Top Tips for Basic Digital Marketing

Digital market is now an integral part of all marketing activities. The web is in almost every part of our lives and the online world is now just a touch away.

As marketers, there are a number of easy and low cost strategies to make the most of the online sphere

1. Pick your platforms

Every day there are new social media platforms created. From the well known sites such as Facebook and Twitter to lesser known ones such as Bebo and AskFM, it is important to choose the platforms that are most relevant to your business. The three most popular social media platforms in Australia are

1. Facebook
2. Youtube
3. Tumblr

These are a place to start, but it is also worth noting which platform is best suited by looking at their specific features and advantages

2. Consistent visual identity across platforms

An important part of marketing is branding, what your company looks like online and offline. Can customers identify your company with one look? Or do they actually have to think about it?

A crucial part of digital marketing is ensuring that csutomers can identify your brand with ease across social media platforms and websites, this may involve using similar colour schemes and images, and consistent language.

Before you launch any new site, its a good idea to get a fresh pair of eyes to look over your overall online branding to see if they can make the connection between the platforms.

3. Market to your target segments

Not every person uses every social media platform, they all have different features that appeal to different segments so it’s worth investigating how your specific market interacts online.

Sites such as Pew Research often run studies about how markets use the internet so its worth doing some basic research before starting any new campaign.

How do you use digital marketing to further your business?

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The rise of the Digital Influencers

As the world moves to more online measures, the marketing sphere must find new ways to connect with consumers.

And so the ‘Digital Influencer” was born.

The term digital influencer refers to an individual who has a significant social media following, that is able to influence and guide their followers in a variety of fields such as fashion, lifestyle and travel.

Harper Bazar interviewed Danielle Berstein who revealed just how lucrative the digital influencer market is.

“Industry estimates say brands spend more than a $1 billion per year on sponsored Instagram posts.”

While the market for digital influencers is vast, it is also important for these individuals to make sure that their relationships are in line with the company values. 

There are a number of companies who send out products  with the hope that bloggers or influencers will post photos of their wares, however a number these transactions are now brokered through agencies and tend to look towards more mid to long term projects.

As marketers, developing relationships with influencers can be very profitable for the company. But it is important to make sure their values are in line with the brand values and that the relationship is mutually beneficial.

Who would you choose to become a digital influencer for your brand?

Top tips for Search Engine Optimisation

SEO, SEO, SEO. A term thrown around so often on the internet. But what does it really mean?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation and refers to activities that attempt to improve search engine rankings on sites such as Google, Bing and Yahoo

Some of the tools used in Search Engine Optimisation

This can be an important tool for marketers and business owners to increase the chance to business and awareness in customers when they search for certain terms on the web.

“Search engines typically assume that the more popular a site, page or document, the more valuable the information it contains must be”

Increasing a company or brand’s SEO can be a very complicated and convoluted process, however there are a number of simple actions and activities that can be undertaken to get started

1. Use Keywords

Keywords are a crucial part of SEO as they help the search engines to sift through masses of information to find query matches. To make the most of this tool, it is important to use consistent messaging across your website and social media platforms.

Examples of this would include using a ‘tagline’ when describing your product or service (e.g. BARLEYmax, The Healthy Grain) or when describing the product on your website or social media, referring it to by name rather than a general term (E.g. Weetbix is full of wholegrains, rather than – the cereal is full of wholegrains)

2. Create a website that is information rich

Sometimes even the most beautifully designed functional website can have content that is overlooked by search engines. These may include certain images, flash files, java and other files that are not valued by SEO.

Luckily there are ways to see what content is available! Websites such as MozBar and SEO Browser exist to show you what the search engines see by removing the “drama” of the website so that only text appears.

3. Use Descriptions

Describe, Describe, Describe

Another way to combat unreadable data is by using descriptions.

Describe your images, pages and links. Search engines can use these descriptions in the absence of text of viewable content to match search queries.

