Digital Marketing

You likely here more than you need to about online marketing in 2021. The reality is, online is now the go-to for attracting customers. Maybe you’ve heard a bit about using Facebook, or even Facebook Ads. Then there’s search ads on Google. And email marketing. And what about SEO? Today we’re going to breakdown the digital marketing mix and take a quick look at the basic strengths and weaknesses of each channel.

Firstly, let’s breakdown digital marketing like this.

PPC Advertising.

PPC Advertising stands for pay per click. It refers to the kind of advertising platforms provided by companies like Google and Bing. And when people talk about PPC, this is generally what they’re talking about – platforms like Google Ads. Although many other advertising platforms offer this model of advertising. The big advantage of pay per click advertising is that, as the name suggests, you only pay when someone clicks on the ad. We’ll look at PPC in the form of search advertising in a little more detail below.

SEM

SEM stands for search engine marketing. SEM includes any online marketing activity that involves search engines like Google and Bing. SEM includes PPC advertising and organic search engine optimisation (SEO).

SEO

Search engine optimisation involves ensuring that search engines have the best possible understanding what your website is about, and taking steps to improve your website visibility on search results pages. The more visible your website is when people use search terms relevant to your product or service greatly impacts the number of visitors who reach your website.

SMM

SMM stands for – you guessed it – social media marketing. Social media marketing can include paid advertising on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. But it also refers to any of marketing activity that uses social media – whether it’s maximising organic reach and engagement or utilising these platforms paid advertising options.

Email Marketing

As the name suggests, email marketing simply refers to the use of email to promote your business, brand, product or service. Dedicated online marketers have long realised the tremendous value in being able to communicate directly with your audience by email. And popular email marketing platforms like MailChimp make it possible to both send and carefully track email marketing campaigns. We’ll look at some of the benefits of email marketing in more detail below.

Websites

When it comes to digital marketing, your website plays a critical role as the hub of your online marketing activity. Email marketing campaigns will generally lead back to your website. Search campaigns – both organic and paid – are designed to bring customers to your website. And even your socials – although they can stand alone – are another way to bring traffic to your site.

Analytics

With all these online marketing options, you want to know what to choose, and how well it’s working. One of the great advantages of digital marketing campaigns is that you can accurately tracking just how well they’re working. And with granular analytics, you can also see exactly what’s not working. All this gives you the ability to refine and improve digital marketing campaigns over time. If you’re using our Coffs Harbour web design service, your website will include analytics so you can begin monitoring performance from day one.

Website Analytics. The first place to start recording data for is your website. You want to know how many people are arriving at your website, where they’re arriving from, and how they’re engaging with your content. Google Analytics provides all this data and much more. If you don’t already have Google Analytics installed on your website, do so today. There are a range of other Analytics services available, including Statcounter. However for most people and circumstances, Analytics works very well.

Email Analytics. If you’re running an email marketing campaign, you should be able to accurately track things like opens and link clicks. This gives you valuable insight into what’s working and what’s not working in your campaign. Email marketing platforms generally come with built in analytics. Sometimes racking link clicks in plain text email can be problematic – read more about using plain text and html in your email marketing.

Social Media Analytics. There are many third party tools available to help drill down into your social engagement with great detail. Sprout Social and HubSpot both offer advanced social analytics. If your social presence includes and Facebook page, remember also to make use of the built analytics and page performance reports available there. Here’s a

PPC Analytics. If you’re running a PPC campaign on a platform like Google Ads, you can completely integrate your ad campaign data with Google Analytics. This gives you a complete, context-rich overview of how your campaign is performing, and how that compares to leads and conversions from your organic traffic.

Find the right business, freelancer or agency to be your digital marketing partner can be tough. but it’s an important decision. Today we’re looking at some things to consider.

Identifying Your Needs

Firstly, it’s good to make a basic list of both your current and future needs. Perhaps you know you need to have your website revamped. And you’ll think about digital marketing like social media and Google Ads in the future. Or, perhaps you already have a top notch website but just need help with email marketing. When identifying your needs, make two columns. One that includes immediate needs and one that incudes future needs. In the future needs column, include things even if they’re a distant goal.

The reason it’s a good idea to include future needs is that many digital marketing services are closely interrelated. The other reason it’s a good idea is because it allows your provider to account for potential future needs today. Wondering what to include? Here’s some insights into putting together a digital marketing strategy.

Where are they located?

If it’s important to you to be working with someone close by, be sure to check they are where you think they are! It’s increasingly common now for web design companies based in one location to promote their services in another. So even if you’re not working face-to-face, but want to work with a local, check their location. While our web design service is based here in Coffs Harbour, we work with clients right along the east coast. This works for some, but everyone has different needs and preferred ways of working.

Do you feel the communication is clear and effective?

If you’re having trouble communicating around your basic projects needs, it doesn’t bode well for if and when things get more complicated. You should feel understood by your provider. Equally, when it comes to project outlines and quotes, you should feel as though you understand exactly what you are – and aren’t – getting.

Freelancer or Agency?

This will depend on your needs and your internal capabilities and capacity. If you have an inhouse digital team, specialist freelance services could be the perfect choice. Small startups can also benefit from freelance services. Perhaps you’re all over your socials and just need someone to build a simple site.

Freelance services are also great for small businesses that have a clear idea of their own needs. In this instance, you can choose who works on what aspect of your digital marketing. There are a couple of downfalls to this approach. Firstly, you’ll be spending more time coordinating between providers and tasks. Secondly, you risk having gaps or blind spots in your digital strategy. Thirdly, you risk losing consistency in your marketing.

A digitial agency, on the other hand, offers a ‘full service’ experience. Need a website – check. Email marketing – check. Social and PPC – check. A digital agency is definitely a good choice for any business or start up looking to make use of a suite of services. But remember your list of future needs. Even if you’re not looking to make use of all those capabilities today, you might well in the future. And it’s going to be easier to have the agency you worked with to create your website to also delpoy your other campaigns.

The advantages to working with a digital agency don’t stop there. Generally, an agency is better positioned to ensure things like branding and reporting are done effectively.