Boosting Commercial Performance Through Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a relatively new way to get a product in front of the right people and make those all important sales. There are plenty of similarities to be found between digital and traditional marketing, though the specifics tend to differ greatly, meaning that a new approach and specialism is needed by those looking to market online compared to those who still only use traditional marketing.
There is still a strong need for traditional marketing techniques, but as more and more consumers shop increasingly online every year, the push that brands feel to add digital to their offering becomes more pressing. In fact, the majority of people prefer to shop online rather than in person as they feel it is much more convenient and allows them to find exactly the right product or service.
The online market is a highly saturated market which leads to high levels of competition between brands. This makes it difficult for a brand to stand out from their competitors and win web traffic, and so digital marketing is a popular choice as it helps to overcome some of these issues.
What is digital marketing?
Pretty much any conscious action taken to promote a brand or product online can be considered to be digital marketing, however there are some well established techniques which are proven to drive improvements to a company’s online performance. Online retailers should always try to make use of these proven digital marketing methods as much as they can, as this will give them a distinct edge over others operating in the same niche.
In this article, we’ll focus primarily on ‘owned media’ channels, where the focus is organic, unpaid growth in visibility, however we will also touch upon some ‘paid media’ options. With so many marketing channels, and so many facets within each, it can appear overwhelming. Remember that a good agency can advise you, guide your overall strategy, and work alongside other agency partners as part of a wider team. If you’re an ecommerce brand, selling to customers online via a magento website, for example, then you might want your magento development agency to talk to your SEO agency and your social media agency. The key is to integrate the thinking of all of your specialists so that everybody is working to the same goals.
Core Digital Channels
Social media is one of the key digital marketing channels which allows brands to connect with their audiences in a personal and engaging way. If a company can make effective use of social media they can create a loyal following which is a good source of repeat custom. Loyal and engaged customers are also more likely to assist in promotion of a brand by engaging with their posts, sharing their content, and tagging people they know.
Social media strategy often makes use of both paid ads and organic posts to capture new visitors and to provide new, fresh content for their followers. Social media is the place where brands should show their personality and not be afraid to carve an identity for themselves. The more personable a brand can be while keeping things appropriately professional, the more likely their message will resonate with visitors to their social media profile and website.
PR forms another important part of the digital marketing mix, giving brands the opportunity to tell their story in a way they have good control over. Good PR goes a long way to getting a brand’s name out there in a favourable way, but PR disasters can also happen which is why it is a good idea to make use of a reputable PR agency which understands the needs of the business. PR can be anything from company news which has a general interest either for the public or within their commercial niche, to blogs and articles featured on other websites.
Search engine optimisation, usually shortened to SEO, is one of the most technical yet effective digital marketing techniques that brands can adopt. It works well as a standalone method, but also ties in to other techniques such as PR and social media strategy. The goal of SEO is to improve a company’s online presence in such a way that it aligns with the search engine algorithms which are used to decide the order websites will appear in when a user makes a search for relevant keywords using a search engine.
The more highly a site ranks, the more people are likely to see it and click through. Placing highly in search engine results pages (SERPs) gives the website an air of reputability and most users are reluctant to engage with brands that appear further down than the second page of search engine results. The good thing about SEO is that companies do not need to overstretch budgets to see performance improvements, they really only need to do as much as or preferably a little more than their direct competitors to snatch those top results spots.