A Guide To Digital Marketing
Written by Tammy Durden
If you own a small business you know the value of digital marketing. Unfortunately, many business owners do not know all that can go into a good digital marketing strategy. For this reason, I want to give you a guide to digital marketing.
This month we will focus on marketing and aspects of marketing for micro and small businesses.
Defining Digital Marketing
As you know, I love definitions and digital marketing is no exception.
My Definition: Digital marketing is also termed online marketing. It is a way to promote a business’s brand, services, and products online.
According to Mailchimp
“Digital marketing, also called online marketing, is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the internet and other forms of digital communication. This includes not only email, social media, and web-based advertising, but also text and multimedia messages as a marketing channel.”
“Any type of marketing can help your business thrive. However, digital marketing has become increasingly important because of how accessible digital channels are. In fact, there were 5 billion internet users globally in April 2022 alone.“
Types of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing may utilize multiple tools and platforms. So, what would digital marketing, in general, include?
There are multiple forms of digital marketing and I will discuss the following:
- Blogging
- Email Marketing
- SEO
- Social Media
- Website
Blogging
Blogging is a great way to utilize a platform for your brand with digital marketing. When you practice SEO Blogging you will use keywords that are recognized by the search engines and be picked up by them. One of the best ways to do this is to write articles with headlines that ask questions or answer questions or have tips or how-tos in them. When writing consider what questions your audience is typing in to look for answers. Turn that into a headline.
I also highly recommend using YoastSEO Plug-In. It will help you write better and help guide your SEO and it is free (they have paid versions for those really into this and the analytics). I will also include other SEO tools below to help you.
There are many nuances to this approach and piece of digital marketing. I obviously cannot go into great depth so am touching on the top points.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still very alive and very worth pursuing. Our email lists are worth so much today. Gaining those emails is tough when first starting out. Creating your free offer is huge and adding it to your website will begin to help you grab those emails. Remember to share this on social media and other sources. This is the #1 way people add email addresses to their list.
The way that I finally added email addresses, in larger numbers, was to appear on other’s webinars, speak at conference, and do presentations at online conventions. One particular webinar that helped me was a national organization who allowed me to present a talk online about virtual assistants. This had my phone ringing before I was finished the webinar! They allowed all attendees to opt-in not only their organization but gave them the option to opt-in to mine as well. This increased my lists in a big way.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO = Search Engine Optimization is another form of digital marketing. You should not only use this in your blogging but you should also make sure that every page on your website is optimized for SEO.
This can be a specialty all to itself. I am not a specialist in this area but I have learned many tips to use in my own business and to help my clients.
Most digital marketers will not touch SEO they would rather refer you out to companies who do it exclusively. If you can learn the basics and add in a good plug-in to help then you will more than likely help your website out with SEO.
If you have an ecommerce business than perhaps you may want to hire the SEO specialist company.
Here are the tools I mentioned to help you with your SEO:
- AlsoAsk
- Google Ads Keyword Planner
- Google Trends
- Hunter.io
- Keyworddit
- RankMath
- SEM Rush
- SERPS
- Ubersuggest — Neil Patel’s Platform
- YoastSEO Plug-In
It is not necessary to use all of these. Learn to use a few and it can be very helpful for your SEO strategy for your website.
Social Media
I think almost everyone knows what the basic social media platform is but many business owners do not know how to use it effectively for their business. If you are one of those who does not have a clue I suggest that you begin to outsource this to someone or a company who does this day in and day out.
Different social media platforms appeal to different types of businesses. Depending on your type of business can determine the best social media platform for you to use. It is important that you recognize and research this to help your business most.
Many eCommerce businesses use Facebook whereas many service-based businesses use LinkedIn. Instagram is great for visual brands such as photography, hair salons, and products. Once you add in TikTok, YouTube, and/or Twitter (‘X’) as well it becomes overwhelming.
If you are not sure which platform to use please get a little help or coaching to benefit you and your business.
Your Website
Your website is a huge part of your digital marketing plan & strategy. Many Freelancers and Virtual Assistants start without a website and think they can simply be on LinkedIn and that is good enough, Most professionals, however, looking for a Freelancer or VA want to see a professional website before they do business with you. It is part of building that trust factor and showing legitimacy.
We will continue to discuss various aspects of marketing this month. I do hope this helped to spell out some aspects of digital marketing and some ways to incorporate it into your business life.
To Your Continued Success,
Previously published on Fearless Business Boss Blog
Do you need marketing coaching or help to get started with Digital Marketing? As someone who owned a small digital marketing agency for years I am happy to share my expertise with you. Set up a Mini-Session today — Let’s Chat!
