A brand without an online presence is like a bird without wings. Despite its best efforts, the brand won’t get where it needs to be any time soon. Today, companies need the right mix of internet marketing solutions to reach their goals. In this post, we take a closer look at digital marketing solutions that deliver immediate results and how a well-crafted virtual presence strengthens and elevates your brand’s physical existence.
Digital Marketing Solutions Connect Your Brand with Your Consumer
For the longest time, marketing has been about brands making a connection with consumers. However, for this connection to transpire, it needs to happen at the right time and the right place. So where do people spend the most amount of time these days? Well, online of course.
According to Statista, almost 4.57 billion people were active internet users as of April 2020, encompassing a whopping 59 percent of the global population. Not surprisingly, the top three countries in terms of internet users are China, India and the United States.
No matter what your line of business, you’re more than likely to have competitors. The more saturated the market the more fierce the competition. This means that if you want to stand out from competitors — and attract, engage and convert online visitors — you need to incorporate digital marketing solutions that elevate your online presence while delivering measurable, immediate results.
With so many global online users, websites and platforms, what is the best way to reach your target audience? Which solutions correspond with your brand’s identity? Do they align with your consumer archetype? Before we take a deep dive into digital marketing services, let’s start at the very beginning.
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing involves marketing efforts that utilize internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and platforms to promote products and services. These platforms or channels include search engines, social media, email and other websites that can connect and communicate with existing and potential customers.
Why You Need To Invest In Digital Marketing Strategies
With 4.57 billion people using the web, internet marketing solutions are crucial for the success of your businesses. Most brands have at least some online presence in the form of a website or at the very least an Instagram page. Today consumers expect and depend on a digital presence to find more information about your company. In a nutshell, if you want consumers to find your brand, buy your products, or use your services over your competitors you’ll need to adopt various digital marketing solutions.
So, What Makes a Digital Marketing Strategy so Great?
Your digital marketing ROI or return on investment, can be tracked and is highly measurable, unlike your more traditional marketing methods such as billboard or print advertising. Plus, if something isn’t working or providing the results you’re after, you can tweak your communication or adjust your target audience with just a few clicks. Much easier and less costly than re-running your print ad in another newspaper or moving your billboard to a different location, right? This is particularly important if you’re expected to report on your digital marketing ROI to a group of shareholders responsible for releasing marketing funds.
What Are the Most Popular Digital Marketing Services or Solutions?
Because there are endless angles one can take to building a great digital marketing strategy, your marketing agency can really get creative with online tactics that meet your business’ objectives and budgets. Below we take a look at some of the more popular digital marketing strategies and explain a bit more about how each can benefit your business:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Most people use the internet to search for a variety of products and services. And, those same people will only click on the web pages that sit on the first results page and sometimes, those on the second page. Strategic and skilfull SEO practices will push your company website to the first few search pages, making it more visible and in turn, generating more valuable leads. SEO is a cornerstone of any digital marketing strategy worth its salt.
“In numerous studies over the past 10 years, it’s been found that — on average — 75 percent of Google users will click on one of the first top-5 results on the first page of the search results when doing a search,” said Adam Hankey, Thrive Internet Marketing Agency SEM/SEO team director. “The results located farther down on the first page (positions 7-10) only get about 15% of the total clicks, while Page 2 (positions 11-20) combined will only get about 5 to 10 percent of the clicks. This data serves to emphasize our primary objective with organic SEO, which is to identify the search terms or keywords that people are actively using to search for your product or service. We then use this knowledge to ensure that your website, your content and your other online business listings are showing up for these keywords in those top 1-5 positions on the first page of Google.”
Social Media Marketing (SMM): Social media marketing is part of all digital marketing services as it positively impacts all other online marketing activities. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram can significantly increase brand exposure and drum up a lot of interest around your company. Each with their own individual perks, social media channels have a unique way of reaching people. Smart SMM practices will boost shares, mentions, interactions and reach, all the while targeting the users that are most likely to convert to customers.
“The beauty of social media is that it is ingrained into our daily routines so it allows for businesses to reach their target audiences in a natural way if done correctly,” said Nhi Shirley, Thrive’s social media director. “It also influences many of our purchasing decisions, the way we view the world and how we receive information. If a business isn’t on social media, they’re missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with their audience, build brand awareness and capture new customers and continue to keep their brand top of mind.”
