The 7 Pillars of Digital Marketing Success

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Introduction A digital marketing strategy is an important part of an overall marketing plan for any business but it’s especially impactful for small to mid-sized businesses because of cost efficiency and the opportunity to engage with customers in targeted communications channels.

This eBook helps make the case for why you should be thinking about a digital marketing plan, understanding your audience and steps to define your goals along with ways to get started. Introduction A digital marketing strategy is an important part of an overall marketing plan for any business but it’s especially impactful for small to mid-sized businesses because of cost efficiency and the opportunity to engage with customers in targeted communications channels.

This eBook helps make the case for why you should be thinking about a digital marketing plan, understanding your audience and steps to define your goals along with ways to get started.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 1 Contents Why digital marketing?...... 3 Who is your audience?...... 5 Define your goals...... 7 Digital marketing channels...... 10 Website...... 11 Email...... 13 Social Media...... 15 Video...... 19 Display Advertising...... 20 Native Advertising...... 21 Search Engines...... 23 Next steps...... 26

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 2 Why digital marketing? Digital marketing is especially impactful for small to mid-sized businesses because of cost efficiency and the opportunity to engage with customers in targeted communications channels.

That’s why it’s no surprise that according to The Business Journals SMB Insights research, digital marketing is dominant among small to mid-size business owners’ future marketing plans. And, over the past three years, fast-growing companies have increased their use of email and social media marketing.

Advertising/Marketing Vehicles Used by Fast-growing Companies

43%

32% 30% Email marketing 28% 26% Trade shows/events 22% Social media marketing 18% Social media advertising

2014 2015 2016 2017

Source: The Business Journals SMB Insights 2017 “For which of the following marketing and advertising vehicles has your company used in the past 12 months?”

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 3 Future Marketing Plans (Next 1-2 Years)

40% 32% 24% 14% 34% 30% 21% 10% Online Social Direct mail PR display Outdoor Email Social media media ads Trade marketing marketing shows/events

However, the adoption of digital marketing channels among marketers varies depending upon the target audience. A study from Webmarketing123 shows that 93% of B2B marketers practice email marketing while B2C marketers most commonly use social media. Both fall short in leveraging display advertising and paid search to fully integrate their digital media strategy.

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0% Social media Display Paid search Email SEO

B2B B2C

Research points like these demonstrate interest among SMB owners in digital marketing and the adoption of some key channels.

Source: The Business Journals SMB Insights 2017 “Which of the following will your company use more of in the next 1-2 years?”

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 4 Who is your audience? Knowing the audience you want to target for any marketing message is step one to developing a successful strategy.

If you aren’t sure where to start, think of your best customers and create a “look-a-like audience” that has matching attributes and behaviors to current customers. Attributes to consider include company size, industry, job function and title. Then, think about your ideal prospect’s behaviors and interests to create additional attributes that indicate intent to buy your product or service.

Customer surveys are another tool to collect data, a simple satisfaction survey or product registration can be a great source of information. In addition, asking your own sales team or the people that interact with your customers on a daily basis is another way to gather more information about your audience.

It’s not unusual to develop several target audiences as part of one marketing effort. In fact, it’s better to customize messaging to specific audience groups rather than in mass.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 5 For The Business Journals, we survey our subscribers to make sure we know what our core audience looks like. Our customers are in management, have a strong household income and they are working for fast-growing companies.

76% $233,000 management average household income

$246M +13% average annual sales annual revenue growth rate

Once the audience is defined, the next step is to set goals and begin to think about the best way to reach them.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 6 Define your goals There are two over-arching strategies in marketing, brand development or direct response advertising. In order to determine which works best for your business objectives, decide if you want to improve brand awareness to become more top of mind for customers or tie your marketing back to a sale?

Brand development goals Direct response goals

3 Marketing positioning 3 Drive traffic 3 Awareness 3 Grow social following 3 Emotional connection 3 Capture data 3 Credibility 3 Lead generation 3 Commerce

Example: A new bank opens and needs to position themselves as a premier small Example: An established bank wants business lender. to promote their new business loan program and encourages customers to visit the website for more information.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 7 Brand Campaigns Brand campaigns are created to leave an impression, they can be used to drive widespread awareness, position a brand as an industry leader or create an emotional connection. Use brand campaigns to set your business apart from the competition and stay top of mind with customers.

Reasons why you would use a branding campaign: n Build industry leadership n Mold the way your brand is perceived by the customer n Set your business apart from the competition n Create an emotional connection with the customer n Stay top of mind

Branding Campaign Example

Deloitte’s ad is connected to the national day of When users click on the ad, they learn more about the service and emphasizes their commitment to local program and Deloitte’s commitment to the community. communities year round, not just one day of the year.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 8 Direct Response Campaigns Direct response goals differ in that marketing messages ask that the recipients take action. One goal might be to drive traffic to your website, another could be to grow your following on social media. Or direct response campaigns can be developed to capture data, generate leads and even boost sales for a specific product.

