In this chapter we'll be looking at the weapons in the digital marketer arsenal. In the battle for customers, higher ROI for advertising spend and ultimately, bigger profits are the target.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing:
Daily Search volumes run into the hundreds of millions and Search engines drive a huge proportion of all web traffic. Search is usually the first port of call for anyone looking for anything online. Those who seek online , Search.
Fundamentally, what makes SEM so effective is that you get found by potential consumers looking for the service you offer. So , provided you've got your keyword strategy right, you' re getting trageted traffic.
Serch Engine Marketing is divided into two distinct categories:
Paid Search and organic Search
Talk about paid Search and focus is Search Engine optimization or SEO.
They're similar enough to be classified together under SEM but they're different enough to warrant separate explanations.
PPC- Pay Par Click
It does just like it says on the tin . You Pay Par Click. Simple. Trageted. Effective. You buy sponsored adverts on Search Engine Results Pages ( SERPs), often displayed either above the normal " otganic" listings or across to the right hand side .The beauty of the system is that yiu're paying purely on a performance basis , that is when the ad i Clicked on.
A few points on PPC:
Advert positioning is based on a bidding system. At its simplest the highest bidder gets the highest ad placement.
A PPC campaign is dynamic strategic process. It needs to be closely monitored and managed to ensure maximum ROI . An appropriate keyword strategy is imperative to ensure the Clicks you pay for are as targeted as possible. The more targeted your traffic, the greater your conversion rates, and the better your ROI .
SEO - Search Engine Optimization:
Why pay for your clicks when you can get them for free ?
SEO is PPC's roommate in the house of SEM .
Strictly speaking, SEO is about optimising websites to achieve high rankings on the Search Engines for certain selected key phrases.
Sometimes called " organic " or " natural" optimisation, SEO involves making changes to thr HTML coad, content and structure behaind your website, making it more accessible for Search Engines, and by extension , easier to find by users, SEO rewards relevant, helpful websites that add value and give visitors what they're looking for.
SEO is an extremely cost effective way of generating new business to your site. Once your site rsnks highly on a Search Engine Results Page, you don't pay for any traffic that arrives at your site from that listing. SEO is a continuous process though; both to maintain rankings and improve rankings for other terms that may bring in relevant traffic.
Free clicks !
Well, not quite . But you're not paying per click, so over time ROI is excellent. Ideally PPC and SEO work synergistically to maximize Search Engine traffic.
Online Advertising:
Eyeballs. They're a large part of the traditional advertising equation. For brand awareness, you need your brand to be seen. Online Advertising is strongest on - adverts on websites, email newsletters and other electronic publications and is generally paid for on a Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) basis.
Unlike some of the other digital marketing techniques we've looked at, online advertising is not biased towards directly measurable. ROI. Rather, It provides a means for combining the brand awareness bias of traditional advertising techniques with the immediacy of Digital Marketing.
Affiliate Marketing:
What if you could combine the performance-based cost element of PPC with the brand awareness potential of Online Advertising?
In a manner of speaking, that 's what Affiliate Marketing does.
At its simplest, Affiliate Marketing uses affiliate partner websites to display your adverts, and pays them on a Cost per Acquisition ( CPA) basis . Advertisers earn a commission on sales generated.
So while you're increasing your brand visibility, you are only paying for Results. Additionally, you create revenue making opportunities for many other online publishers, helping to grow the digital marketing industry, giving you a warm fuzzy feeling.
Viral Marketing:
Word- of- mouth is probably the world's oldest from of marketing. Back when humans first started trading the things they traded, they'd likely find out about where to get what they needed from others. Collaboration and information sharing is a basic human trait and perhaps the one , which made us the dominant species.
Fast Forward to the modern world.
Word of mouth in an electronic context.
Self- replicating distribution techniques.
Exponential growth in campaign reach.
Viral Marketing uses the connectedness of the Internet and the social networks characteristic of electronic communication to build brand awareness exponentially.
People pass on and share things that provide value, especially when the costs of sharing are low, as is case online.
Think funny video clips, interactive flash games, competitions, images, text - in fact, viral marketing is limited only by the creativity of the digital marketer.
Anything that truly entertains,informs, amuses or intrigues the recipient is likely to be future distributed.
A well- orchestrated viral campaign harnesses this basic fact of human nature for the good of the brand.
ORM- Online Reputation Management:
More and more, consumers turn to the Internet for information about products, services and the companies that offer them.
Buying a new car ? Check out reviews online.
Thinking of getting in a new digital marketing agency? Find out what others have said online about their experiences.
Your company's reputation id is oit there on the web for all to see. Existing and potential customers care about that reputation. And so should you. People are talking. Good things and bad things. Praise and scorn.
Are you listening?
ORM means monitoring what's being said about you. Listening to what customers are saying.
It also means responding. Let your customers know that you hear them. Earn their trust with honesty and openness. Most importantly, engage them .Make them feel included and important and considered.
WebPR:
Business has moved online and public Relations (PR), that indispensable tool of brand awareness, has followed.
Now that most business is conducted on the Internet; the playground of PR has moved online. WebPR allows PR to reach its fullest expression because the potential for getting your brand ' out there' is limitless.
