Dan Purvis, Founder, and Director atComms Axis Ltd. outlines what matters most in digital marketing: SEO, marketing automationand content
Digital marketingOpens a new window has become a term we hear every day in business. Very much in vogue for the last year, but what is it? Some would try to simplify and say it is just the process of marketing through online channels. In reality, digital marketing is much more complex and nuanced than this, with many essential elements coming together to achieve success.
Of course, it is still a method of marketing and essentially leads to the same goals of brand awareness, brand advocacy, and sales leads, but there are multiple elements that work together to help deliver ROI and results.
Anyone new to digital marketing will probably be a little intimidated by the volume of acronyms from SEM to PPC to SMM they have to get to grips with. There is also an abundance of channels to get to know inside out – from websites to social media to email marketing softwareOpens a new window and beyond – let alone the variety of devices the audiences need to be targeted through, such as mobiles, tablets, laptops, desktops, and even smart watches.
The Digital Driver for Business Growth
With the huge number of elements involved in digital marketing, it can be easy to forget the core goal, which is (like any marketing discipline) business growth. Without increased sales, a digital marketing campaign is hard to justify and this is why it has developed quickly into a sophisticated operational department in its own right in many businesses.
Digital marketing and the related tools and technology involved is facilitating and boosting the relationship between sales and marketingOpens a new window , allowing for increased sales and business growth by proxy.
To achieve business growth through digital marketing, it is essential to focus in on the key aspects for success and below each is looked at in turn to get to grips with its meaning and how to get results. This article looks at three: SEO, Marketing Automation, and Content.
SEO
SEO is one of the longer term digital marketing focuses. It comes with the huge and highly attractive benefit of helping to improve a website’s position in search engine results pages (SERPs) and helps to deliver targeted traffic in higher volumes. Of course, to satisfy the traffic once it arrives the website needs to deliver and must incorporate design and content elements essential for SEO success. This means ensuring your website has clear CTAs, targeted landing pages, loads quickly and delivers a full and complete customer journey, with navigation to support this.
A lot of the success of SEO is down to research. Marketers must do their homework and get a real feel for their position in the market. Competitor analysis and research is a must, with the use of tools such as Google Keyword Planning Tool to assess search volumes and work out relevant and fitting keywords from there.
Such tools allow for experimentation, A-B testing, and creativity in keywords, to suit your specific niche. Long-tail keywords, in particular, can be highly effective at achieving fully targeted site visitors, as it allows for hyper-specific targeted keywords and that will serve up your site or landing page to those who are already interested in what you provide – it’s a way of pre-qualifying visitors to your site to help shorten the sales process.
While doing my own research on (and subsequently geeking out on!) SEO best practice for niche industries, I came across a great term coined by the Dental Marketing Guy who uses his own process of “velscoping your keywordsOpens a new window ”.(Click on the link to watch a video on the 2-Step Process to Determine if SEO is a Good Investment for You) Digging deeper, this is actually part of his broader strategic process called “the invisalinks method”, which I believe is applicable beyond dentistry and can be used for other specific niches. Velscoping your keywords is about knowing the rough value of SEO before you invest in it, helping prevent wasted time and/or money while enhancing your SERPs and traffic volumes and quality. Well worth checking out!
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation allows for some of the “less human” processes to be taken over by technology. There is a fine line between automating some elements of campaigns and allowing it to become robotic, but more and more businesses are incorporating automated elements into their wider digital marketing campaigns.
67% of marketing leaders currently use a marketing automation platform and research indicates there are nearly 11 times moreOpens a new window (Click on the link to read about The Ultimate Marketing Automation statistics overview)
B2B organizations using automation today in 2017 than there were in 2011. It’s an enabling tool which speeds up processes and streamlines your digital marketing efforts.
Marketers must never forget the importance of personalization in delivering conversions and building relationships. Marketing automation had developed a bit of a bad name as companies began to use it lazily and ineffectively, with spam-style email marketing and no degree of targeting at all.
Incorporating marketing automation into your digital marketing strategy is becoming a necessity but you do need to tread carefully. A/B testing has to be constant, rigorous and acted upon to ensure that all your automated processes are fine-tuned and developed as required.
Content
Many marketers roll their eyes when they hear the age-old adage “content is king” but it cannot be ignored. Without content, be it visual or text, how can you tell your business story? How can you help and deliver the wants and needs of your target audience?
A digital marketing strategy that does not revolve around content will not get you very far. Content needs to be at the heart of your digital marketing strategy and with the many types of content to incorporate, you need to strike a fine balance. Frequent, written content such as blog posts, white papers, and downloadable resources need to come alongside visual content such as infographics, photos, GIFs and video content.
Understanding and combining these core aspects of digital marketing will go a long way to delivering success in your campaigns. Each aspect is as important as the last and they come together to deliver your overall strategy and help in the central goal of driving business growth.
