Grow Your Business with Content Marketing Strategy

Content & DesignDigital MarketingMarketing

According to Marketing Charts, 64% of marketers want to know how to build a scalable content marketing strategy.

You may be wondering the same thing right now.

“Content is King”. This is one of the most well-known internet phrases. As cliche as it sounds, it is undeniably true.

There are a few ways to use content marketing strategy in your business. One is to create ‘clustered content’ that will help you dominate a topic. Another is to have an editorial balance between a search-focused and thought leadership content. The third is to align your content with the problems that your business solves.

In creating your content marketing strategy, here are a few questions you should answer first.

  • Who will read your content?
  • What problems will you solve for your readers?
  • What makes you unique?
  • Which content channels are the best for your business?
  • How will your content be created?

Here is how to create your very own content marketing strategy.

1. Set your goals

Before anything else, you must learn the aim of your business for why you want to develop a content marketing strategy. You can use the SMART goal model to help with this step. The SMART goal must be: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. 

  • Specific – Define exactly what you are trying to improve with your content marketing strategy. This should a few sentences long and easy to share with others.
  • Measurable – Making your goal trackable is key to tracking your progress. This should be numeric. For example, if you want to increase your social media following, without giving a number to this goal, it is unlikely for you to know how far you’ve come.
  • Attainable – Know where your business is in relation to your measurable goal. Your goal must be 
  • Relevant – You have to know why exactly you are pursing your content marketing strategy. How will it contribute to your company? Ultimately, it should be tied to creating a business impact.
  • Time-Bound – Set your timeline to have a meeting about your goal. Determine what changes you can adjust to help you get back on track.

2. Create buyer personas

Creating a buyer persona will help with identifying who your target audiences are. It is especially important for people to start out with having an idea of what your readers want to read and what you can realistically provide.

3. Run content audits

Although most people start their content marketing strategy by writing blog posts, there are a whole variety of content types you can create. For example, if you have been running a blog for a while, consider writing an ebook that put together all your previous blogs and forming them into a guide. This is one of the many ways you can repurpose your content into several different formats. 

Running a content audit will help you review your previous content marketing efforts. This will make it easier for you to come up with newer types of content you can try out to develop a variety in your content marketing strategy.

4. Choose a content management system

There are various Content Management Systems (CMS) you can try out. Some of the most popular CMS are HubSpot and WordPress. These are systems that will allow you to plan and publish your content, handle email marketing, track analytics, and more.

5. Brainstorm content ideas

After setting up everything, it is time for you to come up with content ideas. There are a few tools that can help you with this. A great place to start is by browsing for topics on BuzzSumo. This platform will help you discover popular content and ideas that you can build off of when planning your own content.

6. What types of content will you create

There are a variety of content types you can explore and experiment with. Consider what you or your team are capable of creating and the time limit you have.

Here are all the content types you can try creating:

  • Infographics
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Social media
  • Blog posts
  • Ebooks
  • Case studies
  • Templates

After having worked on the same few formats for a while, try adding a new type of content into the mix. 

7. Publishing and managing content

Apart from just deciding on what types of content you will create, you will also have to manage and schedule your content appropriately. 

This is where a content calendar comes in. Putting all the content you plan on publishing in one calendar will allow you to see what needs to get done first and manage your time working on those content accordingly.

Great content are usually evergreen. Evergreen content are content that will stay relevant after months from when it is written. While evergreen content is important, seasonal content, or content that is based on news or events, is just as important to have. 

Those timely content will help create a spike in your traffic. They bring in more visitors compared to the consistent but lower traffic evergreen content. 

Therefore, make sure you incorporate different kinds and different types of content into your content marketing strategy.

For seasonal content, it is good to make a list of important holidays in your content calendar to help remind you of when to create and publish them.

Conclusion

Implementing a content marketing strategy will undoubtedly help you grow your business. With this, you are providing value to your audience and providing solutions to them consistently. Whether your business is a B2B or a B2C, there is always something you can create content from. It is just a matter of execution!

If you are interested in learning more about how to use digital marketing in your business, take a look at our digital marketing guides here. But if you are considering having an expert help you out, let MarketingGuru help you! Contact us for a free digital marketing strategy consultation today!

How To Go About Creating an Email Marketing Strategy

Digital MarketingMarketing

The most important element of an email marketing strategy is the relationship between you and your audience. Do they trust you? Do they know who you are? 

According to Statista, roughly 281 billion emails are sent every single day. This number is predicted to grow to 347 billion emails daily by 2023.

