Digital marketing for businesses whitepaper from The Room Marketing
- 1. How Digital Marketing Can Help Businesses Find a New Direction? ! The Digital Marketing Process to Put Your Business on the Map
- 2. Copyright and Disclaimer The “How Digital Marketing Can Help Businesses Find a New Direction?” whitepaper is published by The Room Marketing. No part of this publication can be reproduced, copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or be stored in a retrieval system of any type, without obtaining prior written permission of The Room Marketing. Application for permission to reproduce all or part of this whitepaper shall be made to The Room Marketing. Although the greatest care has been taken in the preparation and compilation of this whitepaper, no liability or responsibility of any kind, to an extent permitted by law, including responsibility for negligence is accepted by The Room Marketing, its employees, or affiliates. All information gathered and published herein is believed correct at July, 2018. All corrections should be sent to The Room Marketing for future editions.
- 3. Table of Contents Copyright and Disclaimer 2......................................................... Executive Summary 4................................................................ The Digital Marketing Process 6................................................... The Digital Marketing Process—The Six Steps 6................................ Plan: Develop an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy 6................................. Attract: Identify Your Target Market 7..................................................... Create: Develop Content to Attract Consumers 8......................................... Decide: Select Social Media Platforms to Convey Message 9............................ Engage: Cultivate a Loyal Following 10..................................................... Measure: Analyze and Optimize Content to Increase Exposure 11...................... Conclusion 12......................................................................... About The Room Marketing Company 13........................................
- 4. Executive Summary The evolution of advertising mediums in recent years has transformed the marketing landscape for businesses. The emergence of technology combined with the launch of social media platforms has provided businesses with fresh and newer opportunities to attract and convert their leads into customers. Even with the widespread awareness of utilizing digital marketing strategies to promote one’s brands, 47% businesses employing one or more digital marketing strategies do not have a plan or a concrete process to follow to execute it successfully. An effective digital marketing strategy consists of a detailed1 process, outlining every step the company needs to take in order to ensure they are on the right track. Without a digital marketing process in place, businesses will struggle to adopt and integrate social media strategies, SEO optimization techniques, and online video marketing methods into their marketing campaign. Nowadays, an average person spends more time browsing online on their mobile, laptop, or other handheld devices, thus increasing the need for businesses to develop a digital marketing process.2 Businesses that have yet to create a digital marketing process need to realize the importance of developing one. A digital marketing process allows businesses to access an untapped target market, thus extending their reach and influence across different areas. More importantly, it closes the communication gap between the company and the consumer, and helps the business build a loyal customer base. In order to influence the customer to purchase a product, service, or both, businesses need to integrate several digital mediums into their process. Content, social media, email, mobile advertising, and other well-known mediums will allow businesses to obtain a deeper insight into customer behavior, analyzing it to refine their advertising and marketing efforts to keep them hooked to their brand. However, initiating a digital marketing strategy comes with its own set of specific challenges, including: Smart Insights, “10 Reasons You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy,” Dave Chaffey1 Branding Bricks, “The Changing Face of B2B Marketing,” Gregg2
- 5. 1. Consumers use more than one digital channel and several different devices. Each device utilizes different specifications, protocols, and interfaces. Consumers use the different platforms and devices for different purposes. 2. Advertising online is comparatively inexpensive and this has intensified the competition online, thus making it difficult for businesses to retain the attention of consumers. 3. The statistics on the usage of different platforms differs from one another, making it difficult for businesses to gather and analyze all of the information. Businesses can overcome these challenges if they have a digital marketing process to guide them into making the right decisions for the growth of their company. This whitepaper will take businesses through the digital marketing process, explaining each process in detail.