Because direct response strategies are designed to drive action, there are several different ways to encourage interaction with brand messaging. n Clicks on digital ads n Visits to a landing page n Downloads n Sign ups n Video views n Free trials n Surveys n Schedule a meeting n Follow, like, share via social media

Direct Response Example

300x250 ad encourages QuickBooks sign up Customers are taken to a landing page on the Intuit with a free trial. website that allows them to interact more with the brand and learn about the product. As customers and prospects click around the page, data is collected that gives Intuit more insight into who is viewing the product and what peaks their interest-all good follow up information for future efforts, whether it be a sales call or additional promotions.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 9 Digital Marketing Channels The next step in developing a successful digital strategy is to select the channels that will be the most effective for your marketing message.

n Website n Email n Social media n Video n Display advertising n Native advertising n Search

The following pages take a closer look at each digital channel and offer recommendations and insight into each one.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 10 Website Recommendations A website is an all-around business tool that is used to reinforce your brand, Summary: provide information about your business, capture customer data and create Website sales. 3 Create a positive user experience Because a company website is one of the first places customers and 3 Offer customer service prospects look to find information on products and services, it’s important channels to create one that is easy to use. Navigation should be intuitive, consider 3 Use a mobile responsive including things like FAQs and a live chat option. It’s very important that your platform website works both on desktops and mobile platforms with responsive design 3 Publish relevant, quality so that no matter where customers access it, the information is organized for articles and videos 3 their device. Optimize for search engines

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 11 In addition to company and product information, company websites can be used to publish relevant, quality articles and videos. This type of information benefits search engine optimization, gives the website even more exposure, and helps you target your top-of- funnel customers. Many of the website platforms, like WordPress, incorporate the option to include blog posts, which are another great source of content. Services like WordPress are a great option to jumpstart your website design, they offer many templates that can be easily customized to the company without a highly technical background.

Website Example

The Leaders website is an example of clean design They have clear buttons for events, insights and with straightforward navigation. They prioritized their development. They use real photography, versus slogan, Worth Knowing, and offer two options to learn stock photos, of well-known figures in the visitor intent. Are they visiting for sports performance sports industry; offering credibility. or sports business?

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 12 Email Recommendations Email marketing offers on-going communication and provides a cost-effec- Summary: tive alternative to more traditional methods like direct mail. It also allows for Email customized messaging and analytics. 3 Build an interest list 3 Distribute regular marketing So how do you tackle building a successful email campaign? Get started by communications creating an interest list and allowing customers to opt-in to receive email 3 Always include a call to communications from your business. It’s best to start to develop email lists action from people you have a business relationship with; versus buying lists from 3 Provide valuable information third parties. Think of your customer touch points and figure out how you can or special offers collect opt-ins. For example, is there a prominent call to action to sign-up on 3 Follow basic email design your website? guidelines 3 Analyze data to enhance Building email content can be overwhelming. Identifying the best on-demand performance 3 Select the appropriate email software solution is an important step. Many offer templates and insight sender that guide you through how to develop the best format for your information 3 Use straight-forward whether it’s a newsletter or special offer. subject lines 3 Be consistent in design and copy 3 Consider time of day and frequency 3 Send two efforts

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 13 On any given day email inboxes are flooded with messages. Breaking through the clutter is one of the biggest challenges so make sure emails focus on quality versus quantity of communication and always offer value. Email software also provides in-depth analytics that can be used to improve performance. Test things like different email subject lines and timing of your sends to determine the best strategy for your audience.

Email Example

This email offers free access to a proprietary list This email offers a free download of a report in ex- of private companies in exchange for providing change for providing more information; note the more more information about the person requesting personalized approach and signature at the bottom. the download. Because there are many different ways to package your message, it’s important to test and measure response to learn what your audience responds to.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 14 Social Media Social media can improve brand loyalty, act as a forum to listen to your customers and allow you to reach new audiences. Fostering engagement with a social media community increases customer loyalty and retention. Figuring out how to do that depends on the needs of your brand and the individuals with whom you are interacting with. The most successful marketers use both organic and paid social media tactics as part of their social media strategy.

Organic social media uses the free tools provided by each social network to build a community and relationships. For example, answering a question about your business or posting a product update on Facebook.

Paid social media, on the other hand, is ideal for brand awareness, lead generation, and driving conversions. For example, sponsored messages to social media users or an ad for your business that runs on Facebook.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 15 Organic Social Media Example of Organic Social Media Post It’s important to understand how your target audience interacts with social media. Through our own customer research, we know that most of The Business Journals digital readers use LinkedIn for business and very few use Twitter; Facebook still makes up 90% of our social traffic.

