What’s this blog about?
This blog highlights eight Digital Marketing strategies that you can use immediately to attract new customers and grow your business. In this post we’ll cover:
- The core building blocks of Digital Marketing that should form the basis of your marketing strategy
- The benefits of each component
- The relative costs of implementing these
- Our recommended sequence of implementing them for maximum positive impact to your business
What are the 8 Digital Marketing strategies that will grow my business starting today?
Digital Marketing is a complex world of many different concepts, tools, and methods. It’s very easy to get lost in a maze of confusing information and jargon that might not get you the results you need. While it’s important to learn the basics of Digital Marketing, it’s even more important to know when and how to use them to get outstanding results. Best of all, you can get amazing results for your business without spending a lot of your time or money. Let’s get started.
| Strategy | Sequence | Benefits to your Business or Brand | Relative Cost |
| Build your Business Website | 1 | Your business website is the very first thing you need to build as part of your overall Digital Marketing strategy. ◦ Your website is your digital handshake ◦ A website is excellent for generating leads and establishing your digital presence online ◦ Aim to drive traffic to your website from your other digital sales channels like Social Media and email | $$ |
| Social Media Marketing | 2 | Once your website is up and running, the next step is to create and start using your business social media accounts. ◦ Focus on the social media platforms that your customers use, and don’t feel pressured to be on all of them ◦ After the big ones (Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram), don’t forget platforms like Nextdoor, Reddit, LinkedIn, TripAdvisor and others that could get you more local customers ◦ Join local social media forums and groups to promote your business as allowed under their terms and policies ◦ Use the same logos, graphics, and colors as your website to maintain the consistency of your brand ◦ Provide links from your social media to your website to generate leads | Free |
| List your Business Online | 3 | Now that you have your digital presence established, the next step is to list your business on search engines like Google and Bing so they can display it on their maps and search engines. ◦ Listing your business makes it easier for customers to find and contact you ◦ Here’s more information on how to list your business on Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business ◦ If you’re not a brick & mortar business (for example, you own an online-only company), Google and Bing might not let you list your business on their Business Pages (here is Google’s policy and this is Bing’s guidance) | Free |
| Use Traditional / Non-Digital Marketing | 4 | Okay, this is technically not a “Digital Marketing” strategy, but it can be just as powerful in getting you new customers, so we’re including it here. ◦ Join local chambers of commerce in your community to network with other small business owners and prospective customers. Here’s a list of resources in the areas we operate in the North Atlanta Metro area: ▪ Alpharetta, GA Chamber of Commerce ▪ Milton, GA Chamber of Commerce ▪ Greater North Fulton, GA Chamber of Commerce ▪ Forsyth County, GA Chamber of Commerce ▪ Gwinnett County, GA Chamber of Commerce ▪ Perimeter Chamber of Commerce ◦ Consider creating flyers and handing them out to local businesses, apartment complexes, gas stations, grocery stores, farmers markets, etc. to display in exchange for a promotional offer ◦ Reach out to your personal networks (friends, family, alumni, social, neighbors, and people you do business with) to explore opportunities to help them with your services | $-$$ |
| Content Marketing | 5 | It’s now time to take your online presence to the next level. The best and most effective way of doing that is to create and publish content on your website that provides value to your customers. ◦ Examples of content include blog posts, eBooks, newsletters, or online guides on your website to generate leads ◦ This establishes you as a subject matter expert and authority in your area, which tells search engines to rank your website higher ◦ The best types of content solve problems or answer questions for your customers and creates a digital relationship with them ◦ Posting frequent, high value content drives organic traffic to your website | Free |
| Search Engine Optimization (SEO) | 6 | By this time your website should already be well placed in search engine results pages (SERPs), but there are a few things you can do to improve your rank over time. ◦ Identify words or phrases that your customers might search for online to reach businesses like yours ◦ Make those keywords and related themes an organic part of the content you create, and not as an afterthought, to avoid being flagged by search engines for keyword stuffing ◦ Organize content on your website pages using a structure that is easy to understand (introduction, body, and conclusion) | $ |
| Email Marketing | 7 | This is the phase in our journey where we start increasing our investment into our marketing strategy. The single best place to increase investment is through email campaigns. Studies show that spending $1 on email marketing generates a return on investment of $36. ◦ Gather customer email addresses by using your website, social media, talking to current customers, or other smart strategies ◦ Sometimes you might need to offer promos or discounts to customers in exchange for their email addresses ◦ Email conversion rates are much higher than other channels because customers have already shown interest by sharing their email addresses with you ◦ Use a professional email domain for your business and not a free domain like “gmail.com or yahoo.com”. You can get a professional email domain from your website hosting provider. | $$ |
| Paid Advertising | 8 | This is it! We’ve reached one of the final steps for implementing your marketing strategy. We advise you to exercise caution in this step, as paid advertising can get very expensive very quickly. ◦ Never start your marketing strategy with paid ads! You should consider paid advertising after implementing everything above. ◦ Paid advertising is very effective at generating new leads, but it’s a pay to play strategy. It’s effective as long as you’re paying for the ads or services, but loses steam as soon as you stop paying. ◦ You can run ads on any platform that your customers regularly visit (Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Google, LinkedIn, etc.) ◦ Paid advertising also includes hiring influencers and affiliates to promote your company or brand | $$-$$$$ |
As you saw, there are many ways to design and implement your marketing strategy but there’s no secret sauce to Digital Marketing, contrary to what some marketing agencies have you think. What we’ve listed above is one of the most effective ways to successfully launch your marketing strategy to amplify your brand, generate leads, and grow your business.