There is no doubt that email marketing is still playing a huge role as part of digital marketing strategies. This is why today we will be writing about how to create an email marketing strategy.

Even former President Obama was using email marketing which led to his success in the 2012 Presidential election.

An opt-in page for Obama’s email marketing strategy

So, to help you win more customers the way President Obama won the election, we will be looking at some email marketing strategies. Then, you will be able to find ones to incorporate into your business.

1. Personalization

Personalization tactics are key to increasing your customer experience. One of the best email strategy, or any digital marketing strategy these days, are the use of personalization. Research has found that an average of 71% of consumers express frustration when their shopping experience is not personalized.

One example is adding your recipient’s name in the email. For example, instead of “Dear valued customer,” use “Dear Steven,”. 

Another way to personalize your emails is by recommending your products to the customer based on their purchase history. This will help you cater products to your audience.

This kind of strategy can be implemented using email marketing tools such as MailChimp.

2. Subscriber Segmentation

Market segmentation is a huge part of all marketing planning. Subscriber segmentation is the same. The more you know your customer and the more you are able to cater to them, the better your chances of delivering better customer experiences by incorporating the right content to them. By segmenting different kinds of customers, you can deliver an email marketing strategy that will best suit them. Here are a few ways you can segment your audiences:

  • Industry – Let’s say you are a retailer and your target customer is a business that sells computer hardware. Your email campaigns will receive a much higher engagement rate if you send them emails recommending computer hardware compared to sending the same email to a business that sells books.
  • Company size – By segmenting with company size or annual revenue, you can market certain levels of B2B product or service depending on the business’ capacity. 
  • Sales cycle – Buyers who are in their earlier stages will likely be less receptive to an aggressive sales pitch or product demos. However, they will likely appreciate information on industry research. In contrast to buyers deeper in the cycle, they are likely to respond better to free trial offers or product webinars. 

3. Mobile-Friendly Emails

Emails opened on mobile devices account for 46% of all email opens and the number is growing. This is exactly why your emails should be mobile friendly as it will tremendously add value to customers in your email marketing strategy.

Half of all promotional emails sent to customers are still desktop-oriented. Therefore, you will be further ahead from your competitors just by implementing responsive design in your email marketing strategy.

It had also been found that 55% of smartphone users make at least 1 purchase after receiving a mobile promotional email.

However, while simply sending emails alone can be effective, you can increase the effectiveness even more by optimizing your emails. Here are some ways you can optimize your emails for better conversions as part of your email marketing strategy:

  • Implementing responsive email design – most email service providers already provide you with the solution as part of their features.
  • Keep subject line and pre-headers short and simple – Subject lines can make or break your email open rate. Don’t let your emails go to waste by implementing an attractive subject line. You can look at ones in your own email box for some examples of a good subject line.
  • Include a Call-To-Action (CTA) – Make sure that CTAs in your emails are noticeable whether they are viewing the emails on desktops, mobiles, or tablet devices. Make your CTA big and bold.

Tip: 41% of marketers say that email is the most effective method in sending offers to mobile consumers during holiday shopping seasons.

4. Automate Email Campaigns

Email marketing automation should be set up when possible.

These are trigger-based emails that are automatically sent out to users who signed up after showing certain user behaviors. One of the most common trigger emails are ‘welcome’ emails, ‘thank you’ emails and ‘transactional’ emails.

According to Campaign Monitor, automated emails generate up to 320% more revenue compared to non-automated ones.

The reason why automated emails perform so well in an email marketing strategy is because of the context. It is the middle ground between transactional emails and direct marketing emails.

For example, let’s say you visit an eCommerce store. You’ve added some items to the cart but started to grow some doubts and decided not to complete the purchase.

With email marketing automation, you will receive an email for the product you were shopping for just an hour later. Your interest in the item will likely grow because of it. Imagine if there were a link back to your shopping cart and a free shipping code or a 10% discount code for the order? You’re likely to go back to complete the purchase.

This is why trigger emails are so powerful. Setting it up does not have to be expensive or complex either. You can simply start with any one of the auto-responders out there today.

Conclusion

Having an email marketing strategy will provide you with a better way to connect with customers and grow your ROI. Keep in mind that if all your emails are about selling your product, it is less likely to sell unless your audience trusts you enough to deliberately sign up and be on your mailing list for the sake of receiving promotions.