There are some simple steps to take to establish a social media presence. As a first step, make sure to complete your profile on each platform. Establish a consistent voice and set a schedule for posting. Most of all, gain followers by curating great content related to your business. It’s just as important to share or retweet a great piece of content; even if it didn’t originate from you. Your followers will appreciate the work you put in to find the content on their behalf. Successful businesses use social media to communicate back and forth with followers. For example, monitor and respond when followers engage with you. This could be as simple as thanking someone for retweeting your post.

Recommendations Summary: Organic Social Media

3 Have a strategy for each platform 3 Create a complete profile 3 Establish a voice 3 Curate great content related to your business 3 Set a schedule for posting 3 Engage in two-way communication

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 16 Paid Social Media Example of Paid Social Media Post Social media platforms adjust their algorithms all the time to predict which posts users will most like- ly engage with. When you post on Facebook, you only reach a small percentage of your followers. For this reason, if a message is meant for a larger group, you may want to pay to promote the post, known as a boosted post. You might also want to create a sponsored post or ad on social media to reach beyond your current following. There are tremendous opportunities for targeting based on gender, education, interests, etc.

If you decide to boost a post or create a sponsored post or ad, you will need to know how bidding works. Essentially, you’re among a group of marketers all trying to reach the same audience. The highest bidder with the relevant content wins. You can bid and pay for each click on your ad or you can buy reach or impressions and pay by the thousands. That’s called CPM or cost per thousand. Choose which devices you want to use. If you don’t have a website that looks good on mobile, then don’t advertise to mobile devices. Each social platform provides a reporting tool for free. Access reports daily while you are optimizing campaigns and figuring out what works – find the secret sauce.

Recommendations Summary: Paid Social Media

3 Test different social channels 3 Create targeting options for social channels 3 Understand CPM and CPC options 3 Decide on device targeting 3 Access reports daily while you’re optimizing campaigns

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 17 Organic or Paid, change the tone and presentation of your posts based on the social media channel.

Here are sample posts around an eBook produced by The Business Journals called 54 Tips to Advance Your Career, these illustrate how slight changes to the tone and supporting imagery are edited for each social platform. Instagram Facebook YouTube/Facebook Live YouTube/Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 18 Video Recommendations Video is a medium that has been used by marketers for quite some time but Summary: now with changes to technology and the growth of social media outlets, Video video plays an even bigger role in today’s marketing strategies. 3 Great for training, demos, events 3 Keep videos short According of all Internet traffic (less than 90 seconds) to Cisco, 82% will be video by 2021. 3 Successful videos always do one of the following: o Entertain, instruct and provide useful or The average click higher than interesting information through rate is 10.8x display advertising.

With more volume and higher engagement, video is a channel to em- brace. Video can be displayed on multiple platforms including social media channels, websites and YouTube. Video is a highly engaging platform that can be used for just about any marketing message from training, to product demos, to covering events. The most successful promotional videos are short and entertain, instruct and provide useful or interesting information.

Sources: Cisco; Smart Insights; Distilled.net

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 19 Display Advertising Recommendations Display advertising is an efficient way to reach a wide audience at a low cost. Summary: It’s also a great tool to target specific audiences based on behaviors or Display Advertising context. For example, if you’re targeting a B2B audience, with contextual targeting you can run display ads on websites in the business category. 3 Include as part of overall Behavioral targeting reaches audiences based on websites they’ve visited. media mix 3 Select your media targets Display advertising should be included as part of an overall media mix. (who is your core Start simple. Let’s say you’d like to reach local business leaders, call up your audience?) local business journal and ask them if you can run display advertising on their 3 Consider frequency and consistency website. For identifying media targets, think about what makes up your core 3 Follow best practices in audience, as we discussed earlier. What are they reading online? That’s where creative design you want to be. Consider frequency and consistency. Follow best practices in 3 Understand CPM creative design – include the call to action even if your goal is brand aware- 3 Get the click but don’t ness, you still want the click to your website or landing page. Understand mislead CPM – cost per thousand. In display advertising, you will typically buy based 3 Access reporting regularly on a price per thousand impressions. Get the click but don’t mislead. Be and optimize creative transparent about what you are offering. As with social media, reporting is easily accessible so make sure to run reports regularly and optimize your creative or copy to generate higher click through rates or increase the volume of conversions.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 20 Native Advertising Recommendations Summary: Native Advertising “Native advertising is a form of paid media where the ad experience follows the natural form and 3 Position your business as a thought leader function of the user experience in which it is placed.” 3 Focus on educating the Source: Sharethrough.com reader about your industry 3 Include a call to action such as a demo request or trial (if allowed) Native ads are designed to blend into the content around them. For that reason, advertisers reap nearly the same benefit as the publisher’s original content simply by using their platform. n Purchase intent is 53% higher than traditional ads. n Conversions may increase as much as 60%. n CTR is higher than a traditional display ad (0.16% on desktops and 0.38% on smartphones vs the industry average of 0.06% on standard display banner ads).