- 6. The Digital Marketing Process Digital marketing allows business to create an online experience for their consumers using different online mediums. Businesses use a bevy of different tools such as social media, mobile phones, and videos to market their products and services. In doing so, business gain a larger perspective on their potential market. A digital marketing process provides business with the following benefits: • Provides them with a direction to move forward and outlines strategic goals • Offers them with an insight on their current online market share • Minimizes the risk of competitors stealing their online market share • Builds a loyal customer base • Optimizes digital marketing strategy To implement an online strategy into one’s business model, you require a digital marketing process, consisting of a plan, ways to attract users, selection of the platforms you want to utilize, engaging users with your business, converting them into customers, analyzing and optimizing your strategy, and managing your interactions and the effectiveness of your advertising campaign. The Digital Marketing Process—The Six Steps Digital marketing has proven its effectiveness multiple times over the years. Both start-up business and big businesses are recognizing the effectiveness of speaking on a digital platform. They are using the available mediums to produce content with the aim for their post or video to go viral. Businesses can increase the likelihood of their advertising video to garner multiple views, likes, and shares by implementing the following six steps: Plan: Develop an Effective Digital Marketing Strategy Businesses need to develop their digital marketing strategy around their established goals and objectives. In the instance, a business is not meeting their goals and objectives, resulting in the loss of revenue; they can modify their strategies to align with their goals. Businesses need to adopt S.M.A.R.T. approach to develop their goals.
- 7. Creating Goals Smartly Specific– Set specific goals by answering the 6 Ws. 1. Who: Identify who will be involved 2. What: Define the outcome 3. Where: Identify the location 4. When: Set a time frame 5. Which: Identify requirements and limitations. 6. Why: Substantiate the purpose, rationale, and benefits of the achieving this specific goal. Measurable– Develop criteria for measuring progress towards the accomplishment of each established goal Attainable–Create abilities, attitudes, skills, and a budget to attain the goals Realistic– Establish an achievable goal, one that you are able and willing to work towards in achieving Time-bound– Develop a time frame for the completion of the goal Attract: Identify Your Target Market Identifying the right target market is one of the most important elements of a successful digital marketing strategy. Businesses need to ask themselves “who is our ideal customer”, and profile their customers to understand their needs, wants, and pain points. This will allow them to figure out how to target them, and what they should be trying to achieve for their product, service, or brand. They need to analyze their presence on social media, their influence on users, the users’ reaction to their message, the number of users actively participating in conversations, and their overall response to the brand. Next step for businesses is to distinguish and divide their target market to narrow down their advertising campaign’s focus to cater to them. In doing so, businesses will be able identify consumer behavior and interaction patterns in an omni- channel setting.
- 8. Create: Develop Content to Attract Consumers Businesses cannot depend on one medium to attract consumers and convert them into buying customers. They need to use and develop multiple types of promotional content to receive likes, shares, comments, and retweets. The message portrayed through their content needs to resonate with their target market. Businesses need to utilize the following five factors to formulate the message: 1. What message are they trying to convey through their content to their target market? 2. Why will the target market pay attention to the message? 3. What type of emotions are they trying to evoke through their message? 4. Does the message connect to the needs and wants of their target market? Popular Onlline Activities 0 10 19 29 38 Social networks Watching videos Time spent online (minutes per day) Popular Social Media Sites 27% 31% 43% Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Source: Fact Monster
- 9. 5. How will the message persuade their target market to invest in their products or service? 6. How their target market spends time online? By answering the aforementioned questions, businesses will receive an idea on how to formulate a message to publish on a specific social media platform. Decide: Select Social Media Platforms to Convey Message With several social media platforms to choose from, it is essential for businesses to make a well thought out decision. Businesses need to consider the following three factors when basing their decision: • Geographic location • Lifestyle • Age For example, businesses trying to attract people age 13 and above may rely on Facebook or Twitter to capture their attention. A business’s aim through social media is to identify the social media platforms used most often by their target market. Online Population by Region 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% North America Europe Oceania Latin America Asia Africa 12% 22% 38% 58% 65% 79%
