Every land­ing page needs to have a clear call to action, that’s tied to the search queries that are best for it.

Call to actions must always take cus­tomers clos­er to con­ver­sions, and this means that you and your opti­miza­tions need to have the short­est and most intu­itive buy­ers’ jour­ney mapped out in your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strate­gies. I make sure that every con­ver­sion step is friend­ly, sim­ple and engag­ing. Every day that your web­site ranks on top of your Inter­net search terms is a day you have the com­pet­i­tive edge.

Some of the time busi­ness­es need to address an imme­di­a­cy that doesn’t have the time for a land­ing page. Lock­smiths and piz­za deliv­er­ies are good exam­ples of com­pa­nies that are bet­ter served with click-to-call but­tons on the SERP rather than a link to a web­site. Sit-in restau­rants and gro­cery stores need to have their map opti­miza­tions in top state to make sure they attract their clien­tele. And hotels more than any­one, need to be impec­ca­ble on TripAdvisor.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Is an essen­tial part in your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, it’s the quick­est way to dis­play new inven­to­ry and estab­lish an imper­ish­able trade­mark. Social media chan­nels allow you to engage your mar­ket at an unpar­al­leled depth. I like to devel­op social media strate­gies that build brand loy­al­ty and cul­ti­vate rela­tion­ships with your ide­al audi­ences. Get a pro­fes­sion­al Face­book page that helps your page fans and neigh­bors book appoint­ments, call you on the phone, and dri­ve to your store.

Social media is by far the most engag­ing phe­nom­e­non on the Inter­net and def­i­nite­ly the place to build your dig­i­tal brand. When some­one re-posts from your social media accounts, their friends become your cus­tomers, sim­ple as that. Nobody can afford to miss out on all the learn­ing and improve­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties that come from gath­er­ing real-time feed­back and all the authen­tic human inter­ac­tions on all your dig­i­tal media pages. Find­ing your share of the mar­ket in the most effi­cient manner!

E‑MAIL MAR­KET­ING AS THE EFFI­CA­CIOUS TECHNIQUE

Email is the pri­ma­ry medi­um for all busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tions and for dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing. In 2020, an aver­age of 306.4 bil­lion emails were sent and received per day. 89% of mar­keters use email as the pri­ma­ry chan­nel for gen­er­at­ing leads. 21% of sent emails are opened with­in the first hour of deliv­ery. And here is the most impor­tant sta­tis­tic, that I have been hear­ing for years and that no one will ever stop repeat­ing: email mar­ket­ing ROI is 4200% ($42 for every $1 spent).

The most effec­tive way to get con­vert­ing leads is when peo­ple sign up vol­un­tar­i­ly for your email sub­scrip­tions, and the best way to moti­vate sub­scribers into join­ing your mail­ing lists is to offer gifts that like-mind­ed peo­ple (your tar­get demo­graph­ics) will enjoy. Lead mag­net needs to be as valu­able as what you’re sell­ing. You need to find a real prob­lem that your lead mag­net solves, you also need to make them read­i­ly avail­able because noth­ing stim­u­lates the plea­sure cen­ters of the brain like instant gratification.

Anoth­er viable method is to buy mail­ing lists, but this kind of email mar­ket­ing is for more ambi­tious ven­tures and requires in-depth mar­ket stud­ies and the use of cor­po­rate-lev­el deliv­ery providers. At this scale is when a newslet­ter needs to be writ­ten with a care­ful­ly craft­ed buyer’s jour­ney that works at the big data lev­el. What this means is that there needs to be across the board seg­men­ta­tion that not only con­sid­ers recip­i­ents’ psy­cho-social pro­files but also the stage and evo­lu­tion of your busi­ness rela­tion­ship with them, to make sure you’re always send­ing the right email to the right read­er and not spam­ming anyone.