What Actually Makes Digital Marketing Work?

It's easy for a company to get caught up in the hustle of marketing and not know what it's achieving. You can create Instagram posts, pay for Google clicks, and write another article for your website. However, the sales team will still ask you where the leads are coming from. It’s important that your digital marketing strategy is helping to address a need that your customers have. For most companies you will need to create the correct combination of; SEO, Social Media Marketing, Paid Advertising and Content Strategy and Creation. These all have their own unique purpose so shouldn’t be competing with each other.

SEO

Let’s say you are a commercial cleaning company based in Cork. Your website states that you provide complete solutions. However, a potential customer wants to know if you can clean offices in the evenings and how they can get a quote. This information can be difficult to find. SEO begins with understanding why there is a gap. What are people searching for? Are there dedicated pages to help answer their questions? Is your website mobile-friendly? Can Google easily find the key pages without any broken links or confusing redirects? A good SEO strategy isn’t about using keywords throughout. It’s about ensuring the correct page is helping the correct person.

Sometimes having a clear page about your services can be more beneficial than lots of generic articles. Whilst having technical improvements, logical headings and helpful links, you can’t replace real information. You should also consider local SEO. If you are providing services to specific towns or regions you will need to ensure your location information is accurate and relevant. Creating multiple pages with almost the same content but with a different city name won’t really help your customers. A good SEO strategy should help your website improve gradually. Ensuring technical issues are addressed and the information is relevant.

Social Media Marketing

Having a content calendar can help keep your team organised. However, it won’t make a dull post interesting. An architect could create a post showing how they transformed a small entrance to make the reception area accessible. A restaurant could create a post to show what changes are happening to their winter menu. A software provider could create a short video showing how they do a common task. These posts stand out as they show something real.

Social Media Marketing works best if you know who you want to target and why they would care. LinkedIn may be the right platform to use if you provide niche business services, whilst Instagram may be better if your work can be easily shown. However, they aren’t mandatory. You should ensure your posts are consistent. However, they shouldn’t be almost the same every day. You could create posts around questions your customers ask, helpful information, updates on your projects or insights from your industry. Often the best ideas come from real conversations rather than trying to keep up with the latest trends. Don’t just look at how many likes you’re getting. Are the right people asking questions or visiting your website? Social Media Marketing can be used to introduce your business to your customers however you need to ensure there is a logical flow.

Paid Advertising

Imagine clicking on an ad for a free consultation and being taken to your homepage with no mention of it. Most people won’t look through 5 menus to find it and will leave.

Whilst Paid Advertising can bring quick traffic, you are paying to get their attention. Before launching make sure you know who you are targeting, what your message is, what your landing page looks like and what you want them to do. Having a functioning mobile form may be more important than another ad. Google search ads can help target people looking for a specific service. Whereas social ads may target people who haven’t even started searching. Both can be useful depending on where they are in the buying journey. You should regularly review your Paid Advertising. Whilst you may be getting cheap clicks, if they aren’t the right people then it’s not a great deal. Ensure you are tracking useful leads and quality customers. Sometimes companies forget about the cost of finding out what works. You may need to run a new campaign with different messaging and targeting to get some useful data. If you make big changes after a disappointing day you may not have much useful information. The aim is to be careful with your spend, understand how people are reacting and make changes for a logical reason.

Content Strategy and Creation

There is a reason why the same questions keep coming up in your sales emails. People want clear answers before they spend their time and money.

A consultancy may get asked how on boarding works. A website agency may get asked the same questions about how long things take, how many revisions and what support they provide. Creating clear pages about your services or articles can make the buying process easier. Content Strategy and Creation isn’t about creating as much as possible. It’s about knowing what questions you want to answer and how. Some topics will need a quick FAQ. Whilst others will need a detailed guide, product demo or real case study. Your content should also be tailored to the stage of the customer. If they are new to your service they may need a simple explanation. If they are comparing providers they may want to know about pricing, delivery and previous work. This can help with your SEO, giving your Social Media Marketing something substantial to link to and improving your Paid Advertising pages. If your information is clear and easy to follow then having one useful page will continue to help long after your social post has been published.

Start With A Practical Strategy

Many marketing issues can occur before you even start creating ads. You want more customers but nobody has agreed on what services to focus on and who your most valuable audience is. Your marketing team may be focusing on driving traffic whilst your sales team want less but higher quality leads. Before deciding on the channels to use, it’s worth agreeing on what your goals are, what your budget is and how you will measure success.

For example, if you are a new company you may want to introduce yourself to potential customers. If you are an established service provider you may want to improve the leads coming through your website. This will influence the channels, messaging and reporting. A useful digital marketing strategy doesn’t have to be complicated. Just ensure you have clear priorities and are flexible to make changes if the data shows a better way.

Ireland, Europe & USA Aren’t One Audience

If someone searches for a Digital Marketing Agency in Ireland they may want to target customers in specific counties. You may need to ensure your examples are relevant locally, your contact information is clear and your pages are based around services people are searching for. If they are searching for a Digital Marketing Agency in the USA they may be competing with providers in individual cities/states. They may also have different expectations around pricing and searching. If they are searching for a Digital Marketing Agency in Europe it could be more complex with different languages, markets and customer behaviours. You shouldn’t use the same campaign for Dublin, Berlin and Chicago.

Local research will influence your keywords, landing pages, ad messaging and how you present your offer. If you operate in multiple countries then language isn’t the only thing to consider. Customers may react differently to pricing, descriptions and how much information they expect. Often companies looking to expand internationally will benefit from focusing on one clear market to test.

Look At The Journey

Let’s say a potential customer finds your company through a social post. A week later they read an article and then come back through a search ad to ask for a quotation.

Where should you attribute this lead to? It’s rarely the perfect answer. Look at how everything fits together. If you are getting traffic through Paid Advertising but not many leads then look at your landing page before increasing your budget. If you are getting people to visit your SEO pages but they aren’t contacting you then ensure the next step is clear. If you are getting attention through social media but it’s the wrong audience then change your topic. Your marketing reports should tell you what has happened, where your money has gone and what can be improved. EireTech360 work across all these areas for businesses in Ireland, Europe & USA. A practical digital marketing strategy will focus on what your customers are deciding, using the correct channels and measuring what is helping your business. More isn’t always better. Often you can improve the connections between what you are doing. Before spending more money find out where your best customers are currently coming from and where interested visitors are dropping off. Often this is where the most useful improvements can be made.