Digital Marketing in Redding, or any other city for that matter, is a must for every business today with over 5.6 billion searches happening every day on Google! Just building a website and getting it live isn’t enough if you actually want to make money from it. You have to drive traffic to your website through digital marketing. Let’s dive into the most commonly asked questions about digital marketing.
- What Is Digital Marketing?
- Why Is Digital Marketing Important?
- Types of Digital Marketing
- What Does A Digital Marketer Do?
- Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Which Is It?
- Does Digital Marketing Work For All Businesses?
- What Types Of Digital Content Should I Create?
- How To Do Digital Marketing
- Conclusion
Table of Contents:
- What is digital marketing?
- Why is digital marketing important?
- Types of Digital Marketing
- What does a digital marketer do?
- Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Which is it?
- Does digital marketing work for all businesses?
- What Types Of Digital Content Should I Create?
- How to Do Digital Marketing
What Is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing, also known as “online marketing”, is simply any type of promotion that takes place on the internet. The goal is to increase your online visibility and ultimately create customers. Companies use a myriad of digital channels to accomplish this promotion. Some of the channels that can be used for digital marketing are:
- search engines / search engine optimization (SEO)
- social media platforms
- emailing campaigns to both existing and potential customers
- analytics (to track the marketing results)
- paid advertising
- website development
- content marketing
- text or multimedia messages
Each of these channels give an opportunity for users to find your product or service. Most of the time, the best marketers will create a marketing strategy that incorporate more than one of the above channels. For larger businesses, or those that want to do anything they can to attract customers, an omni-channel marketing strategy will be created, to uses all the channels to funnel users towards an action that the business wants them to take.
Digital marketing in Redding, CA is going to be similar to any other small market. In fact, these principles apply to larger markets as well!
Why Is Digital Marketing Important?
Digital marketing is important because it expands your net beyond your existing customer base. Over and over again, we see digital marketing agencies offering “marketing” that really only manages or services a businesses existing list of clients or influence. That type of service doesn’t help the business actually attract new clients. Digital marketing must help reach a larger audience than the business already has!
Types of Digital Marketing
There are lots of different types of digital marketing. We’ve listed some below and will take a closer look into each of them.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Pay Per Click (PPC)
- Email Marketing
- Online PR
Here are some additional types of digital marketing as well:
- Affiliate Marketing
- Native Advertising
- Sponsored Content
- Instant Messaging Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
We’ll take a closer look at each of these types below.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
“Search engine optimization,” or SEO, is the process of making your site more visible in search engines like Google and Bing. The higher your pages appear in search results, the more likely users are to click on the link to your website. Local SEO and national/global SEO do have some differences, which we’re not really covering here.
When you think about SEO, there are a few aspect to understand. One is “on page SEO”, another is “off page SEO”, and the final one is technical SEO. Let’s take a little closer look at each of these.
On Page SEO
When looking at a website, this type of SEO focuses on all of the content that exists “on the page.” You can answer queries for readers and rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) as long as you investigate keywords for their search volume and intent (or meaning).
Off Page SEO
This form of SEO is concerned with all of the activities that occur “off the page” when attempting to improve your website’s rankings. This includes things like: Inbound links, often known as backlinks. The more external sites or publications that link to your site, the better it makes your site look to Google and increases your domain authority.
Technical SEO
As its name suggests, this type of SEO focuses on the technical aspects of your website such as coding. Image compression, structured data, and CSS file optimization are all forms of technical SEO that can not only improve user experience but also increase your website’s loading speed, which Google does take into account when deciding how to rank your site.
Content Marketing
Content marketing involves creating content that others will see as valuable. This could include writing blog posts or articles, taking photographs or making videos, designing infographics, recording podcasts, and much more!
The channels that could be included with your content marketing strategy include:
Blog Posts or Articles
Blog writing and publishing articles is a great way to demonstrate your industry expertise while also generating organic traffic for your site. This, in the end, allows you to convert website visitors into customers.
Video
The past few years has seen a dramatic rise in the amount of video content created and consumed. Look no further than TikTok to know that this is true! But even beyond that, Facebook has also changed their UX to prioritize video, and Instagram reels have proven to be a huge success. All that to say, people love video and it’s not going away any time soon. There are also ways of leveraging the keywords that may exist in your video, to index on your site and help your SEO. Ask us how!
E-books and Whitepapers
Items like ebooks and whitepapers educate your website’s visitors. In addition, they let you exchange content for a reader’s contact information— generating leads for your business and helping people move through the buyer’s journey.
Infographics
Infographics are a form of visual information that aids website visitors in comprehending the concept you’re talking about. Infographics have shown to be more readily shared on social media platforms that text posts, which can increase your reach and possibly garner you backlinks.
