A (Busy) Year in the Life of Digital Marketing

Come on already. We’ve just jumped feet first into Q2 and you know you can’t ignore digital marketing any longer. This is the year for clarity. It’s time to engage experts you trust, marketing and communications pros who understand your business goals and can guide you through some of the most innovative ways to increase engagement with your audiences.

But before we jump any further, let’s clarify what digital marketing is.  

Digital marketing encompasses marketing efforts that use an electronic device or the web to leverage channels like search engines, social media, email, and websites to connect with current and prospective customers. It’s getting the right messages in front of the right people at the right time so that they’ll engage you for your products or services.

It’s really not too different than what you’re probably doing now, but the things you can do with it change almost daily, and you don’t want to be left behind.

There are three quick things everyone needs to understand about digital marketing:

1.     Forget the ego-metrics. It doesn’t matter how many people come to your website if they’re not engaging with your content while they’re there. Are they clicking through to read more about what you do? Are they reading a blog that positions your company as an expert in the industry? Are they filling out a form asking for a consultation? Many CEOs today only ask about visits to the website, but it’s not about that at all. We call them ego-metrics, and they aren’t worth the time.

2.     Don’t be a slave to SEO. Stop writing to the SEO words and just write good content that speaks to the needs of the audience. Agencies charge an arm and a leg for SEO, but if your content isn’t engaging, it really doesn’t matter. The Search will come to you if you really have something of value to say.

3.     Just write well. Writers today should be the happiest people on earth, because the internet is a voracious beast swallowing up content every nanosecond. Find a good writer (or several) who understand the nuances of your business and the needs of your customers, and let them at it. Give consideration to the information your potential clients really need, and give it to them. Positioning your firm as the industry leader through good, solid content that’s well written will bring business. Promise.

So, what’s the problem?

 Companies get frustrated with their digital efforts for a few reasons:

1.     The leadership doesn’t “get it.” The CEO says “I don’t use Facebook,” which translates to “Facebook is useless for us.” That’s a focus group of one, and it’s the wrong way to move forward.

2.     The leadership doesn’t understand the value digital marketing can bring. As with everything we do, proving the ROI is crucial, which is where back-end tools (like HubSpot and others) can provide more analytics than you’ll ever need.

3.     Companies often begin with no strategy and no process. Instead, they jump from tactic to tactic and are surprised when they don’t yield anticipated results. It’s important to take a breath, give the process some perspective, and start with your business goals and a digital marketing strategy. 

Understanding the step-by-step process of how a potential customer might purchase your services – the buyer’s journey – is crucial to success in digital marketing efforts.

That buyer’s journey has three stages:

1.     AWARENESS – The first step is when a potential buyer realizes they have a problem or an issue that needs a solution.

2.     CONSIDERATION – When the potential customer begins to consider how they might solve the problem and/or where to look for assistance.

3.     DECISION (The Holy Grail!) – When the decision-maker chooses a service that they believe will help solve their problem.

Getting your head around all of this takes time, and as we like to tell our clients, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

For you visual learners out there, and as part of our Clarity Playbook, we created a 12-month digital marketing calendar, taking you through what we do each month in the first year of a digital marketing campaign.

What you’ll see just begins to scratch the surface of what can and should get done; we wanted to provide a glimpse into the digital marketing cycle and the ongoing need for content, content, content.

If you have questions, or you want to talk about what you’re doing – or could be doing, let’s talk.