MG-blog-6-smm

Social Media Marketing Strategy: How To Execute It and Win Customers

MarketingSocial Media Marketing

Using social media marketing strategy in your business will undoubtedly help with your brand as a whole. Today, not only can it be used to increase brand awareness or drive more traffic to your website, but also as a social listening tool where you can observe the things your customers are saying about your brand as well as a way to engage with your audience.

Here are the 5 key elements of a social media marketing strategy:

  1. Strategy
  2. Planning and Publishing
  3. Listening and Engagement
  4. Analytics and Reporting
  5. Advertising

Once you have read through all 5 of these key tools, you will be able to fully apply and leverage social media in your business.

1. Crafting a Social Media Marketing Strategy

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ⎼⎼Sun Tzu

Before diving right into the action, it is important to plan out the bigger picture to help guide your marketing. 

What’s your goal? 

How will using social media help you achieve your objectives? You can increase your brand awareness, drive traffic and sales, drive engagement, create a community, and have it as your customer support channel.

Which social media platforms should you focus on? 

There are so many channels that you can leverage for your brand. Some major ones are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok. When starting out on social media, it is best to pick out just a few channels.

What type of content should you share? 

Think of who your audiences are. What would they want out of your content? Do they prefer images, videos, or link posts? Create a marketing persona to help you answer the previous questions. Keep in mind that your type of content does not have to stay fixed because the market constantly changes in our digital era. You can experiment with your posts and be flexible with your strategy when some posts perform better than others.

2. Planning and Publishing AKA Getting Ready and Taking Action

Being consistent when posting your content is extremely important. There are many pages and profiles on social media that has never been updated in months or years. By posting consistently, your audience will see that your business is still active.

Publishing consistently will require a content calendar to help you know exactly what will be published. You should plan and create these posts ahead of time and schedule them using tools to save time. Some tools you can use are Buffer and Hootsuite, for example. 

Some tips: Once you create evergreen content, repurpose them in different formats and post it a few times on different channels over the next few months. This could be in the form of a new caption, a new graphic, or a link to the post.

3. Listening and Engagement: Interacting With Your Audience

Once your social media following starts to grow, more people will be discussing about your brand online. There will be more direct and indirect interactions with your business.

What you should do at this stage is to observe the comments about your brand. This can be from direct feedback or brand mentions. You can use social listening tools to help you learn about people who have mentioned about your brand online and learn of their opinions, whether they are positive or negative.

From here, you can adapt your business to answer customer needs. For example, you can use those feedbacks as content ideas, or to learn about the business’ weaknesses to improve certain aspects of your brand.

Some more tips: Don’t forget to interact with your customers who commented on your posts! Not only will this help them feel appreciated with this interaction, but it will also encourage more engagement from more of your audiences.

4. Analytics and Reporting

Unlike traditional marketing, most forms of online marketing are quantifiable.

With the help of analytics tools, you will be able to learn how well your social media marketing is performing. 

In social media platforms, basic tools for analytics are usually provided. However, to obtain more in-depth data or to be able to compare data across all your social media platforms, external tools should be used to help with this such as Sprout Social, Buffer, and Hoot Suite.

5. Paid Advertising

After building some social proof from growing your followers or if you have the funds, it is important to consider using paid advertisements in your strategy. 

The power of social media advertisements is in its ability to create very specific target audiences based on many different kinds of demographics, interests, behaviors, and more.

At first, you may think that the advertisement pages may be intimidating to look at. However, these social media platforms encourage us to use these tools because it is where they profit from which is exactly why there are various tutorials as well as tips while using the advertisement features to make it easier to get used to. 

Once you learn the different features it has, you will be able to advertise and optimize your ad campaigns and budget as you need. Of course, analytics play a huge role in online advertising so be sure to take a look at your key metrics such as clickthrough rate (CTR), cost per 1000 impressions (CPM), bounce rate, and more.

The Bottom Line

So what can a social media marketing strategy do for you? According to Sprout Social, 53% of consumers have said that they are likely to purchase from brands that are transparent on social media, and brand transparency is heightened by a company’s presence of social media. This finding provides an opportunity for businesses to create more personal interactions with their customers and grow their revenue.

It is important to note that any social media marketing strategy can take time and expertise to execute, especially when using paid advertisements which may sometimes be a hit or miss. If you are looking to add a social media marketing strategy to your business or want to level up your SMM game, Marketing Guru can help you save both time and energy with our service. We also give free consultations for your digital marketing plan! Contact us here.

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How Does Digital Marketing Strategy Benefit Your Business?

