Tag: search engines

Social media has really evolved from when it first started. Almost two decades later and the strides made are super impressive. Currently, social media platforms are at 360 degrees photos and live video posting. Not to mention the number of people who are currently active in social media.

People have become so active in social media that an average person now spends almost 2 hours on social media per day. You can imagine what this means to businesses. That their consumers spend more time on social media, makes them more reachable than ever.

 What is even more impressive is the fact that newer social media platforms are emerging every day. This means, there is no chance that social media will be extinct in the near future or forever in my opinion. Social media has come with more benefits than harm both at a personal level and for businesses.

It is for these reasons that businesses must embrace the concept of digital marketing as one of its key marketing strategies.

What is digital marketing?

It is nothing as complicated as it sounds. Simply put, digital marketing is the marketing of a business through digital platforms. These digital platforms include:

• Emails
• Social media
• Blogs
• Website
• Mobile Apps

Before we look at how to use digital marketing, let’s look at why you need to use digital marketing to promote your business.

1. To boost your visibility. According to a report by Forbes, an estimated 82% of consumers conduct research online so this is definitely where you need to be to be found when consumers are doing their research
2. To build relationships with your client by shortening the gap between the business and its clients with the use of real-time media such as social media.

iii.    To be able to measure success in real time. Let’s face it, it is impossible to determine how many people saw your advert in the newspaper or watched your commercial. Digital marketing offers detailed real-time statistics.

1. To bring your business close to the prospects. Digital marketing has made business as close by as just a click away. You can window shop in several shops in just one screen in a matter of minutes and make your purchase in a click. So convenient for your prospects. Given that people spend so much time online, digital marketing is just hard to ignore.
2. To communicate with your clients. The effectiveness of digital marketing is the fact feedback is almost instant. You can use any of your digital marketing channels to communicate to your clients about your new products, features, changes in the company or any latest developments in your company and get instant feedback. This makes communication so easy between the two parties. In fact, when it comes to communication, digital marketing has the highest ROI (Return On Investment) as compared to traditional media. The fact that you can even target who want to pass the information to is even much more superb, you are certain that the message has gotten to the right person
3. We can’t miss mentioning the fact that digital marketing is super cheap compared to traditional methods of marketing. You can run a marketing campaign for as low as $3 a day! Can you imagine how much you would have to spend to run an advert on TV for a day or put up a billboard in a strategic place for just a day? Expensive, right?

How to use digital marketing to promote your business

Local search marketing/ Search Engine Optimization

As earlier stated,  about 82% of people search online to find services, products or solutions to their problems. This means that your business needs to be where they search which are basically search engines like Google. So how do you ensure that you appear in the search engines and even rank highly?

You employ the use of the following

• An active and responsive website and optimize it for the search engines
• Enlisting your business website in the local business listing
• Create social media pages as well as landing pages
• You can incorporate a blog within your website and promote it to drive traffic to your website

Content Marketing

This is the use of content created to strategically market your business. And this is not about producing content with the intention to sell a product or service but to educate a consumer or help a consumer get solutions with the hope of converting them slowly.

 This content can be eBooks, whitepapers, articles or case studies. This is where I recommend having a business blog where you publish your content and then promote it on social media.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a wide topic but in short, this is the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others to promote your business and build a community for your business.

Email Marketing

Every person who knows what internet is has an email even before they join social media, probably why email marketing is still being concerned an effective marketing tool. With email, strive to give content rather than hard selling kind of emails. Also be wary of spamming people’s inboxes. Always seek their permission to collect and use their email.

Digital advertising

Every business is always looking for a cheap yet effective way to advertise their business and digital platforms give just that. Platforms such as Google Ads, Twitter ads, Facebook ads and many others are affordable and come with so many advantages such as targeted advertising campaigns and detailed analytics. Not forgetting the fact that the advertising results are almost instant and you can measure ROI more accurately.

Mobile Marketing

With the uptake of mobile phones being so huge, we can’t ignore the fact that you can integrate your mobile marketing into your digital marketing by using mobile Apps. Apps such as WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram and other popular mobile instant messaging Apps offer a great platform for business owners to promote their products and services. Embracing digital marketing is the best decision for your business in this current techno-savvy generation. Not only is it affordable, easy to use and has an impactful reach but online is where you business needs to be for brand visibility.