Between Google Digital Garage and HubSpot courses, anyone can be a successful Digital Marketer, right? Wrong. In an industry that reinvents itself every few years, how do you pin down the digital marketing strategies that actually work?
In this episode of the Mind Meld PR vlog series, we spoke to Kemp Edmonds, Director of Marketing and Technology at Digital Media Academy on digital marketing strategies that catapult your business in this online world.
Edmonds was part of Hootsuite during its initial development as Canada’s first digital marketing tool, and played an integral part of the Digital Marketing and Social Team at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Check out episode #10 of the vlog, or keep reading to get the low-down on digital marketing strategies that actually work.
How do you choose the right digital marketing strategy?
“As with other parts of your business, it comes down to cost management.
“Understanding the funnel from awareness to intent and how you drive customers through that. Which method is most appropriate for awareness versus intent?
“With marketing, you need to be thinking how your actions lead to revenue. Is it driving revenue? How is it driving revenue? Can I track it? How can I track it and what can I do to track it?”
You can use tools such as Google Analytics to make sure the strategies you select to conduct aren’t wasting your team’s time or money. Edmonds highlights the importance of understanding your customer and their buying behaviours, patterns and intentions.
‘ROI’ isn’t just for investments or sales. Employ this perspective before implementing a new strategy, or marketing software. Do the benefits outweigh the costs?
Create value for your specific audience, not someone else's
You need to ask, “What do I really know about my customer?”
Look at bounce rate and the time spent on your site. Edmonds suggests listing related articles on the side of your web pages that are of value to your audience as you want to be able to answer, “How do you keep engagement and interest?”.
It’s not just about the content you use, but the form it takes.
Live by the “Market to Marketers” mindset. Give them the content they want in the way that they want it. Don’t underestimate the value of market research here.
If you’re targeting the age group 60-80, would you use Twitter as your main platform?
Trying to get into the heads of teenagers and young adults? Direct mail may not be the quickest route there.
Be lazy. Don’t create new content, repurpose existing material that works.
This comes down to something we advise our clients all the time: “Use, reuse, adapt.”
PR involves a heavy amount of content production to get media coverage for your company. Pitches, press releases, blogs, thought leadership, social media, the list goes on. Which means at the end of a campaign, you’ve got a library of on-brand content to run with.
Edmonds emphasizes the importance of constantly aggregating content and putting it into multiple formats to best reach your different audiences depending on their lifestyle.
Reposition content. A piece that was once destined for a newspaper can be adapted into a series of tweets.
When and where should you reach your audience?
To optimize your results with digital marketing strategies, Edmonds suggests narrowing your targets. Throw out the spray-gun.
“Industry and region – those are the key things (if you’re targeting for B2B marketing).”
Who is your audience? In one case, Edmonds identified his target customer as parents with young kids. 9a.m. on a Tuesday may appear to be the best time to post on LinkedIn, but not according to parents on a school run.
On the contrary, putting out a LinkedIn post on a Sunday to push content may also not be optimal either. The platform is strongly associated with the workplace, not ideal for the weekend.
Consider all factors when trying to get your consumers’ attention.
The digital marketing strategies that convert customers into profit
“You need to have a defined path for that and understand the flow.”
When it comes to digital marketing, online free trials are great. But you do need customers to eventually spend money, and setting that timeline can be tricky.
Again, this comes down to understanding your audience and their behaviours. Let’s look at the classic freemium model of marketing.
“Freemium has to be a scaled down version of what you offer. You need to know a certain percentage of your customers are going to spend the money for the upgrade.”
You draft a plan to offer a free service with premium quality. Although the introduction is complimentary, your aim is to make them want more.
You develop a timeline to dictate the flow and eventually further entice them to financially invest or purchase with the promise and execution of next level services or product.
This makes it worth their while, but without missing out on financial opportunity.
“Marketing is sales and storytelling at scale. Public relations is a multiplier.”
Digital marketing strategies are one cog of a bigger communications strategy, involving sales, public relations and advertising.
You might have your marketing down, but need a boost of coverage. How do you go about building a PR strategy?
We can help. Reach out to a tech PR agency now to learn what goes into a PR campaign.