Digital MarketingMarketing

There is no doubt that businesses in this day and age should adopt at least some form of technology in their business. From social media marketing to CRM, the rapid growth in tech innovations have grown to provide so many benefits to every part of our everyday lifestyles as well as our businesses.

It is obvious that certain businesses have much more of a presence on the internet. This kind of authority presence is what most brands strive for. Why is this the case? It is due to how they incorporate a digital marketing strategy into their business. We will dive into this topic below:

  • How your business can benefit from a digital marketing strategy
  • Things to be wary of when planning and executing your strategy

The Benefits

When it comes to digital marketing, the most important part is to decide on your marketing strategy. Your digital marketing strategy should depend on where your ideal customers are. Aside from this, experimentation can also be used to help decide which channels would work the best for you.

Keep in mind that all businesses are different. One channel may work well for one business in the same industry while another may find success in other channels. Either way, investing in some sort of digital marketing strategy will undoubtedly help in growing your business. It is a surefire way to increase your brand awareness and grow your business due to the following reasons:

Small Investments and High ROI

It is well-known that marketing is one of the most costly aspects of running any business. Digital marketing can open up opportunities with its relatively lower cost of marketing compared to traditional marketing. However, without the right expertise, you may end up spending more on paid ads. Therefore, investing and implementing the right digital marketing strategy into your business is critical in gaining a profitable ROI.

It is important to note that without the right knowledge in digital marketing, both time and money can be wasted. There are various digital marketing tools such as Facebook advertisements. These may cost you to spend more trying to figure out how it works.

Learn About Real People

Social media is not just powerful in the way it connects people together. They are also powerful in how they are able to understand what your customers are interested in. Take a look at Facebook Audience Insights, for example.

Say, you have an eCommerce website selling women’s clothes in San Francisco. You want to learn more about who your customers are and what they are interested in. Facebook Audience Insights can help you learn about all of this from just searching based on the users’ interests. Some of the related interests would be “online shopping” and “women’s clothes”. Aside from this, you also have the ability to target specific locations to help narrow down your audience.

digital marketing strategy tool - Facebook Audience Insights
Image captured from Facebook Audience Insights

As you can see in the image here, the tool shows exactly the age range of your potential customers and how many of them are within a specific location, in this case, it is New York, USA.

The majority of potential customers interested in women’s fashion and online shopping are in the age range 25 to 34 years old. The total number of these audiences are 2.5 million to 3 million people.

Retarget Your Customers

Have you ever gone on a website, and find that the same website’s advertisement keeps following you around? In the world of digital marketing, this is called retargeting ads and it is a great addition to all digital marketing strategies.

You may have heard of the term “Facebook Pixel”. It is a tool that helps you advertise yourself to the people who visited your website. However, Facebook only allows you to keep this data up until 180 days.

This tool is massively useful from a marketing perspective. Just think of how often you actually buy a product the first time you see an ad? Retargeting can be used strategically to help your customers learn more about you and remember your product or service when they need them.

Things To Be Wary Of

Digital marketing can bring a lot of benefits to your business but one wrong move can really hurt. Without the right knowledge and application, your business can be significantly affected. Here are some main things you should be careful of:

Targeting The Wrong Audience

When advertising, you don’t want to randomly target everyone. That’s a quick and easy way to going broke. Your product/service needs to be put in front of the right audience. If not, it is unlikely that will be able to make any sales.

If you have been running advertisements for a few days and there’s been no purchases or conversions for your ads, make sure that you are not targeting too broad of an audience. Try adding a variety of different audiences and see how your ads perform. Eventually, you can cut out advertisements that have little to no conversions and invest more into ones with conversions.

Low Ad Quality

All paid advertisement platforms care a lot about the experience of their users. Without these users, their platform could not exist which is why advertisement quality is extremely important. These platforms have built-in algorithms that decide which advertisements to show their users depending on how much the advertiser pays and how good the quality of the ad is.

If your advertisement is not up to standard, it is likely that the platform will prefer showing your competitor’s ads instead. Audiences also have the option to report your advertisements which can affect your advertisement quality score.

Remember: Your competitors are just a click away.

Bad PR

News on the internet spreads like wildfire.

If some sort of negative or controversial news were to be released about your business, that could potentially be the end of your career. Therefore, always keep track of what is being said about your brand online.

It is important to use social listening tools to not only learn about what your customers feel towards your brand but also to keep your brand image in check. Some of the tools for this are BuzzSumo and HootSuite.

