5 Must-Have Digital Marketing Tactics

Everything is digital, the traditional way of doing business has shifted and moved online. The first thing people do when they are looking for service providers or products is to jump straight to a search engine like Google, Bing, Yahoo etc, or better yet do a social search on Facebook and look for recommendations.

Your business cannot afford to be left behind. It is important to have a digital marketing strategy whether your business is online or offline. To compete in today’s digital landscape you’ll need to focus on 5 specific areas.

1. SEO

Search Engine Optimization is about improving the quality of your website design and content so that your website pages can rank higher on search engine results. There is a lot of factors that impact website SEO, some are technical, some involve content (Onpage SEO), and some relate to content that is outside your website, often referred to as Off-page SEO. The job of the search engine is to show the best results for a user’s query. If your site isn’t high-quality enough, you will struggle to rank for your target keywords.

Onpage SEO

Onpage SEO refers to the quality of the pages to help you rank higher. This includes technical aspects like speed, content, website usability, code quality and more.

Offpage SEO

Offpage SEO is about increasing the number and quality of inbound links to your website. This includes social media, online directory listing, and guest blogging. 

2. SEM

Search Engine Marketing is all about increasing the visibility of your website using search engine channels. SEM leverages the power of search engines like Google and Bing to reach potential customers at the perfect time and place. Search Engine Marketing is often used interchangeably with Paid Search Ads or PPC (Pay-per-click) Advertising.

So, how does SEM Work? When someone searches for “How to bake a chocolate cake”, Google uses an algorithm to determine which web page can best answer that query. It then ranks the pages according to how sure it is that that page can answer that question. Google’s goal is that you find what you’re looking for at the top of page 1 in search results. SEO is about positioning your website so that Google determines that you’re the best website to answer the question. It can take up to a year for a quality site to start ranking higher on search engines. What if you just baked the best chocolate cake and you want people to see your recipe, that’s where SEM comes in.

Search Engine Marketing allows you to get ranked higher on search engine results at a paid fee. This gives your business exposure to your target customers in a way you never could with traditional marketing. SEM would allow you to set up a Google Search Campaign and add “Best Chocolate Cake Recipe” as a long-tail keyword. This would then allow the search engine to rank your page higher and your potential audience would see your recipe.

3. Social Media

Gone are the days when Social Media was perceived only as a tool for teenagers to pass time chatting to friends online. Social media is one of the best ways for businesses to connect and engage with customers. Social Media Marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and other content that drives audience engagement on your business social media pages. With nearly half of the world’s population using social media platforms, they’re a natural place to reach new and highly targeted potential customers.

Most social media users log into their accounts at least once per day. Each Social Media network has its own terms of engagement. Your content plan needs to be cognizant of the fact that people go to Facebook for a specific type of content and that will differ from how they’ll consume content on Instagram or Twitter. When it comes to social media, you need to make sure you post regularly and offer truly valuable information that your ideal customers will find helpful and interesting. 

4. Email and Marketing Automation
The email has been around for years, but email is now different from what it was then, what changed? Personalization, personalization has made email more effective. To improve your email communications, start using email as a lead generation and customer engagement tool. Businesses that use email to educate customers about the brand have seen an increase in consumer engagement.

Email and Marketing Automation allows your brand to send communication automatically to customers based on certain actions or triggers. These emails make subscribers feel valued by your company and are used as ‘Welcome’ messages, ‘Thank you’ or Birthday messages among any other.

5. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing started as an experimental short-term tactic for marketing campaigns and grew to become a full-fledged marketing strategy. There was a lot of misconception that more followers meant more exposure, but brands are now looking at engagement and conversion as a true metric for influencer marketing. This is one digital marketing tactic that can not be overlooked. The impact of including the right influencers in your brand promotion strategy helps brands bring some real-life advocacy to their products/services.