Digital marketing has been changing quickly over the last decade—even in the last two to three years! Most startups and small businesses have realized the importance of doing digital marketing, however not all strategies hit their goals.
Do you know and understand which digital marketing strategies work best for your business, industry and target audience?
If you don’t, that’s ok! That’s what we are here for.
Here are 5 of the best and worst digital marketing strategies of 2021…
The best
- Email marketing. One of the main benefits of email marketing is that it has the highest ROI (return on investment) of all forms of marketing, averaging about $42 in return for every $1 spent. It is a cost-effective solution that allows you to personally reach out to your target audience in a place they most likely visit every day. It’s an easy way to personalize and segment your audiences, messages, promotions and more.
Here are some tips for launching successful email marketing campaigns:
- Make your subject line catchy, engaging and concise
- Avoid jargon in the body of the email. Use plain and persuasive language
- Optimize emails for mobile devices
- Use bullets points to direct readers to the most important points you want to make in your message
- Social media marketing. According to a Social Media Examiner’s report, 90% of marketers admit that social media is important to the success of their business marketing plans. And 89% of marketers believe their social media campaigns increase exposure for their company. But it takes more than just creating accounts and logging on once in a while. You need to make sure you are creating high-quality content and engaging with your audience. Our team at PSC can create a content plan for you as well as post and engage with your followers.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Just because you have a website online doesn’t mean visitors will find you. In fact, you have to work to keep up with the competition and to make sure you are ranked high in search engine results. This means staying consistent with SEO…utilizing keywords in your website text, keeping an updated blog, creating backlinks and more. SEO will increase traffic to your website and build trust among those searching for you (or a business like you). Being ranked high on Google gives the impression you are reputable.
Check out our Beginner Guide to SEO to learn more about how to increase your visibility, relevancy and website ranking.
- Creating relevant content. Creating content for all of your digital channels that is relevant to your target audience is key to your campaigns. You need to create content that is credible, accurate, compelling and easy to read across all of your email campaigns, websites, landing pages, ads and more. The voice you use across all of these should be consistent as well. Need a content writer? We have several on our team that can help!
- Measuring analytics and making improvements. All of the steps listed above are pointless if you’re not measuring the analytics of each of them and making necessary adjustments and changes to make your campaigns more successful. There are plenty of free tools available to help you do this. But you should always be able to measure your ROI.
The worst
- Not dialing in on an SEO strategy. While SEO can be one of the best things you do, it can also be your worst. That’s because what works today may not work tomorrow, next week or next month. SEO practices are always changing so it’s important to really have a strategy nailed down that you’re willing to adjust. This is where working with a digital agency (like us!) can really be beneficial.
- Not creating new content. For SEO purposes and the purposes of your campaigns and social media, you need to make sure you are creating new content. This includes keeping an active blog, creating new whitepapers or case studies, linking to other content and sharing articles that relate to your audience. Another great idea is to foster relationships with your customers to share their success stories and testimonials on your website, in emails or on social media.
- Posting on social media without a goal. Just posting on your social accounts won’t do you any good anymore. In fact, there are algorithms and rules now that make getting content in front of your followers even harder. Your posts should always try to:
- educate, inspire and entertain
- ask questions, share facts and how-to’s
- encourage engagement, comments, sharing and likes
- use captivating photos, videos, etc.
- include calls to action that drive your audience to do something
- Not incentivizing your customers. Ever heard of referral marketing? One of the easiest ways to promote your business is by letting your own customers do it for you. Launching and running a referral program can be a way to increase profits and drive prospects to buy from you. Referral codes are easy to share via email and social media.
You also want to remember to occasionally offer discounts and promote sales to your own customers. Coupons can build stronger relationships and increase customer loyalty.
- Not converting website visitors to customers. Your website should be a powerful inbound marketing tool, converting traffic to customers for you. Here are some basic things to remember in order for it to do that though…
- your website should be easy to navigate through
- design should be simple with the e-commerce page easy to spot and find
- it should be fast and mobile friendly
- it should include calls to action buttons
There are just a few best and worst practices in digital marketing for small businesses and startups like you!
Need personal advice and recommendations on what you need to do to improve your strategies?
Related content: How to effectively integrate your email marketing and social media campaigns
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