Boosting Your Bottom Line with Digital Marketing

Best Practices to Grow Your Online Presence

Digital marketing has gained ground over the last several years.  In fact, nine out of 10 B2B buyers stated that online content has had a moderate to major effect on purchasing decisions.

With the advent of COVID-19, your company’s digital presence is more important than ever.  Just like 9/11 ushered in a “new normal” so will COVID-19.  These different practices will affect many aspects of business including marketing.  Now is the best time to review your online marketing to determine if a refresh is necessary.

Digital Marketing Assets

Digital marketing encompasses many different tactics.  Below are a few that are particularly important for delivering a good online impression of your business.

1. Website

There are almost two billion websites on the internet today.  And, North America has the highest rate of internet users in the world.  Over 94 percent or almost 350 million North Americans are online.  With these types of statistics, it is more important than ever to be online.  Not only must your company have a website, but it should not look like it was built in the year 2000.  In today’s fast-paced world,  it takes only 50 milliseconds or .05 seconds for most visitors to form an opinion of your website.  Hopefully, that opinion will lead to further exploration of it.

Your website does not have to be fancy, but at a minimum, it should include the following elements:

• A listing of your products and/or services.  Depending upon the extent of your content, it can be all included on one page, or there can be a separate page for each product or service.  Besides the content, you should also include any high-quality photos, videos, and collateral.
• Your company’s history, mission, vision, and any differentiators (unique skills, technology, etc.) should be covered.
• A page highlighting your management team and even key employees should be included on your website. Photos, short bios and even links to their LinkedIn profiles can be listed.
• A contact form should be on your website.  You may even include a dropdown menu of products and/or services from which visitors can select.
• Phone numbers should be easy to find and clickable.
• A blog is critical for keeping your website fresh.  Google likes new content and rewards you for it.  Also, fresh content is key for repeat visitors who hopefully will be converted into customers.  According to HubSpot, marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see a positive ROI.
• Almost every company is on one social medial platform or another.  To help grow your following, buttons or widgets for these social networks should be visible on the top of every web page.  Also, they should be displayed by your blog for easy sharing.
• Meta tags, which are a component of the HTML tags that describe your website page content to search engines and visitors, are key.  They appear in the HTML code of your website pages.  Meta tags not only let search engines know what your page is about, but they also provide the first impression and point of contact for all search engines.

2. Email Marketing

You have probably read that email marketing is not effective.  However, this could not be further from the truth.  According to a study by McKinsey & Company, email marketing is up to 40 times more effective than social media.  The same study also shows that the buying process happens three times faster than in social media.

Email marketing is ideal for reaching your target market and providing your customers with company updates (i.e. new products, additional locations, executive team changes, etc.).  And, don’t forget that blogs can be repurposed into email campaigns too.

3. Social Media

There’s so much potential value to be unlocked through social media.  Depending on your type of business, certain social media channels are more effective than others.

If you have not been active on social media in a while, now may be a good time to engage again.  You can post a recent blog on your different platforms to position your company as a thought leader.  Be sure to engage with those followers who like or share it because you never know who your next new customer could be.

Also, social media provides an excellent opportunity to build your brand.  It may even be its most valuable capability.  You may not see as high a conversion rate.  However, the impression your brand presents, and the reputation it builds can be greatly enhanced thanks to social media.

4. Content Marketing

If you want your website to be found on search engines via organic search, then you must be prepared to invest time in content marketing.  Ninety-one percent of B2B marketers use it to reach customers.

However, not all content marketing is created equal.  Your content must be compelling, incorporate keywords, and be produced consistently.  Creating a variety of content marketing is important to keeping your customers and prospects engaged.  Content marketing can range from blogs and articles to longer pieces such as case studies and white papers.  Video should also be a component of your content marketing plan.  In fact, video is the #1 form of media used in content strategy, overtaking blogs and infographics.

Make Sure Your Company is Keeping up with Digital Marketing

Digital marketing has made great strides in the last decade.  Now with COVID-19, its importance has grown exponentially.  And, with a strong online presence, you will build further traction for your company when events are a key component of your marketing strategy again.