There is an assortment of ways to market your business globally through webPR. Vairous online channels like , Article Banks/Directory Site, industry related sites, as well as local and international News sites are used to distribute
content containing some element of your brand.
Online press releases must drive traffic to your site ( your website is not a fancy brochure; it is a marketing tool that needs visitors to become customers). To achieve this , press releases need to be optimised with the appropriate key phrasesand links.
The link posted at the end of a press release or feature article is a valuable source of driving internet traffic to your website. Writing interesting, high- quality articles on relevant topics and submitting them to content distribution sites is a greatway to effectively promote your website or brand.
Email Marketing:
Direct marketing via electronic means- email marketing is very powerful. It's also extremely cost effective, highly targeted, customizable, measurable and best of all, takes advantage of the consumer most prolific touch point with the internet, their inbox.
Email marketing is about building virtual relationships with existing and potential clients and maximizing the retention and value of these customers. Push your message out to your audience and let it pull them into contact with your company.
With a correctly built mailing list,you have direct access to a targeted audience. Customize and tweak your message, then measure and test to see what techniques are most effective for your particular market.
Conversion Optimisation:
You've built a fantastic site. You're bringing in lots of traffic thanks to the highly effective SEO, Email, PPC and webPR techniques we've discussed.
Job done? Not quite. To maximise ROI ,we need to make sure we turn traffic into customers. This is where conversion optimisation comes into play.
A Two phase Process- Before we can optimise, we need to analyse.
Analyse:
First we need analyse the collaborative effectvof our entire digital marketing effort,looking at the combined effectiveness of all our tactics.
We need to analyse:
● Website to analyse:
● Site analytics
● The relative ROI of each digital
marketing technique used
● split and multivariate testing.
● Any other available measurable.
This kind of analysis usto get a better idea for where the ineffectivenes are.
Optimise:
Simply put, this optimisation process is all about minimising the drop - off rate, and making the most of the traffic we're getting. Conversion is the whole reason the website exists.
Based on what we found with our analysis, we make incremental changes to the most inefficient favtors. Then we analyse again. And we keep doing so for each of the factors we' ve identified.
Testing:
If you want to know if something works, test it. Constant tweaking and testing means we can streamline our digital marketing techniques, fine - tuning them for our specific market.
In the long run , we' re maximising efficiency by jettisoning the least effective practises and focussing on those that bring the most benifit. Darwin would be proud.
Content Marketing:
Content Marketing means creating and sharing valuable free content to attract and convert prospects into customers, and customers into repeat buyers. The type of content you share is closely related to what you sell; in other words, you're educating people so that they know, like and trust you enough to do business with you.
Thebkey word here is " valuable". It's what change this definition from one that could describe almost any form of advertising or marketing. You can tell if a piece of content is the sort that could be part of a content marketing campaign if people seek it out, if people want to consumer it, rather than avoiding it.
Content marketing 's purposes is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior. It is an ongoing process that is best integrated into your overall marketing strategy, and it focuses on owning media , not reting it.
Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.
Content is the present- and future- of marketing.
" Marketing is impossible without great conent."
Regardless of what type of marketing tactics you use, content marketing should be part of your process, not something separate. Quality content is part of all forms of marketing:
Social media marketing : content marketing strategy comes before your social media strategy.
SEO: Search engine reward businesses that publish quality, consistent content.
PR: Successful PR strategies address issues readers care about , not their business.
PPC: For PPC to work , you need great conent behind it.
Inbound marketing: content is key to driving inbound traffic and leads.
Blogging or podcasts: The content can be in the form of a blog article, an image or a video.
Content strategy: content strategy is part pf most content marketing strategies.
Content Influencer Marketing
'Influencer Marketing is the practice of engaging internal and industry experts with active networks to help achieve measurable business goals.'
Influencer Marketing is becoming a bigger part budgets, and with good reason. Influencer marketing is the new king.
Blogers can be highly influential and are the third-most-consulted consumer decision tool for shoppers. The conent shared by your friends on a particular online store or a product is definitely more Influential than the brand content.
Consumers are more likely to trust Influencers than brand content. 92 percent of consumers trust recommendations from others, even people they don't know , over branded content. 70 percent say that online reviews are their second-most- trusted source.
There is already a lot of money in the Influencer Marketing space. 65 percent of brands participate in the market, 52 percent of companies have stand-alone budgets for sponsored social content and 25 percent have budgets in excess of multiple crores of rupees.
Influencer marketing is a type of marketing that focuses on using key leaders to drive your brand message to the larger market . Rather than marketing directly to a large group of consumers, you instead inspire / hire/ pay Influencers to get out the word for you
Influencer Marketing often goes hand-in-hand with two other forms of marketing: Social- media marketing and content marketing. Most Influencer campaigns have some sort of social- media component, whereby Influencers are expected to spread the word through their personal social channels. Manny Influencer campaign also carry a content element in which either you create content for the Influencers, or they create the content themselves. Through socal-media anf content marketing often fit inside Influencer campaigns, they are not synonymous with Influencer marketing.
Influencer can work to solve many shortcomings your company may have. Influencers can teach consumers about your products, lead search-enging-optimization authority, counteract negative feedback with positive feedback, increase sales and help with user-generated-conent.
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