Native advertising is also a great strategy for demonstrating thought leadership and reaching a broader audience.

*Source: Business Insider Intelligence

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 21 Position your business as a thought leader by Example of Native Advertising publishing your own article (branded content) to the Business Journals’ audience. The key is to focus on the reader and educate them. With that approach, you will establish your expert as a thought leader. In some cases, you can include a call to action such as a demo request or trial. In the example from Portland Business Journal, one of our advertisers published a story via native advertising titled, “How consumers can help control rising health care costs” – what if your CEO wrote a story and published as native content?

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 22 Search Engines Increasing visibility in search engines is done in two ways, utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM). SEO focuses on optimizing your website to get better rankings in the search results. SEM involves paid methods like pay per click advertising. The screenshot below illustrates the difference, the red boxes highlight paid advertising placements. The search results that fall below the red boxes are acquired through search engine optimization.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 23 Search Engine Optimization Recommendations SEO brings relevant, organic traffic and increases visibility for your website. Summary: The top spot in search results generates 36.4% of all clicks.* Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEO considers how search engines work, the algorithms created to generate results, what people search for, and the terms or keywords most commonly 3 Search important keywords used to search. One way to get started with SEO is to search for important for your business and keywords for your business and analyze the websites ranking for those key- analyze the websites words. Work on the basics too. Get your sitemap outlined – what pages do you ranking for those keywords need and how will they link together. This is also how the search engines will 3 Create a sitemap crawl your website. You’ll also want to identify your keywords and insert them 3 Incorporate keywords into into your URL, title tag, page headers, content and image descriptions. Be sure your site 3 Create relevant content to create quality, relevant content and distribute via social media and perhaps often your email newsletter, if you have one. Insightful, quality content will foster 3 Distribute your content on organic links pointing to your site, an SEO factor. Another way search engines social media judge quality of your content is by how long the user stays on the page. We 3 Link to other websites also recommend that you link to other websites from your website. When quality websites link to your content, your search engine rankings will increase.

Lastly, take an active interest in learning about SEO by signing up for newslet- ters or visiting SearchEngineLand.com or MOZ.com.

*Source: SearchEngineLand.com

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 24 Search Engine Marketing Paid Search Example Search engine marketing is the process of gaining website traffic by paying for ads on search engines. Paid search campaigns are displaying your company when a user has intent to buy or is actively considering a purchase. It’s important to run both a paid campaign and leverage your natural search results, especially for search terms related to your brand. For example, with search phrase, Charlotte Business Journal subscription, we will bid on the search term with a paid ad to generate subscriptions, adjacent to our natural results from SEO. Securing both the paid and natural search results increases our chances of securing the click from the customer.

In other words, the paid search results are compli- mentary to your regular search engine optimization efforts in terms of securing the maximum space in the search results.

Other marketing strategies that drive keyword searches for your brand, can also be met with a paid search ad.

If you have a store front, it’s critical to index your locations in online directories like Google, and keep them updated and current. Paid search campaigns are self-service and you can jump right in and start testing with small budgets. Be sure Here’s another example of a Google results page. You can see the paid advertisement for search phrase, lease space to add tracking codes so you can monitor con- in office building, shows up above all natural search or versions. And, access reports daily while you are organic results (via SEO). figuring out the best mix of keywords, ad copy and landing pages. Recommendations Summary: Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

3 List your company in online directories; especially Google 3 Explore a paid search campaign on Google and Bing/Yahoo o Self-service o Access reports daily while you’re figuring out the best mix of keywords, ad copy and landing pages.

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 25 Next steps

More than a third But, of CMOs say that digital marketing one 18% will account for of small third businesses of marketers don’t admit to 75% not tracking of their spending know which digital anything. within the next marketing channel five years. is making an impact.

It’s hard to get a budget approved for digital marketing when you aren’t tracking sales back to your marketing efforts. For that reason, we suggest you start tracking your digital marketing now. It’s as easy as finding out how many sales are coming in through your website using an analytics tool like Google Analytics. Find out if you can secure an innovation or test budget to run smaller campaigns. Track them, if they prove ROI, develop a projection for a larger campaign and you are on your way!

Sources: Adweek; Webmarketing123; Media Post

Digital Marketing Starter Kit 26