Conclusion

So, we have learned why businesses should use digital marketing strategy and some factors to avoid. With this in mind, it is extremely important for companies to execute their digital marketing strategy properly. Having experts in this field help you out will tremendously save time and money.

Aside from this, paid advertisement costs are also gradually increasing due to corporate entities tapping into this channel. This is the reason why the time to invest in digital marketing should be now, rather than later.

If you are interested in implementing it into your business or upgrading your digital marketing strategies contact Marketing Guru today for a free consultation!

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Level Up Your Business With Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital MarketingMarketing

From SEO to Facebook ads, the marketing industry has evolved tremendously in the past few decades. Digital marketing is an important branch of marketing. This channel requires you to develop digital marketing strategies to strategically promote your business. This branch was developed due to the internet phenomenon and has since become an essential part of all modern businesses.

Digital marketing is defined as the act of promotion and selling of products and/or services through the use of digital marketing strategies. Some of the most popular ones include social media marketing, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click advertising.

By 2023, the total digital marketing spend is predicted to reach $146 billion; a growth of about 9% compound annual growth rate.

While there are many digital marketing strategies out there, it is important to keep in mind that not all strategies will perform effectively across all types of businesses. This is where the real challenge of online marketing comes in. To execute the most effective digital marketing strategy possible, one must have the right skills and expertise, not to mention the time and effort required to create all the right content.

The Mechanics

How digital marketing works is by putting your business in front of customers online. However, your business must use the right digital marketing strategies to make your efforts worthwhile. For example, you can keep your existing customers aware of you by creating consistent and engaging content.

There are many different ways to put your business in front of your customers, here are a few common ones:

  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Google Pay Per Click Ads (PPC)
  • Facebook Ads
  • Email Marketing

The History

Back at the start of this field, digital marketing was extremely different to what it is today because there were much simpler algorithms that were not entirely user-friendly. Marketers at the time were uncertain and hesitant about this method of promoting businesses. The digital age began way back in the mid-90s and this was when the term digital marketing was first used.

Let’s dive even deeper into the history of marketing. It is helpful to first learn of the terms Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0.

What is Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0?

  • Web 1.0 refers to the beginning of the internet where websites were in simple formats with very minimal user interaction. Users were able to consume information on a website. However, it was more of a one-way communication from websites to audiences.

  • Web 2.0 is the next part of this evolution. This began in 2006 when the internet became much more widespread. Website designs also became much more interactive and user-centered due to the creation of social media. As a result, sharing and collaborating between people online was encouraged which completely turned the table on what marketing means.

  • Web 3.0 is the internet we know of in 2020. This era is one where websites are given the ability to learn about its users. It is also able to give new data such as personalized suggestions.

The evolution of the web shows the progression of its intelligence and affects how digital marketing is applied. From simply showing information to an exchange of information to today’s personalized website experiences.

In Web 1.0, businesses were promoted online by paying simple-looking websites. However, the problem with this was that these advertisements may not have been able to target their ideal customers directly.

Web 2.0 helps businesses reach their customers directly and conduct business online. Social media marketing and paid advertisements rapidly grew. These marketing channels became a huge success and the turning point of both the internet and the marketing industry.

As for Web 3.0, machines now have the ability to create much more complex actions. Customer preferences have been helping businesses put their products in front of the right people, at the right time. Many are still looking forward to what Web 4.0 or even 5.0 would bring. Its impact will likely transform internet users’ interactions as well as the digital marketing industry completely.

Picking The Right Channels For Your Digital Marketing Strategies

There are many different channels you can use to get your customers to see your products. However, not all of them are the perfect fit. The best way to find out which to use is to learn of what each channel has to offer. Start by picking the ones that your ideal customers will see. Then, experiment with these channels for some time, and adapt to what works for you and your business.

Learning From Case Studies

Shopify

Shopify homepage
Source: Shopify’s website

Let’s take a look at Shopify. It is an e-commerce platform that helps businesses create their own websites without having to learn how to code. Since their main customers are entrepreneurs, their content is created to help people build successful businesses using their service.

They were able to grow their revenue by 90% in just 365 days.

This was largely through an intensive content marketing plan that involves a combination of blogging, video marketing, and podcasts. With an in-depth knowledge of who their customers are, Shopify answered these needs by providing quality content as part of their digital marketing strategies. If you visit one of their blog articles, you will see the various kinds of content that they have. They cater to all kinds of people with content about e-commerce to digital marketing.

