As a digital marketing service agency, we will try to give you a summary of the different digital marketing techniques. You go, it’s not that complicated.
Do you want to increase your turnover and attract new customers through the Web? Good idea ! The internet and digital marketing can effectively help you develop your brand and its products and services. But how do you develop an effective digital strategy? What promotional leverage to create? And most importantly, why is it so important to optimize your website for conversions?
What is digital marketing?
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What if we start at the beginning and review the definition of digital marketing together? A real growth lever for your business , digital marketing covers a set of web techniques intended to promote your business and its products and / or services on the Internet.
Through the creation of all kinds of content (emailing, advertising, blog article, video, illustration, publication on social networks, etc.), it helps you fulfill your web objectives by creating interaction with Internet users. Its main objectives are: to increase traffic to your site, convert visitors to customers and, finally, retain these customers so that they come back later.
Why create a digital strategy?
There are many reasons to create a digital strategy for your business. Well thought out, in fact, it can allow you to grow quickly and sustainably. But concretely, why do digital marketing?
Be visible to a wide audience
Thanks to the Web, in fact, you are visible at any time and anywhere in the world. Of course, it’s about targeting your audience. There is no point in being visible in English search engines if your customers are exclusively from French – speaking Belgium. However, you can broaden your notoriety with this audience much more easily by being on the Internet.
Better conversion rate
The concept of conversion rate refers to the number of visitors who have become prospects in relation to the total number of Internet users who have visited your site. However, digital is known to lead to more conversions than traditional marketing.
More profitable means of dissemination
If the Web allows you to gain visibility, it allows above all to do so without spending crazy sums on advertising. Traditional marketing channels, in fact, are generally more expensive than digital ones : an A4 page advertising in a magazine can require a substantial budget, while Facebook advertising can already reach quite a few people for a few euros.
Measurable and quantifiable ROI
Another advantage of the Web is that it allows you to measure in real time and precisely the results of your advertising campaigns (number of views, conversions, etc.). You can therefore calculate their ROI much more easily, i.e. their return on investment. Ultimately, analyzing the results of your advertisements can also give you very precise indications of what works with your audience. This is an opportunity to optimize your future campaigns for even more conversions.
Increase your company’s turnover
The Web represents a large sales potential (direct through e-commerce or indirect with a showcase website). It allows Internet users looking for products like yours to easily get in touch with your business. It is then up to you to manage to convert these potential customers by offering them fast, quality service.
How to Start with Digital Marketing?
Since the development of the Web, digital communication has become more and more important within general corporate communication. New technologies, like smartphones, have created a whole new way to connect with your audience.
New techniques, such as inbound marketing or mobile marketing, have thus taken precedence over A4 posters or advertisements in a magazine. Getting started online, however, requires a good deal of reflection: you must define your objectives and your strategy, create web pages on which to send your advertising. In short, we do not get started in digital marketing without preparation. Here are some tips to help you.
Define your web strategy
First of all, you must obviously set up a digital strategy. Getting started on the web without first having clearly defined your action plan is like jumping into the void without a net. If the image may seem excessive, it is nevertheless a reality: the Internet is extremely competitive.
Take the time to ask yourself the right questions : what is the place of the Web in your overall business strategy, what are your digital objectives, who are you targeting, with what content, on which digital channels …?
Also don’t forget to check the competition, to analyze their marketing practices and to think about the means to put in place to compete with them. The better you analyze your market and your sector, the better you are prepared for any eventuality on the Web. You thus limit the risks of disappointments and increase your chances of being successful and fulfilling your objectives.
Your website: the basis of any digital strategy
Digital marketing techniques are many and varied. Among them, let’s mention the search engine with natural referencing (SEO) and paid referencing (SEA), the optimization of social media (SMO), emailing, blogging But to be able to implement these different techniques, Above all, you must have a website. It is your first web promotional lever, the one from which you will be able to launch all your other actions.
Nowadays, however, it is no longer enough to simply create a website to be successful on the Internet . On the contrary, various criteria must imperatively be respected: it must be aesthetically beautiful , but also offer a good user experience , provide quality content and lead to conversions . In short, it must be optimized as much as possible, on all possible aspects and for each stage of the visitor’s conversion path:
When the user arrives at your site, their design must be attractive enough to make them want to continue their visit. If it is too old or too busy, for example, it will not inspire confidence and may scare away your potential prospect.
When he begins to learn, his navigation must be easy, the information must be accessible in just a few clicks, the pages load quickly … In other words, his experience on the site must be pleasant.
Once the information has been found, the content that explains it (text, video, computer graphics, etc.) must also be of quality: it must answer its questions and offer real added value, which will convince it to appeal to you.
Is your visitor convinced? You still have to actually convert it and it buys your product or contacts you depending on whether your site is an e-commerce or a showcase website. To do this, you need to create an effective and tailor -made call-to-action strategy.
The key to successfully entering the web is preparation. To be effective and fulfill the various objectives that you have set for yourself, you must start by thinking very carefully about your marketing strategy. Your targets, the means of communication to set up, the content to create, the dissemination techniques to favor. Think of your entire web project so that it is consistent.
Before you also think about advertising or other ways to get known, you need to go through the basic step of creating a website . There’s no point in creating a Google AdWords (SEA) campaign if you don’t have a site to send your ads to.