Social Media Marketing
Social media can promote your brand and your content to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, and generate leads for your business. You definitely don’t want to overlook having a social media presence. But a word of caution, the average amount of referral traffic that businesses get from social media is 5%. That’s right. For all the “hubbub” about social media, it’s important to not put too much time or money into this marketing channel, unless it’s shown to bring good ROI for your business. (There are some business that can do well on social media.)
Wait…, did we just say that as a Redding, CA digital marketing company that does social media marketing? Yes, yes we did. We’re a small business just like you, and want to give recommendations that offer the most bang for your buck!
There are a ton of social media marketing platforms, with more popping up seemingly every day. But some of the popular platforms include:
- YouTube
- Snapchat
- TikTok
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is an advertising technique in which you as the advertiser pay a publisher every time your ad is clicked. With Google Ads, for example, you can bid on keywords and phrases to have your ad appear in one of the top slots on Google’s search engine results pages. The price you pay per click is determined by how popular the keyword or phrase you’ve chosen is.
Other channels where you can use PPC include:
Paid advertisements on Facebook & Instagram
Users may pay to customize a video, image post, or slideshow, which Facebook will post to the news feeds of people who match your company’s target audience.
Twitter Ads campaigns
Users may pay to have a set of postings or profile badges published to the news feeds of a specific audience all focused on achieving a certain business objective. Website visits, additional Twitter followers, tweet reaction, or even app downloads are examples of this goal.
LinkedIn Sponsored Messages
These let you pay to send messages directly to users based on factors like their industry and work history.
Email Marketing
Email marketing probably isn’t given enough attention, as it’s actually often the highest ROI marketing practice! Email marketing is a way for companies to connect with their past customers and followers. Usually, businesses will use email to send customers updates about content, discounts, and events that are happening. It’s also common for businesses to include links in their emails that lead back to their website.
You can send emails of many varieties in an email marketing campaign, including:
- Email subscriptions are one type of email that you may use in your campaign.
- Follow-up emails to consumers who have downloaded a product on your site.
- Welcome emails for clients.
- Discounts special events to members of your loyalty program.
- Send tips or similar series newsletters for client care.
Online PR
Online PR is the process of acquiring digital media placements on websites, blogs, and other online content sources. It’s similar to traditional PR but done electronically. Sometimes it can be a bit more difficult to get exposure this way, but when you do, it can generate a lot of traffic for your site.
What Does A Digital Marketer Do?
Digital marketers in Redding or otherwise, are responsible for promoting a company’s brand and generating leads through digital channels, both free and paid. These channels can include social media, the company website, search engine rankings, email, display advertising, and the company blog.
Depending on the company’s needs, a digital marketer may focus on different key performance indicators (KPI) for each channel. This enables them to more accurately measure the company’s performance overall. The SEO specialist, for example, would measure their website’s “organic traffic.” However, in smaller companies it is not uncommon for one generalist to handle multiple digital marketing channels instead of delegating responsibility to several specialists.
Inbound Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: Which Is It?
Inbound marketing is a strategy for attracting and engaging customers on the internet using digital marketing assets. Digital marketing, on the other hand, is a catch-all term that refers to any form of online marketing regardless of whether it’s considered inbound or outbound.
Digital marketing is more general, while inbound marketing is a strategy that falls under the digital marketing umbrella.
Outbound digital marketing tactics attempt to place a promotions or advertising in front of as many eyeballs as possible without necessarily ensuring it is relevant to them or something they even want. For example, the sometimes gaudy banner ads you see across the internet try and sell a product whether the person viewing it wants it or not.
Marketers who use digital inbound techniques, on the other hand, utilize online content to get their target consumers onto their websites by giving resources that are useful to them. A blog is one of the most simple yet powerful inbound digital marketing assets available because it allows your website to take advantage of the keywords that your ideal clients are looking for.
Does Digital Marketing Work For All Businesses?
Digital marketing can be used by any type of company, in any sector. Building out buyer personas and creating useful online content is still part of digital marketing, regardless of what your goods are. That isn’t to say, however, that every business should structure their digital marketing strategy the same way. It depends on if your company sells to other businesses or straight to customers (consumers).
B2B Digital Marketing
If you run a business-to-business (B2B) company, then your digital marketing campaigns should revolve around online lead generation with the eventual goal being to connect leads with your sales team. Therefore, your marketing strategy’s purpose is to attract and convert the best quality leads for your sales team through your website and other digital channels that support it.
As a B2B company, you’ll probably want to focus most of your marketing effort on building up a presence on business-focused platforms like LinkedIn or Google PPC campaigns that target people’s search intent that match your products or service.
B2C Digital Marketing
The purpose of digital marketing for companies who business-to-consumer is to bring people to their website and turn them into customers, rather than speaking with salespeople.
With that in mind, you’re probably less inclined to focus on “leads” in their traditional sense, and more likely to prioritize the development of a funnel or buyer’s journey. This is an outlined process for users to be guided through your content and website to end up on a product page and ultimately the shopping cart.