Pay-Per-Click (PPC): PPC is implemented on platforms like GoogleAds, Facebook and Bing. As the name suggests, advertisers only pay for clicks, or when a user clicks through to a specific landing page. It’s a way of buying traffic to your website as opposed to earning visitors through organic methods such as SEO. While SEO works wonders for long-term growth, PPC will offer your company a quick and effective boost. If you have some budget to throw at your digital marketing strategy then implementing a paid media campaign is a quick, satisfying win.
“Advertising with paid ads is proven to be a profitable approach for companies of all sizes and industries, “ said Jacob Wulff, Thrive’s senior PPC manager. “PPC can result in quick website visitors and high quality conversions. Considering the benefits that PPC can offer, there is usually minimal risk in testing specific keywords to see where paid ads can move the needle for your business. You are also likely to gain valuable data about trends, search intent and new areas of growth for your business.”
Email Marketing: With the highest ROI out of all the digital marketing solutions, email marketing is not to be sniffed at. According to Campaign Monitor, for every $1 spent on email marketing $44 is made in return. And, did you know people who buy products advertised through email spend an average of 138 percent more than people who do not receive email offers?
“Email marketing campaigns are time-tested and proven to provide some of the highest returns out of all marketing efforts,” said Chad Bittle, Thrive’s email marketing manager. “When deploying email marketing campaigns, your audience is already full of warm leads, from past clients to prospective customers. The key is to keep your audience captivated and engaged. If a contact has provided you with their contact information, they have already initiated engagement and they want to hear from you today!”
Web Design and Development: A high-quality website paves the way for a smart and tactical digital marketing strategy. Often digital marketing strategies can’t reach full potential if users are sent to a website that is not user-friendly or outdated. Also, it’s important to note that your website is most likely the first impression and interaction consumers will have with your business. This is why custom, mobile-friendly, search engine optimized websites can have a positive impact on your company’s overall earnings.
“Your website is the single, most important marketing tool for your business,” said Jack Bonner, Thrive’s web team director. “It serves as a hub to showcase your brand, services offered and products you sell. Think of a website as a physical location, but online to more than 4 billion internet users. When you have a website that attracts customers to contact you or purchase items, then combine it with online marketing to drive traffic, you now have a winning formula to generate revenue.”
Along with the above digital marketing solutions, there are a number of other popular services that we have not touched on such as: video production, content writing, online reputation management, Amazon marketing services, conversion rate optimization (CRO), eCommerce web design and web hosting. Depending on your industry and target market, these tools can also build and promote your brand. To find out more about these additional internet marketing solutions, click here.
What Digital Marketing Solution Is Best Suited For My Business?
Digital marketing agencies such as Thrive, have teams that specialize in all of the above offerings. Armed with experience and expertise, they understand which service will support and accelerate a company’s unique set of goals. Thrive also has the know-how to use various digital marketing services to support and grow your company’s traditional marketing methods and campaigns.
For example, Thrive’s social media team can create a number of social posts to promote a series of webinars your company has recently launched. Next, the content creation team can write weekly SEO-rich blog posts that further expand on the topics addressed during the webinars. Finally, the email marketing team can create an email campaign to send to those customers who watched the webinar with more information on your company.
When choosing which digital avenue to take, companies will need to examine where their consumer archetype is most likely to engage and connect with their offering. Perhaps a wittily worded Facebook post? What about a right time, right place Google Ad? Or maybe a beautifully designed email? Remember, that key connection won’t happen if the right people aren’t seeing it in the first place.
Companies must also think about what platforms and methods best align with their brand’s identity and how they can echo their tone of voice. Selling vegan dog shampoo? Playful Instagram posts might be one way to go. Providing medical supplies? Perhaps keep it professional and informative with the use of whitepapers.
Fly Birdie Fly
As one digital marketing service feeds into and fuels the other, when correctly executed digital marketing solutions can be truly unstoppable. No matter your budget, brand identity and where exactly your audience can be found online, Thrive will tailor a digital marketing strategy to drive your brand awareness and lead generation while simultaneously promoting and growing your business.
Looking to expand your digital marketing strategies? Contact Thrive today to see how we can make your brand fly.