What is more, your site must be as efficient as possible in order to convert your visitors into customers. It is precisely for this reason that it is advisable to go through a web agency when you want to create your site. Based on your needs and expectations, she will develop a site that looks like you and is optimized for your web goals. So, it’s up to you!
But how can a social media or blog content strategy help you convert?
It allows you to attract more traffic and above all, more qualified traffic: if you write articles on a subject related to your activity and which answer a question that people ask, when they arrive on your website they are genuinely interested in the subject you are dealing with and are therefore likely to be further converted. Similarly, when you publish on social networks, insert a link to your website to bring traffic.
It helps you distinguish yourself from your competitors: you can establish your authority by showing all your expertise, which allows you to attract people affected by your knowledge of the field, while conveying a positive image.
You humanize your brand. For example, people appreciate it when you sign your blog articles with your first name. Social media is also a great place to share more “fun” content, which will give your business a more dynamic image. The advantage of showing a human face is that Internet users trust you and feel that they can create a real relationship with you.
You build loyalty with your audience: if you publish an article every week, for example, people will come back to discover your new content. And, after all, each return is a new opportunity to convert.
In addition, a blog is also a great SEO tool. By publishing articles regularly, you move your home page (where the last three to four articles are usually found), which is positive for your SEO.
White papers as conversion tools
Many companies that use white paper marketing require anyone wishing to access content to fill out forms indicating their industry, occupation, income level and other biographical information in order to build a pipeline of prospects and collect targeting data for future content marketing. In addition, white papers and other large reports used for marketing are sometimes published behind a store to directly generate income.
White papers can be particularly valuable as a final impetus for conversion. The in-depth sector analysis provided by a white paper can demonstrate that a company really understands the products and services it sells. In terms of influencing purchasing decisions, 67% of white paper readers say they hope to learn more about the solutions from the suppliers who sponsor them, according to Writing White Papers.
Build visitor confidence
In order for you to convert your visitors, trust is key. Think about your own way of working when you go to a website. Whether it is to buy a product online or to use a service, you must have confidence in the quality of the company you are using. It’s the same for your prospects and customers. But how do you build confidence?
Obtain traffic by offering quality content
By writing SEO content , you increase your chances of being seen in the search engines. As their name suggests, they are optimized for natural referencing. They can therefore be found using the right keywords. But SEO is not the only way to promote your content on the Internet. There are others, also very effective.
Share your articles on social networks
It is a simple and effective technique, which costs nothing except the time you take to create the publication. Social networks, in fact, are a particularly interesting source of readers. Their role is to create a beautiful community around your company, which follows you and shows a certain interest in you. By sharing your text content with them, you increase your chances of being read by those people who are already potentially interested.
How to choose your social networks
There are a number of different social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. Not all of them lend themselves to sharing texts and articles. YouTube, for example, focuses only on videos. When you decide to promote your SEO content, be sure to select the networks on which you can effectively share them.
Share on your private accounts
Remember that you can also share your content on your private accounts. You thus widen your audience, while increasing the possibilities of positive reactions. Friends / acquaintances are always more likely to like one of your posts. When this is the case, you can find yourself in the news feed of their friends, who too can see your content. And if your employees do the same, your audience becomes even more interesting.
Create targeted ads
You can also develop targeted advertisements. Paying to promote your business is as old as the world (or almost). There are many means: posters, newspapers, television, radio, etc. With the Internet, a new advertising channel has emerged.
Now, you can put advertisements for your business on other sites that accept ads, in videos, in search engine results, in the news feed on social networks. This is an opportunity to reach a new audience , which you do not know and who may not know you either.
Google AdWords
Google AdWords is the other counterpart to SEO. It is a paid referencing technique, also called SEA . Its goal ? As the name suggests: pay to get your website in the top Google results. SEA uses the same keywords as your natural referencing strategy to create advertising campaigns . You select the keywords that are important to your business, then you pay so that, when the user types them into Google, your website appears in the first results.
The only drawback of this technique: once your campaign is finished, if your website is not well referenced naturally, you disappear completely. The advantage, however, is that you are in the top Google results when a user searches for your field of activity. It is therefore more likely to click on your link and be converted. This is the point of these advertising campaigns: if they are well thought out, they generally generate a good conversion rate .
Facebook Ads
The Facebook Ads can also be very effective in reaching new prospects. We are spending more and more time on our smartphones and most of this time is spent on social networks. It is therefore the ideal place to reach a large number of people.
In addition, Facebook allows you to target according to people (rather than by keywords). You can create what we call a personalized audience. So you select the characteristics of the people you want to target (age, gender, location, language). It is even possible to specify the centers of interest and the professions which interest you.
Send a newsletter
Also use your newsletter database to promote your SEO content. People on this list can come from all walks of life. They can be customers, or prospects, or even people passionate about your area of expertise. Each of them is potentially interested in you. So sending them your content is important.
If sending a newsletter is a good idea, it must nevertheless be of quality and attractive. But how do you create a good newsletter? Different points must be taken into account:
In short
Promoting your SEO content, whether it be pages of your website or blog articles, is important. After all, if you wrote them down, it’s for reading. The trick is figuring out how to get people to consult them . The different techniques that we talked about in this article are already great ways to effectively promote your content. It’s up to you to determine which one best fits your text and your target audience.