Another benefit of description is the chance to be optimised by Google Images (e.g. naming images Chobanitub1 rather than image1)

**It is also important to accurately describe your links (e.g. http://www.monsu.org.au/studentrights for a specific page about student rights)

The Internet of…. Things?

Over the last decade, technology has developed in leaps and bounds. Wearable technology is now a significant part of our lives with mobile apps and My Fitness Pal such as Fitbit and Apple Watch. But what impact does this have on consumers? And how can marketers make the most of this new trend?

Wearable technology includes devices such as the Apple Watch

The data collected by this wearable technology is called the ‘Internet of Things’ and is defined by Mckinsey as

“Linking machinery, equipment and other physical assets with networked sensors and actuators to capture data and manage performance, enabling machines to collaborate and even act on new information independently”

In simpler terms, the Internet of Things is a network of technology or objects that communicate with each other to collect and exchange data.

This provides a wealth of information to target their key messages and promotions to their customers. They are able gather this information through the connections made between technological objects. Examples of this include Fibits and wearable technology and smartphone applications.

For marketers this can not only help to distinguish messages but also to find out more intricate information about sales, promotions and customer feedback. Allowing for a much more fluid and interactive relationship between consumer and company.

As technology continues to rapidly advance, the Internet of Things has limitless potential. From anything to ‘smart’ refrigerators that can alert the user when products are going off, to roads and railways that can alert relevant authorities when maintenance is required.

How as a marketer can you make the most of the Internet of Things?

Mobile Matters

Online shopping is a dangerous world. It starts off as an innocent look between classes and before you know it, you’ve spent the entire class and your weekly pay check on something you probably don’t need.

Retail is rapidly changing both online and offline, with shoppers using social media more than ever before making a purchase.

Essential Retail reports that on average, women require two ‘likes’ on social media, and men need four ‘likes’ before committing to buy.

Gaining approval from friends and acquaintances is nothing new when making purchases, however the rise of social media it is much faster and easier to gain instant gratification.

Platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram are leading the way as photosharing applications, as consumers can use this to seek inspiration before purchase and share their products after buying.

This change in shopping habits is best found in the increased amount of time spent in store. Typically shopping in stores averages around 16 minutes, however this number doubles to 31 minutes when seeking approval from friends, online.

Do you post online before purchasing? Does this have an impact on your purchasing decision?

Started from the bottom (now measure we’re here)

It’s all good and well to have a fantastic and all inclusive digital/social media marketing plan, but if you can’t conclusively measure it, how do you know it’s worked?

Measurement and evaluation are one of the key aspects to any campaign (as my uni lecturers continuously tell me) so here are some great apps and websites to help you along the way

Facebook Insights

An obvious one to use, for the most popular social media platform in the world, however many are not aware of its full capabilities.

Not only can you differentiate between “engaged” users and those who have just scrolled past your post in their timeline, you can also view specifics such as page visits, and what the visitor looked at specifically.

If used correctly, Facebook Insights is a great tool to find out specific information about your target audience, and how best to use your marketing plan to engage with them

Google Analytics 

If you’re like many small businesses/people in Australia, you probably run your website through WordPress or a similar platform. The upshot of this, is the great analytics you have access to.

Some of the tools include

• Average session duraiton
• New vs returning visitors
• Page views
• Geographical information
• Type of access (Mobile/desktop etc)

This style of information is particularly useful when discerning the target segments of your audience. Using geographical and access data which can help to determine what kind go content is most suited to various access points (i.e. is your website mobile friendly?) and what content is most suited. It can also help to determine what content has been the most successful and engaging by measuring the number of ‘clicks’ before and after.

Twitter Analytics

Only established in the last year, Twitter’s built in analytics are a blessing for any organisation. Twitter differentiates itself from other analytic platforms by focusing on the followers of accounts, and account specifics, with a possibility of paid functionality which gives further insights into click throughs and app information.

One of the most useful functions is the ‘Top Follower’ which gives information about specific followers of the account, and other information about the demographics and interests of the follower base 

Measuring and evaluating your online data is a crucial part of any marketing plan, how else do you measure your online success?