There’s a popular misconception that a website, a scattering of social channels and a database of customers makes for a digital strategy.
There’s a popular misconception that a website, a scattering of social channels and a database of customers makes for a digital strategy.Whilst it’s true that all those channels need to be in place, effective digital marketing is about making them all work together. With that in mind, I thought I’d pop together a few tips to guide you in how to do exactly that…
Your Website:
- Can your website visitors discover how to connect with you on social networks from every page on your website?
- Do you have a newsletter sign up form on every page of your website? Ensure there’s a clear call to action, we’ve all become very cagey about sharing our email addresses, so there needs to be a benefit for your customer to hand over their address.
- Blog regularly! Create helpful, engaging posts that answer your prospects questions and solve their problems. Then drive traffic to each new blog post from your social channels and your newsletter. I guarantee that if you make regular blogging part of your digital marketing plan you will increase your leads and referrals.
- Once you’ve encouraged visitors to your website, make sure it’s easy for them to look around and find more information. Pique their interest with snippets from other relevant blog posts. Never lead your visitors down a dead end.
- Incorporate social share buttons within your website blog posts, so your visitors can easily share the fabulous content you create.
Your Social Channels:
- Facebook – Bear in mind one of the only times that Facebook users will visit your page; is when they first connect with you. The rest of the time they’ll wait for you to show up in their news feed. Nevertheless; it pays as part of your digital marketing plan to ensure that your website address is clearly displayed, and utilise apps to ensure visitors can connect with you across your other social and digital channels.
- Facebook – Don’t forget to set up the Facebook “Call To Action” button located on your cover image, connect it back to your website. “Contact Us” is the one I’ve selected as the most appropriate for my digital marketing. If you have an online store you might want to use “Shop Now”, linked directly to your store, rather than your home page. If you offer a service, consider the “Book Now” button.
- Connect your social accounts together as part of your overall digital strategy. I’ve connected my Instagram account to my Twitter account and Facebook page. I find this useful, because it still allows me to select which updates I post on these channels at the time of sharing my image. I haven’t connected my Facebook page with my Twitter account, because I don’t like the automation of always posting my Tweets as a Facebook status update. Experiment to see what works for you.
- List the social channels you actively use for business under your contact information on LinkedIn. You can add up to three websites under your contact information, so I have added custom links in that section to Facebook and Instagram.
Email Marketing:
- Incorporate links to all your social channels and your website in the header and footer of your newsletter. Use recognisable “icons” rather than text links. Most email marketing software programmes provide this ability.
- Use consistent links back to your website throughout the content of your newsletter. Give a snippet of information, then create a strong “Call to Action” which guarantees a good click through rate. This type of inbound marketing is an absolute necessity within your digital marketing.
A few words about connecting your digital marketing with your offline marketing:
This is vital. If you are spending money advertising across more mainstream media such as radio or print, please ensure that listeners and readers can still find you online. Your website address should be a given. I lose count of the number of times I see a Facebook icon, and the words “Like Us on Facebook” in a printed advert; unless you also provide your Facebook web address (mine is facebook.com/KateCooteDot) and a reason for people to “like” your page, you may as well include the words “Like Pink Elephants”…
This blog post serves only as a tip of the digital marketing iceberg. All good digital marketing strategies start with a plan. If you would like help creating a plan for your business, please do give me a call.
