Google says shoppers start their buying journey online more than 60% of the time. That’s what makes digital marketing so valuable. It puts your brand and products in front of people who are actively shopping for what you sell.
But digital marketing is highly competitive. Entrepreneurs need smart, detailed strategies to beat out the more established competition. This quick-start guide covers everything you need to know to start developing your own digital marketing strategy.
Understanding Your Audience
Digital marketing is most effective when it’s targeted. This means sharing your content or paid ads with people who have already demonstrated some interest in your brand, its products, or the broader industry.
To do that, you first need to know who your audience is. You can figure this out by asking yourself what types of people buy your products. You may find commonalities in their interests, age ranges, geographic locations, or something else.
Once you understand your audience, you get a better idea of the kind of content you need to share to attract them. For example, if most of your buyers are under 30, you should prioritize the content types and platforms that are most popular with that age group.
Note that you don’t have to do all this research yourself. You can review analytics for your website and social media pages instead. Or if you’re just getting started, perform the same analysis on a competitor’s website and social media pages.
Building a Strong Online Presence
Once you understand your audience, you should start building a website that will appeal to them. This is where you’ll direct people who encounter your brand on other channels, like social media.
A little over 60% of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices — so your website has to be mobile-friendly. It should also look professional so people take your new business seriously.
Your website can also help you find new customers through search engine optimization (SEO) marketing. We’ll talk more about this in the next section.
Content Marketing
Content is where the rubber meets the road in digital marketing. It’s how you attract more members of your target audience to your site. Content marketing strategies often include blogs, infographics, social media posts, and videos.
Videos and social media posts can help you attract a younger audience, while infographics are great for reaching potential customers on LinkedIn. However, a company blog may generate more leads over time than anything, when done right.
That’s because blog posts fit into your SEO strategy. This means creating content around keywords that people search for on Google. For example, if you sell supplements, you might share a blog post titled “Top Dietary Supplements for 2024.”
If your content is good and contains the right keywords, it may appear within the top three results on Google. These results get 68.7% of all clicks — so appearing there can bring a ton of traffic to your site. Plus, it’s entirely free!
That free aspect is what makes SEO marketing so appealing. When done well, it can reliably generate leads for years without taking anything from your marketing budget.
Social Media Marketing
Social media can also help you find new customers. That’s why many entrepreneurs create accounts on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
You can pay to advertise on these sites, but organic posts have the best ROI since they’re free. Your goal should be to consistently share content that's interesting or valuable to your target audience.
This will help you build a following over time. As that happens, your posts will get more engagement and reach an ever-broadening audience.
You can do even better by engaging your audience directly through polls and question-answering sessions. These can help create brand loyalty by showing consumers you care about their feedback and opinions.
Email Marketing
Some estimates say email marketing has an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent. This makes it another potentially valuable addition to your digital marketing arsenal.
You can start by creating an email list and encouraging customers to sign up. Incentivizing them with discounts or opportunities to win something can build your list faster.
Then you can send emails that encourage people on your list to make new purchases. For example, you can share upcoming sales with them, or you can send messages that highlight the benefits of your products.
Paid Advertising
You can use any of the digital marketing strategies we’ve covered until now without paying a dime. But if you want to grow faster, paid advertising is worth considering as well.
This mostly means paying social media platforms or Google for pay-per-click (PPC) ads. These are automatically shown in a user’s social media feed or Google search results — you don’t have to get them there yourself.
This can put more eyes on your brand sooner, but only if your paid ads are effective. You may need to test several versions of an ad or look at its analytics to refine it and optimize your results.
Analytics and Tracking
Finally, it’s vital to track the performance of whatever digital marketing strategies you use. This is the only way to figure out if your tactics are working or if they need to be adjusted.
The specific metrics you track can vary based on your campaigns. For example, when considering the efficacy of your SEO marketing, you might look at the amount of traffic your blog is getting. Or if you’re marketing on social media, you could look at engagement metrics.
The key here is understanding which metrics can tell you whether a strategy is working or not. It’s fine if something doesn’t work, but you need to know that so you can quickly make adjustments.
Pyromaniac Digital Helps Entrepreneurs Succeed With Digital Marketing Faster
Let’s face it — digital marketing is complicated. There are so many channels to consider, metrics to track, and posts to write that it’s difficult to make fast progress as an up-and-coming entrepreneur.
That’s why Pyromaniac Digital exists. We simplify digital marketing by doing everything for you. Just tell us a bit about what you hope to achieve, and we can get you started in no time at all.
So why wait? Get in touch today to take the first step toward your digital marketing goals.