Daniel Wellington

Daniel Wellington homepage
Source: Daniel Wellington’s website

This popular trendy Swedish watch brand is one that truly understood the power of influencer marketing. They were able to grow to sell a million watches a year. This was largely from them sending their products for free to Instagram’s micro-influencers. How did this help grow their sales? In exchange for sending their products, the business asks the influencers to post a photo of them with the watch.

Each influencer that they send their products to were able to put their own creative spin on their posts. This creative spin gave the brand a source of influencer-generated content which ultimately became the brand’s source of success.

Tai Lopez

Tai Lopez homepage
Source: Tai Lopez’s website

Tai Lopez is a personal branding business that sells online courses. These have helped hundreds of thousands of people grow their wealth. His digital marketing strategies were a mix of social media and paid advertisements, especially on Youtube.

One of his videos called “Here in My Garage” became a viral success. This video shows him in front of his Lamborghini. He was talking about self-improvement and encouraging his viewers to visit his site. This video became a meme due to how often people would see his advertisements before watching their content on Youtube. It brought about many more promotions for him through social sharing. As a result, Tai Lopez is now one of the most well-known names among the business-related online courses.

We have now seen the different ways that digital marketing can help businesses. If you are interested in implementing it into your business or upgrading your digital marketing strategies contact Marketing Guru today for a free consultation!

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The B2B Digital Marketing Strategy Roadmap To Maximize ROI

Data & AnalyticsDigital Marketing

Understanding Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital transformation has overtaken the world in the past five years, changing the way we think, learn, inform, and buy. This change not only affects B2C businesses but it is making waves for those in B2B as well. Today’s wildly successful B2B brands have welcomed digital transformation into their marketing strategies and can be seen reaping the benefits. A stellar example comes in the form of HupSpot’s LinkedIn sonspored ads campaign that were meant to attract small to medium sized businesses. The results showed 400% more leads within their target audience. Other big B2B brands such as Shopify, Upwork and Dropbox are also leveraging the power of digital marketing to enhance their lead generation tactics.

Source: LinkedIn

While B2B marketing has always been challenging, today’s landscape gives birth to a whole new set of fast paced challenges that many B2B brands are struggling to catch up with. Technology has allowed B2B buyers to have unlimited access to information through multiple mobile devices at any time. This changes the buyer journey and opening up new channels of communication.

Navigating through this ever changing landscape can be a challenge – even for the best of brands. That is why we have compiled the ultimate roadmap to build a B2B digital marketing strategy that is fit to succeed in the modern B2B landscape. This B2B Digital Marketing Strategy roadmap that will maximize ROI and lead your B2B brand to maximise ROI.

If you would like to find out more on how to build a digital marketing strategy, head over to one of our article on digital marketing strategy.

Understanding Digital Marketing Strategies

The modern B2B buyer is much like a B2C consumer as their buying decisions are largely motivated by customer experience rather than the price. This requires B2B brands to take an experiential approach that leads the target audience through a digital journey to lifelong loyalty.

Despite these similarities, there are still some key differences. Read our the key differences between B2B and B2C Digital Marketing article to find out more.

The Roadmap Process Explained

Our B2B marketing strategy roadmap targets the five essential components of a successful digital marketing campaign. This includes website, SEO, social media marketing, content marketing and online advertisements. Read on to find out the importance of each one.

1.  A High Performance Website

Your website is much like a first impression for potential clients, making it the most valuable marketing asset. According to research, 80% of people examine websites in order to check out new service providers. These numbers are bound to rise as more millennials and Gen-Z buyers enter the market.

MarketingGuru’s Website

An effective website needs to have the right design, informative and relevant content that captures attention. Here are some main points to keep in mind while optimizing a website for lead generation and sales:

  • Ensure Fast Response Times: Eternally loading websites can be a huge turnoff. According to surveys, 40% users leave a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.
  • Security Comes First: Unsecured sites are a big red flag for users and research suggests that 85% customers are averse to browsing an unsecured site. Avoid this by purchasing as SSL certificate for your website.
  • Make It Mobile Friendly:  In a world where 70% of all online traffic comes from mobile, a smooth mobile experience speaks for itself. Furthermore, 50% B2B queries originate from smartphones as buyers are more likely to choose vendors who have a mobile-friendly website experience.
  • Give Actionable Information: Your website is more than a long winded introduction to your services. It is a 24 hour sales opportunity which require actionable information like clear CTAs, contact forms, past projects, testimonials and affiliations to guide the buyer in the right direction.
  • Professional Design: Poor design and navigation capabilities repel buyers. Websites need to be pleasing to look at and easy to navigate. 
  • Get Your Message Across: 46% buyers abandon a website because it is not clear what the company does. Sometimes your message can get lost in the web design. Provide relevant content that highlights your core services so buyers don’t feel confused.

