There are hundreds of thousands of articles out there about the business potential of the internet. Sifting through this mountain of information can become overwhelming very quickly, whether you’re just starting out or already a seasoned entrepreneur.
However, the promise of digital marketing strategies is too irresistible to pass up – a surge in reach, tapping into new markets, doubling sales, and virtually infinite scalability.
This article will detail the best online marketing strategies in a way that will be immediately applicable to your business. All these strategies will have real-life examples to show you how effective they are.
That said, the best digital marketing strategies depend on your specific goal. Sure, these strategies can boost your overall online presence, but without an identified target like, say, increasing your sales, they may not be as effective.
And since you are in the business of selling a product or a service, this article will focus on the four most effective digital marketing strategies for sales, with examples.
Let’s dive in.
Content Marketing
If you have been reading internet marketing articles for a while, you have most likely encountered the phrase ‘content is king.’ – and for good reason.
This Forbes article points to the democratization of media and the customer-centric nature of content that makes it king, or in their words ‘something preeminent in its class.’
Content informs, entertains, engages, and offers value. Content is powerful because it focuses on the reader – their problems, their needs, and their goals, rather than the company’s or the brand behind the words. By talking about what they need, it helps with building:
- Your authority, since you have a good opportunity to display expertise
- Their trust, because then your relationship with your customer isn’t of a transaction-first nature; and
- Your relationship with your customers, because then they perceive you as a reliable source of help and information—and thus are more likely to buy from you when they’re ready
Taking a growth marketing approach (identifying other market segments, serving them with the content they need) will also increase the content opportunities with your customers.
Content is more than the words you publish on your website. It covers blog posts, ebooks, guides, infographics, images, podcasts, explainers and how-to videos. The important thing to remember is to talk to your audience in the language they will understand, with topics that are important to them.
You’ve probably heard of Investopedia. They are one of, if not, the biggest informational websites when it comes to all things finance-related. The site takes in around 20 million unique visitors each month. And they have a straightforward, if not simple, way of going about it:
- They break down the most complex financial concepts into easily comprehensible bits, and they use real-world examples.
- They build content structures that satisfy both readers and search engines.
Investopedia understands who they are talking to and how best to communicate with them. They also take into consideration the intent of people going through their page and make sure they offer solutions to existing, or future needs their audiences may have.
In this page explaining index funds, Investopedia quickly follows their title with the most important bits about the funds – they’re easy to use, have low fees, and perform relatively well.
Further below, they have key takeaways for those too busy to read the entire article, which shows a great understanding of their audience’s needs. They even end the piece with a list of pros and cons. Anyone simply scanning this content will likely learn more than if they were reading a 2000-word essay about the same topic.
If you apply these same principles in your own content, you can earn something more valuable than a one-time sale – trust and authority.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is an umbrella term that covers PPC or pay-per-click ads, social media ads, banner ads, and more. These are advertisements that businesses pay for to attract potential customers. When done right, these can be powerful tools for getting that surge in quality traffic your business needs.
Here are the two most popular types of paid advertising:
Google Ads
Google Ads is by far the most popular pay-per-click system. Advertisers target keywords that their potential customers may search for on the search engine and an ad appears alongside the results. Advertisers then pay a fee every time their ad is clicked.
The trick here is to come up with a creative ad that encourages the user to click and be routed to the advertiser’s website. Of course, the landing page has to fulfill whatever promise the ad made in order for the click to actually be worth it.
Snickers created an excellent Google Ads campaign with their ‘you’re not you when you’re hungry messaging.’ The ad was humorous and caught users off-guard.
Using the common misspellings of the 500 most-searched terms, the chocolate bar brand got the attention of 558,000 users in just two days.. Snickers showcased a creative use of data in marketing.
While it’s important to offer exactly what your audience is looking for, a little creativity can also go a long way in attracting potential customers to your brand. From a growth mindset, Google ads are a quick way to reach new/secondary markets that you may not have targeted before.
Social Media Ads
Not to be confused with social media marketing, social media ads are when advertisers pay to show their ads alongside people’s feeds on their social media platforms. These ads are so effective, HubSpot pegs spending on social media ads to exceed $47.9 billion this year.
