From Lagos to Mombasa, Delhi and Seattle, millions of businesses have leveraged the power of digital transformation to position their brand, gain visibility and new sales but even more businesses are still trying to figure out the digital marketing strategies that can transform their businesses.
Many years ago when I first launched my business, I was one of those brands who were not so sure about what digital marketing could really do for businesses. I struggled a lot in my first year and eventually, the business closed down entirely as there were no sales.
Somehow along the line, I figured out a way to start a new business. With a lot of trial and error, I eventually found a way to grow this business successfully with digital marketing. This was when I had my first-hand experience with growth marketing. And ever since that time, I have been a practitioner for more than 7 years.
Now, having worked with brands of different sizes over the years, I have experienced repeatedly, the impact of effective digital marketing in driving visibility and growth for a new business. And in this guide, I’ll be sharing with you some of the key strategies you have to implement as you launch a digital marketing campaign for a new brand.
Have a Goal
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Whenever I am set to schedule a meeting with any founder, business owner or contact in need of a digital marketing drive, one of the first question I usually ask is, “what is your goal?”.
The reason for this question is not because it is cliché – you can’t successfully set up a digital marketing campaign without a set goal because the goal is what drives the entire conversation.
So one of the first digital marketing strategies I need you to have in your list is your goal. It doesn’t matter what it is, define what you want to achieve clearly before having the first meeting with your team, or the agency you want to hire.
The goal might not be just one. It might be a collection of goals which could be brand visibility, audience engagement, sales or conversions. Whatever it is for you, you need a clear idea of what you want to achieve as part of your online marketing.
As soon as you’re able to figure this, you can then discuss it with your team to align and shape it in house before designing and sharing it with the agency you plan to hire.
Know your Audience
Your audience are the people whose interest you seek to gain with your digital marketing campaign. You need to know exactly who they are and the ways you can appeal to them before anyone else.
So even when your marketing agency will still help you to clear things up with your audience, you as the founder, initiator or business owner, you have to know exactly who is interested in your business and how you can reach them.
As one of my top digital marketing strategies, I expect clients to have a clear idea about their audience as this makes it even easier to create a product or service that fits with the needs of this audience.
Yes because even with the right ideas and right marketing, if you do not have the right audience then you could be wasting your time and money as your campaign may flop.
So you want to know your audience, their age, geographic location and other details that matter to that audience. There are a number of tools you can use to research your audience like surveys, analytics tools and metrics, keywords research tools and direct interviews.
You can also go on a direct research on competing businesses and their websites. Using keywords research tools like Wordstream, Ahref, you can narrow down the search, using their domain URL to analyse their audience for more insights.
Setup a Platform
This is one of those digital marketing strategies that is very obvious. You need a platform to host your campaign. This is where your website comes in. So, before embarking on growth marketing, build a platform where you’ll channel the entire marketing activities.
I believe you already have a name for your business so the first thing you want to do is to get a domain name that aligns with this name then get a web hosting plan and hire a website designer to set up your website.
Create each page on your website and make it align with important sections of your business. For example, the home page should serve as a summary of the website. It should have a combination of captivating images, colors and text that will inspire a user to take specific action.
The other website pages like your About Page, Services Page, Contact Page and any other page you’ll want to add should all be added and well defined to meet the expected needs of your target audience.
As much as possible, add testimonials or a portfolio page to your website, depending on the product or services you’re engaged in.
Leverage Content Marketing
For brands, content is the currency of the web. It is one of the most powerful tools to drive visibility, engagement and website visitors.
This is one of the digital marketing strategies that will certainly be a part of any campaign either directly or indirectly. But to make the most out of it, you have to create and share content that appeals to your audience.
Now, considering that you already know your audience, it’s time to find out, what kind of content do they read? What are the things they are searching for on the internet? And what potential problems would they like their preferred content to solve?
There are tools that can help you to answer these questions. Top among these are the keywords research tools I mentioned earlier, tools like Ahref keywords tool, Google Keywords tool, Wordstream etc.
Using these tools, you can type a keyword that revolves around your key business area or business goal in to the search area and it’ll display what users are searching in respect to the key phrase you typed in.
This results will give you an idea on what matters to your target audience. In addition to that, consider checking out competing brands to find the kind of content they are creating and the impact of such content. All of this will guide you on your content strategy and overall creation process.
Utilize Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is one of the top tier aspects of digital marketing strategies that cannot be ignored. I call it the low hanging fruit because it is readily available even for brands with a very low budget.
In fact, during our early days, social media marketing was one of the growth marketing strategies that led to our very first boom in visibility and sales, especially as there was zero advertising budget at the time.
Now, regardless of the size of your business, social media marketing can be very impactful in growth marketing. This is why it is almost always an integral part of any successful digital marketing campaign you’ll come across.
The best part of social media marketing is that you can benefit from it organically or using paid marketing options. So, even where you don’t want to spend money on advertising, you’ll still need a social media marketing strategy in place.
That said, before getting started with social media marketing, consider the top social media platforms with the highest number of your target audience. Get on these platforms (as much of them as you can handle effectively), create a page for your brand on your chosen platform and then update the page with information about your brand, including your profile photo and others.
Link the page to you central website and then create and share content on the page at intervals. Engage with your audience and take steps to grow the page.
Implement SEO
Search engine optimization is an important practice that amplifies your brand visibility, website visits and overall business growth. It is at the core of organic traffic and one of the important digital marketing strategies I always recommend especially for businesses with a low to average budget.
The thing about search engine optimization is that it drives consistent traffic to your business organically. So, after the paid traffic and visibility all disappears, you can rely on SEO to deliver on the traffic and visibility you need.
That said, implementing SEO is not always a walk in the park. You’ll have to spend time to identify the right key phrases and then use these to optimize the website while building on backlink, local SEO and content marketing.
All of this will need a concerted effort, realistic strategy and a well-coordinated plan. But over the weeks, your results will start trickling in.
I always emphasize the importance of search engine optimization because it is one of the best strategies you can use to increase your digital footprint, boost visibility and actually, control the narratives especially for a new brand.
Engage in Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is one of the top digital marketing strategies that can get a brand to experience a buzz in traffic and visibility especially during the early days.
One of the reasons I do root for paid advertising in some cases is because some brands might struggle with visibility and sales during the early days. With paid advertising, this can be averted although at an expense.
Now, there are specific advertising options that are available for brands, based on their budget. For example, PPC Advertising by Google and other search engine platforms like YouTube etc. can be very lucrative for brands.
The fact that intent based advertising are more targeted can also make it potentially a higher ROI earner, compared to other advertising options however, PPC by search engines can be a bit on the high side for some brands with smaller budgets.
For smaller budget brands, social media advertising can save day. Compared to other advertising options, social media advertising are less expensive especially with platforms like Facebook and Instagram advertising having very flexible offerings.
Even where you have a decent budget for advertising, combing intent based advertising on search engines with social media marketing can lead to an improved outcome and increased ROI for your digital marketing campaign.
Final Words
I believe that digital marketing is a leveller because with the right strategies, it gives small brands the power to create improved results as much as the older brands. This is one of the reasons I always recommend this marketing approach for businesses, regardless of their sizes.
SAs you’ve read about the key digital marketing strategies that can reposition your business today, I hope that you do not only put these skills to use but that you’ll learn new strategies as you implement all of this and your business will continue to grow.
I do hope that this sparks a new journey of growth for your business. And where you need mentorship and continuous guidance, you can join our digital marketing program here. Or reach us here.
Now it’s your turn. What are your challenges when it comes to creating a result driven digital marketing campaigns? Drop your comments below.
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