2.  SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a growing field of interest that can generate leads and sales by really pushing your content and website forward. If you are unfamilar about SEO, head on to digest our 9 point simple SEO guide first. There are two primary components of SEO:

On-Site SEO helps search engines find your website through keyword phrases to produce relevant search results. These ensure that if B2B buyers are looking for your type of services, search engines can redirect them to your website or content.

Offsite SEO provides backlinks to your website in the form of outside engagement or guest appearances on other websites. Backlinks can increase your credibility and establish authority in the field while bringing in networking opportunities.

By networking, getting featured on other websites and generating more traffic, you can establish yourself as a credible source to get higher rankings on search engine results. SEO can be integrated into your content strategy to bring more visitors and put your company in the limelight.

3.  Content Marketing

Content marketing is a multi-dimensional area which consists of blogs, press releases, videos, social media content, articles, ebooks and much more. B2B buyers are increasingly relying on digital content to make their buying decisions easier. 75% B2B buyers think that content has a direct impact on their buying decisions.

Here are some content marketing areas that businesses are focusing on to get the best results.

  • Blog Posts: Blogs are a fantastic way to get your message across while providing helpful information and establishing your expertise. Buyers can gain insight on your work as they read relevant blogs that empathize with their problems and identify how to solve them. Blogs which connect to the buyers’ struggles and present it in an engaging manner are highly popular among B2B buyers.
  • Social Media Posts: Social media is an effective way to not only get customers but build an audience. Building an audience ensures that there are people who follow you for the content and remain loyal to keep coming back for you.
  • Infographics: Most people appreciate visual imagery as it can condense complicated information into an attractive visual. Infographics are the ideal way to present information and capture attention
  • E-books: E-books are also a content marketing strategy that is surprisingly effective when they include actionable information such as checklists, guides and tips that impart wisdom.

4.  Online Ads

Online ads may be the first thing that puts your company in the direct line of sight. Online ads can be in the form of text, imagery or videos displayed on frequently visited platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and other websites. These online ads have now become highly sophisticated to allow for targeted advertising that reaches the most relevant customers. Apart from contextual advertising, online ads target consumers even when they are distracted so they can recall your company without ever clicking or focusing on the actual ad.

Google advertising is a popular form of online advertising. The benefits of Google pay-per-click advertising should not be underestimated.

5.  Social Media Marketing

Social media has emerged as the ultimate tool for B2B marketing that can help in lead generation, branding, establishing authority and building an audience. Social media allows you to deliver a constant stream of targeted content that keeps your company relevant and entertains a loyal audience.

Here are some common types of social media posts that are most popular for businesses:

  • Blogs
  • Digital Seminars (webinars) or events
  • Attractive statistics and facts
  • Industry related news
  • Informative one minute videos

While a multi-channel approach is usually preferred, picking your social media platforms wisely can help you build a strategy for your type of business. All social media channels may not suit your brand but LinkedIn is a must for all B2B services. In fact, 80% of B2B leads originate from LinkedIn. So if you are a B2B business, having an active presence on LinkedIn is essential.

A Final Note

The digital world is an opportunity to start anew and target an even larger audience than ever before. As the world moves towards digital, sticking with the old approaches means risking your B2B business. Embrace the digital wave with a marketing strategy of your own through effective SEO, PPC and social media marketing that can take your B2B business to the next level.

Digital marketing strategies are all about innovation, so don’t be afraid to step out of the comfort zone and enhance the B2B buyer’s experience to maximize ROI and gain loyal customers. Use digital platforms to market your B2B agendas, learn from businesses and create new communication channels to help your business achieve greater heights.

Are you trying to build a B2B digital marketing strategy that works? MarketingGuru provide SEO, PPC and social media marketing services that can give your B2B business the desired competitive edge. Speak to one of our gurus today!

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How To Build A Digital Marketing Strategy For Your Business?

Digital Marketing

Let’s face it. In today technological advanced world, every business has at least a website and some form of social media presence. What is more important is having an effective strategy to integrate all your digital assets.

What Is A Digital Marketing Strategy?

Whenever digital marketing is mentioned, SEO or PPC advertising are often among the first few jargon that comes to mind. For those who are not aware, they are acronyms for Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click advertising. However, many seldom mention and discus about establishing a digital marketing strategy.