When considering social media ads, it’s important to look into which platforms your audiences spend their time on. Facebook has a vast reach, for example, but your brand may be better served by Instagram’s inclination to visual communication if your products look good in photos, or appeals to a younger market.
A study on the demographics of social media by Pew Research, for example, found that:
- 77% of Americans aged 30-49 years old are using of have used Facebook, while
- 71% of 18-29 year-olds have used Instagram.
Dairy Queen wanted to promote their upside down or free policy for their Blizzard line using Instagram.
Since ice cream, and food in general, usually lends itself visually (case in point: there was probably at least one food shot in your feed today), the brand thought they could increase their sales and get life-long fans of their products with an upside-down photo of their frozen dessert.
According to Instagram, the campaign reached 20 million people. They had an 18% increase in ad recall amongst people between 25 to 34 years old – their target audience. But most importantly, they experienced a three percent increase in purchase intent.
The best social media platform for your ads is one where your audiences are spending their time on, and where you can showcase the strengths of your products and services the best. If you have a complicated product/service, explainers and how-to videos are ideal.
If it’s geared towards improving a process or simply making things better for people or businesses, creating content of these successful examples to feature on social media can be compelling for your audience.
Social Media Marketing
Similar to social media ads, the first consideration here is to find out which platform is applicable to your business. This involves developing a working understanding of each platform’s offerings and opportunities for businesses like yours.
- Twitter is used for short-form, quick content
- LinkedIn is used for professional networking
- Facebook has the most robust communities and marketplaces.
- Instagram is designed for the posting and sharing of photos and videos
The purpose of social media marketing is to engage with your target market on their terms. You can launch campaigns, tap platform influencers for promotion, and interact with your followers through comments, messages, and the like.
The most successful social media marketing campaigns are those that harness the power of the community. When these campaigns go viral, people know that there’s something interesting for themselves because it’s people like them that spread the word.
For example, in 2019, Spotify began their #yearwrapped campaign that basically summarized an entire year of listening for their users. This campaign took personalization to a whole new level. Users were excited to share their results on social. Spotify’s Wrapped playlists had over three billion streams.
Because the campaign was basically unique for every person, and was easily shareable on social media platforms, it generated a lot of interest in the brand. This is an excellent example of how business branding can drive sales.
People use social media for both a collective and personal experience. Leverage that when making your social media marketing campaigns and you will see a rise in sales.
The promise of digital marketing strategy is too irresistible to pass up – a surge in reach, tapping into new markets, doubling sales, and virtually infinite scalability.
SEO
Search engine optimization or SEO has had a few overhauls over the years. Since its inception Google has had to contend with marketers trying to game the system, relying on tactics that use the algorithm to their advantage. Keyword spamming, Google query automation, sneaky redirects, and other questionable methods now have no place in today’s digital marketing strategy.
It’s all about the user’s experience now. Search engines like Google have developed algorithms that are excellent at determining whether a web page offers value to a user or not. Factors like content, design, page speed, and optimization for mobile are all considered when ranking pages and websites.
User intent is also a major consideration. Google now understands what users want to find when searching the net.
In order to secure a top spot in search results, your pages need to let Google know exactly what they offer, relate that information to what your target audience is looking for, and deliver on that promise.
Creating content for multiple market segments, like different landing pages for different kinds of buyers, will not only help them convert better, but will also attract more traffic. Paired with strategically segmented social media and Google ads, an SEO campaign could see significant increases in visitors and leads.
In one of Google’s case studies, employment search engine site Jobrapido was able to increase their new user registration rate by 395% by simply adding structured data and creating a clearer, more optimized site structure for the different kinds of jobseekers with different industries, locations, countries. These pages were then optimized for their respective audiences with keywords and topics, further strengthening their SEO campaigns.
Conclusion
Digital marketing strategies have now become essential for businesses to thrive in the online frontier. The four mentioned here are the most effective strategies when it comes to driving sales growth.
While the benefits of SEO, PPC, and social media ads and marketing are considerable, a digital marketing plan that leverages them can have a lot of moving, interacting parts, especially if these digital marketing strategies are done in conjunction with each other (hint: they absolutely should). But the potential rewards, as the brands in this article show, far outweigh the costs.
Get more information, or better yet, get the help you need in applying these strategies in your business with our help. Connect with us through phone ((949) 791-9150), email (hello@crispx.com), or by visiting our contact page.