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How To Beat Your Competition With Digital Marketing

If you are like me, you would have been taught marketing, now called traditional marketing, (i.e. advertising/sales promotion/PR). It historically placed a premium on awareness building and transactions, but then declined in importance due to a combination of message clutter, time pressed consumers, the fragmentation of media and the growth of people using the internet to research what others are saying about products/companies. In those days, digital marketing seemed to be just a collection of acronyms and funny words (SEO/SEM, permalinks, long tail key words, meta tags, meta descriptions, and website crawling that the tech guys understood.

Nowadays, buyer behaviour has changed the buying cycle and how people shop and this has forced marketers and businesses to understand and utilise where their audience is shopping and ‘hanging out’.

Businesses want to be successful in marketing but don’t how to bridge traditional marketing versus the world of digital marketing and aren’t getting a whole lot of help from providers.

Here are 8 steps to help you beat the competition with digital marketing:

1. I love it when a plan comes together

A truly effective digital marketing communications plan will deliver results when aligned with your goals, wider marketing and brand strategy, with a specific goal-driven measures.  For example, how can you offer your customers the best customer experience if you don’t know what worked in the past and you don’t know what your goals/plans are for the future?

 2. Who is your buyer persona?

Go beyond the usual demographic data and get under your skin of your target customers. What are their motivations, aspirations and pain points? Understanding the needs of your audience is critical to the success of marketing. Personas will help you to identify and communicate their needs efficiently and effectively.

 3.       For the king of marketing 

Content is king. Invest in your digital marketing communications budget in high quality, relevant content,including infographics, videos, blogs, etc. Businesses that make content development part of their marketing strategy can really stand out from the crowd and gain a clear advantage over their competition.

 4.       Stay focused and relevant

Be single minded in the message you are trying to communicate. Don’t bombard your audience with multiple messages.  We all know, too much of a good thing can cause ill will among the recipients of these never-ending messages. First, there’s the actual communication (e.g., a blog post or email blast). Then it can get circulated further via Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media. Depending on how your network is set up, recipients can feel bombarded with your posts, tweets and, in too many cases, seemingly endless sales pitches.

 5.       Multichannel marketing

Integrate digital marketing into your wider marketing plans and resources. For example, QR codes, social media pages on print, events, outdoor advertising etc. Take a holistic approach and put together integrated marketing strategies and campaigns that will drive visitors to your website and convert those visitors into leads.

 6.       Work in partnership with a digital marketing agency

There are many good creative agencies (and some excellent ones) who are skilled at interpreting messages for different audiences. Find one that fits your budget and is willing to understand your business and culture. The strength of Sprout Traffic is we aim to listen to and understand your business challenges and then take appropriate action, through assessing your situation and identifying your vision.

 7.       Test and adapt

Don’t rely on instinct. Test approaches to marketing offers and be creative wherever possible – particularly with direct mail, email and Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns. Learn from the results and adapt campaigns accordingly.

 8.       Monitor and measure

We live in a world of real-time metrics for email, online and social platforms. Access this instant and powerful data regularly to deliver maximum business results. For example, Google analytics is an excellent tool to measure your website activity and what channels your traffic is coming from.

Are you ready to get ahead in digital marketing? Is your business already involved in digital marketing and not getting the results?

Download our essential guide on how to create an inbound marketing strategy to help you answer these questions.

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