“The series of actions that help you achieve your company goals through carefully selected online marketing channels. These channels include paid, earned, and owned media, and can all support a common campaign around a particular line of business.”

Digital Marketing Strategy
HubSpot Blog

 

According to HubSpot, digital marketing strategy “the series of actions that help you achieve your company goals through carefully selected online marketing channels. These channels include paid, earned, and owned media, and can all support a common campaign around a particular line of business”.

That’s a huge bunch of words. In short, it is simply how you are going to achieve your objectives by leveraging on your digital assets such as your website or social media accounts.

Why Your Business Needs A Digital Marketing Strategy?

Having mentioned that most business owns a website and a couple of social media accounts means that your competitors are also able to level the playing field. Hence, the only way to stay competitive is to have an effective digital marketing strategy to achieve your objectives.

Some may argue that there are other forms of marketing and digital marketing is just one of them. That may be true, but digital advertising spending is set to overtake traditional in the United States. This underscore the importance of not only having a credible brand image but also the strategy.

The trend in many small and mid-market companies is to outsource various areas of web development, marketing and graphic design to agencies. This fact makes it more important to understand your own strategy. A digital marketing strategy not only convey a unified message to your audience but also helps to establish a reliable brand image.

How To Develop Your Own Digital Marketing Strategy?

For those not in the marketing industry, it may seem like an uphill battle to craft a digital marketing strategy. Don’t let the word ‘strategy’ scare you off. The steps outline in this article can be applied for both large and small companies.

Step 1: Identify your objective and goals

This step should be obvious since nailing down your objectives and goals will help you determine how your digital marketing objective contribute to your overall business objectives. For example, if the business objective is to increase revenue by 50%, your digital marketing goal would possibly be to increase leads from your website by at least 50%. By having a quantitative goal, it helps to determine the best tactics to be successful.

Step 2: Analyze your past campaigns

Chances are that your business has done a digital campaign previously. By identifying the past mistakes and results, it can provide useful insights and help focus the marketing resources.  Based on the insights, you may need to revisit step 1 and change your goal.

For instance, after analyzing your leads from your digital assets, you discover that most came from Facebook. Hence, you may want to focus on a KPI regarding Facebook such as increasing Facebook followers by 30%.

Step 3: Identify your target audience persona

Every business will not be profitable without their customers. Hence, it is of utmost importance for a business to know their key customer groups and their profile. This includes identifying their demographic and psychographics attributes. A simple way to build your audience persona is to take a look at your Google Analytics’ Audience Reports and identify the key characteristics such as age, sex, career, etc.

Step 4: Identify your means

At this junction, it is important to identify three aspect: budget, digital channels and your team. It is important to determine if you have the required budget need to achieve your goals. This could be done by using historical data of your past campaigns to create a forecast of the results. Most importantly, you should also allocate your budget to each channel you intend to use.

This is also the best time to do an audit of your digital channels. You may want to focus more on a certain channel or even explore new channels you haven’t explored in the past. You may also want to evaluate if A/B testing should be implemented for certain channels. If KPI has not been set for each individual channel, it may also be a good time to do so.

The last aspect is your own team. You should assess and evaluate if your team possess the capacity and expertise to execute your digital marketing initiative. This is also the time to determine if you should hire more team members or to outsource certain elements to an agency.

Step 5: Develop, execute and review the plan

After all the research and evaluation, it is time to put everything into the plan. Certain elements may have to be achieved first before others can begin, just like your website has to be completed before beginning SEO and thereafter, social media marketing. This may require a certain degree of expertise and coordination and should be best left to a professional agency if your team is small or does not possess the required capabilities.

Don’t be surprised if your plan is not executed successfully because not all assumptions will be correct. The key in this step is to regularly review the performance and tweak the necessary elements as needed. At regular intervals, ideally on an annual basis, scrutinize the performance and do a complete review. If necessary, don’t be afraid to go back to Step 1 and repeat the process.

A Final Note

Digital marketing may seem easy. After all, most millennials are already savvy with social media and you probably use Google as the starting point when looking for products. However, crafting a digital strategy and reviewing it regularly may not be that easy since most marketers also have other tasks. This is when consulting a full-service agency really helps. You may even consider outsourcing your marketing department and focus on your strengths to develop your business. If your business has not started or is in the process of developing your digital marketing strategy, contact MarketingGuru to find out how we can help you today.

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