- 10. Businesses need to sit down with their digital marketers to ask and answer the following questions: 1. What is the most frequently used method for users to seek information about their products, services, or brands? • For example, 12.6 billion searches are performed on Google3 2. What social media platforms does a business’s target market frequent the most? • For example, Facebook receives 1.65 billion users from across the globe with 1.51 billion users using it from their mobile device4 3. What purpose do the social media platforms combined with technological device serve a business’s digital marketing campaign? • For example, 2.16 billion people worldwide will own a smartphone towards the end of 20165 In this step, businesses need to establish key performance indicators (KPIs). KPI is a measurable value that demonstrates the effectives of a company in accomplishing their goals and objectives. Businesses utilize KPIs to evaluate how close they are to achieving their targets. There are two types of KPIs, low-level KPIs with a focus on specific departments of a business such as marketing or sales and high-level KPIs with a focus on the performance of a business. Engage: Cultivate a Loyal Following Businesses with a social media profile need to remain consistent with their posts, as it is essential for their success on their chosen platform. They need to publish posts such as posting videos and pictures to their followers in a consistent manner every day. If one of their followers leaves a comment or a complaint, businesses need to respond in timely manner. Through their posts, they need to build a story and keep their followers informed about their latest products and services. Freely, “The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2015,” Lara Moore3 Zephoria, “The Top 20 Valuable Facebook Statistics—Updated April 20164 eMarketer, “2 Billion Consumers Worldwide to Get Smart(phones) in 2016”5
- 11. If they are not proactive about addressing their followers, their popularity on the social media site may diminish with their competitors superseding them. Measure: Analyze and Optimize Content to Increase Exposure A previously step briefly discussed the importance of establishing key performance indicators and in this step, businesses will about the different KPIs they need to establish to measure and analyze their digital marketing strategy. Businesses need to establish the following KPIs: • Search engine rankings • Site traffic • Mobile traffic • New and returning traffic • Source of traffic • Average step per visit • Conversation rates • Return on investment (ROI) To measure the aforementioned metrics, businesses should employ web analytics, SEO analytics, and social medial analytics. Some of the popular tools to utilize include Google Analytics, Moz, HubSpot, Simply Measured, Hootesuite, and Socialbakers Analytics. Business will need to optimize their site and posts accordingly to ensure they site and social media sites appear in the search results.
- 12. Conclusion With consumers changing the way they browse and search for products and services online, businesses need to remain vigilant in adopting the newest technology trends that arise. It has become ever more important for businesses to integrate a digital marketing strategy into their business model. They need to develop a digital marketing process to allow them to maximize their reach and revenue resulting from that reach. They can either operate in-house or outsource their digital marketing strategy to SEO companies.
- 13. About The Room Marketing Company Video Production, Digital Marketing, Web Design, Corporate Photography, Branding, Social Media, Social Media Marketing—All Under One Roof! Are you looking for a worthwhile digital marketing expert that will help simplify the digital experience and beyond? Are you intending to boost your digital presence to generate more leads, increase sales and create brand loyal customers? Are you planning to up your game in the competitive digital arena with strong SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Are you looking to beat your competitors by offering them a unique value for their hard-earned money? Or you simply want to make a room for yourself in the ever-evolving media or digital landscape? If any of these things is your situation, then you have come to the right place, as we transform digital experiences of our clients with an all-new touch of excitement and flare of creativity and innovation. At the Room Marketing, we provide custom-tailored multimedia and digital marketing solutions to all those looking to up their game in the media and marketing industry. We care nothing less than providing strong yet quality branding services and growth-driven web designs with customer-centric ROI results, which ultimately makes us the leading name in the digital marketing industry since 2003. What Do We offer? At Room Marketing, we offer a wide variety of digital marketing and multimedia services to our potential and privileged customers on the market, which is of highest quality and value. We specialize in Video Production, Digital Marketing, Web Designing, Corporate Photography, Branding, Social Media, and Social Media Marketing. Our large customer-base, competitive pricing structure with guaranteed growth-driven results, sure makes your digital journey smooth and seamless. Contact Phone: 813- 438-2222 Email: [email protected]