If you want to succeed in today’s connected business environment, it’s vital for your organization to have a strong, noticeable digital presence. While you may know that already, you may be wondering how you can establish a strong digital presence or improve the online visibility you already have.
If you’re curious about establishing or improving your online presence, you’ve come to the right place. While you can find advice about establishing and improving your online visibility pretty easily, it’s not nearly as simple to find advice you can trust, advice that will help you achieve what you’ve set out to accomplish.
Since 2010, Musselwhite Marketing has been helping small to mid-size businesses and entrepreneurs with their digital marketing. Musselwhite Marketing is a highly successful, hybrid digital marketing agency comprised of more than 20 specialists, freelancers, partners and agencies. Armed with the best, most up-to-date talent and partners, Musselwhite Marketing has the proven experience to provide meaningful advice you can act on as early as today.
The Seven Pillars of Digital Marketing
Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all digital marketing plan that will work for every business. In fact, your digital marketing plan may differ greatly from the plans of your closest competitors even though you’re in the same industry, competing for the attention of the same target market.
While that’s the case, every digital marketing plan should be built upon seven pillars. Although you may be tempted to implement just one or only several of these foundation pillars, it’s generally wise to have them all in place to support a comprehensive, effective digital marketing effort.
Here are the seven pillars that should be critical components in every digital marketing strategy, including yours:
Website
While some business owners take their website for granted, you should avoid doing the same. Your website should be a vital part of your overall digital marketing strategy. When you think about what you expect your website to do – provide information, motivate visitors to buy or seek additional details and interact with users, among other things – it’s easy to understand the critical role your website should have in your digital marketing.
From SEO, to PPC ads, branding, analytics, user experience, conversation rate and more, your website can influence many aspects of your digital marketing strategy. The broad reach of your website when it comes to digital marketing makes your web design one of the pillars for your digital marketing.
Content
Even if you have the best, most user-friendly website, it won’t matter if no one can find it. How can you ensure your website ranks well enough in search engine results pages for people to find it? In this regard, content truly is king.
High-quality content is what will lead people to your website. You can be the most skilled writer in the world, but that doesn’t guarantee your material will be read. It’s important to know how to create content your target audience will want to read in the formats they prefer.
Content marketing is an important part of your search engine optimization and thus your digital marketing strategy. Your content is a valuable tool you can use to build your brand online, gain links and establish your company’s authority.
According to Gigaom Research, email is the most successful marketing channel in the contexts of awareness, acquisition, conversion and retention. With a conversion rate of 66 percent, email’s conversion rate is higher than the conversion rate of any other digital marketing channel. Research shows that email is 40 times more effective when it comes to acquiring clients compared to Facebook and Twitter.
Do you need more proof that supports email’s cemented place among the pillars of digital marketing in 2018? If so, consider this – 65 percent of people who open an email using a mobile device like a smartphone will probably look at the message again on a different device at a later time. This gives one email the chance to be seen twice by a recipient. Imagine what that can do for your customer retention rate!
Online Ads
Online ads are an effective way to drive sales as well as the return on your investment in marketing. Online ads aren’t just effective at introducing your business, goods or services to people surfing the Internet. They can also enhance the effectiveness and reach of your off-line marketing channels.
Targeted online ads can shepherd consumers throughout the entire buying process, from the introduction of your goods or services, through the research phase and to the time when they make a purchasing decision. In general, online ads are considered more efficient for reaching a specific audience than traditional ads are.
Video
The majority of humans are visual learners, so it’s only natural that many people prefer watching videos over reading content regardless of how well the material is written. This means video has earned a place as one of the pillars of digital marketing and that it’s not going anywhere any time soon.
Did you know that video drives three times as many visitors to websites? Did you know that video doubles the time that people spend on websites? Did you know that video increases organic traffic gotten from search engines by more than 155 percent? Well, video does all of those things and more, so make it a big part of your digital marketing strategy.
Social Media
You don’t have to be a business owner to know how relevant social media is to the lives of millions and millions of people every day. As a business owner, you do need to incorporate social media into your digital marketing strategy. By using social media to promote your business, goods or services and interact with your followers, you’ll ensure that your current and future customers will be able to find you when they’re looking for businesses like yours and the things you sell.
Just like your website, content and videos can establish your relevance and credibility, so should your social media pages. Social media is an effective platform for you to use if you’re trying to make your business seem more approachable because you can interact with the people who visit your social media pages.
Reviews/Testimonials
Review sites are an essential part of a successful digital marketing plan. Consumers trust reputable, third-party review websites and they can drive a lot of traffic to your website. While that’s obviously good news, review sites can do another meaningful thing – they can help your website rank better in SERPs. Of course, many review sites also give you another opportunity to interact with your clients and prospects by allowing you to follow-up on the comments they leave.
Contact Musselwhite Marketing
Whether you want to learn how to improve your existing digital marketing skills, pick up new ones or you’re looking for an agency that can handle all your digital marketing for you, you’ll find what you’re looking for with Musselwhite Marketing. We offer in-depth training in digital marketing for beginners and experienced marketers who want to refresh their skills. We also provide a full suite of digital marketing services for small to mid-size businesses across industries.
To learn more about our training programs or our digital marketing services, contact Musselwhite Marketing today!