What Types Of Digital Content Should I Create?
Your target market’s needs inspire the types of content you create. You can get to know your audience by creating buyer personas. At a basic level, all of your online content should aim to assist them in achieving their goals and surmounting their challenges.
After you’ve decided what type of content you want to create, consider when your target audience will be most receptive to it in relation their position in the buyer’s journey. We refer to this as content mapping.
The objective of content mapping is to target content depending on the characteristics of the person who will be reading it. It will also depend on how close that individual is to making a purchase (i.e., their lifecycle stage). There are many different strategies you may use when it comes to the sort of material you’re creating. We offer a free consultation that we can assess what kinds of content would be best.
Living in the market you’re promoting to, can be helpful, though it’s not always required. Digital marketing in Redding does have its nuances, but the principles will apply to just about any market.
How To Do Digital Marketing
When it comes to actually executing on your digital marketing strategy, there are some steps that we take our clients through, and encourage you to follow.
- Define your goals.
- Define your target audience.
- Prioritize keyword research.
- Establish a budget & prioritize most important channels
- Create quality content catered to each medium.
- Let the data guide you.
Define Your Goals
When you’re starting out in digital marketing, it’s critical to establish and define your objectives since the way you develop a plan will vary depending on them. For example, if your objective is to increase in keyword rank, you’ll definitely want to include content marketing.
Or, if you’re looking to increase sales, focus on SEO and optimizing content so potential customers will visit your site. You could also try out PPC campaigns, which are paid ads that drive traffic to a website.
Your digital marketing strategy will be most effective if it’s created after you’ve first identified your company’s overarching goals.
Define Your Target Audience
One of the most significant advantages of digital marketing is the capacity to target particular audiences, but you won’t be able to profit from it unless you first establish your target audience.
It goes without saying that your target audience could change depending on the channel or aim(s) you have for a specific product or campaign.
For example, if your Instagram followers are younger, they’ll probably prefer funny memes and quick videos. Alternatively, if your LinkedIn connections tend to be older professionals, they’ll probably want more in-depth articles and how to’s. To keep both groups engaged, vary the content you post.
Prioritize Keyword Research
Keyword research should be the foundation of every piece of content or campaign that you produce. We can’t stress this enough! Otherwise, you may be spending money to create content that not many people will see. We’ve even interacted with other agencies that basically said they don’t do much keyword research but rather base their actions on anecdotal feelings of what they think will work. Amazing! We feel that’s’ almost negligent for their clients.
Personalized content targeting specific audiences is ineffective without first conducting extensive keyword research.
If you don’t have an SEO person, at the very least, pay someone to do the research and show you how to integrate it into your digital marketing strategy. It pays huge dividends in the end!
Establish A Budget & Prioritize Most Important Channels
Your budget will determine what channels you can include in your digital marketing strategy. For example, if you have very little money, PPC advertising probably isn’t an option for you, and you’d need to focus on creating content on your own.
The good news is that if you’re focusing on inbound strategies such as SEO, social media, and content generation for a pre-existing website, you don’t need much money. Inbound marketing is all about producing high-quality content that your audience will want to read, which means the only investment you’ll need is your time unless you plan to outsource the work.
There will undoubtedly be a price when it comes to utilizing outbound techniques such as paid advertising or buying email lists. What it costs depends on the kind of exposure you want to get as a result of the advertising. It will also depend on the competitiveness of the market and keywords that you’re targeting. The more competitive the market, the more expensive it is to get seen.
Create Quality Content Catered To Each Medium
This step is key. Quality content is the “lynch pin” of making your digital marketing strategy work. You could have a stellar campaign created, but if you content is only so-so, it’s not going to produce in the long term. Google puts a premium on delivering quality content to their users.
Content should be catered to the audience that your campaign is targeting. It should be clear, and should be engaging. Nobody stops scrolling for boring content!
Let The Data Guide You
The last step in how to do digital marketing is all about analytics. The better your results are tracked, the better decisions you can make in your existing and future marketing efforts.
For example, the analytics might tell you that your followers seem to have lost interest in the content you post on Instagram after a few months. However, they may enjoy your video content on LinkedIn. In this case, it could be an opportunity not just to improve your strategy for Instagram but also understand that your audience would rather consume branded content from a different channel.
On the other hand, you might come across an older web page that doesn’t have as much traffic as it used to. In this case, consider revising the page or forwarding it to more relevant or newer content that is ranking better.
Conclusion
Digital Marketing provides a set of tools that help organizations reach their target customers through the internet. It’s important to understand how each tool works and what situations they are best used in order to create an effective digital marketing strategy.
The most important thing to remember is that your audience is always changing and that you need to be flexible in your approach in order to keep up with the latest trends.
Digital marketing in Redding (or anywhere) is an ever-changing field, so make sure to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices. And, most importantly, don’t be afraid to experiment! Contact us today for help with your Redding digital marketing needs!
