Consumers now spend nearly half of their time staring at screens. Will they find your business there or your competitors’? Our clear and honest 4 step plan shows you how to start dominating digital. Perhaps it’ll help make this the year you kick off your business’ digital marketing adventure!
We now spend nearly half of every day staring at screens. TVs, mobile phones, laptops, tablets – we’re consuming digital media at a whopping average of 10 hours 39 minutes every day. Practically every aspect of our lives has becoming digitised. The internet is undisputedly consumers’ first port of call when considering a purchase.
If you’re in business, the lesson from this ever-rising trend seems pretty clear. To be in with a chance of making the sale, you’d better be sure you have a digital marketing plan for reaching people during those 10+ hours. Right?
So why, in 2017, are some of us still relying on tired old PR tactics, print advetising and offline relationship building? True, many of those still have their place – but just imagine the exposure you’re missing out on online!
4 Steps to marketing success your business needs to know
Marketing is, of course, shifting more towards the digital world. More and more companies are realising that they need to be where their customers are, and are getting increasingly good at finding them. The ultimate goal is the ‘inbound’ consumer – someone who comes looking for you, already intent on purchasing. Then the task becomes maintaining timely communication with them, through whatever means necessary.
Digital Marketing For Small and Mid-Sized Businesses
All well and good. But this digital marketing stuff sounds pretty complicated, right? Twitter, CRM, email, Google Advertising… Too time-consuming, costly, and confusing for a small or mid-sized business to handle, surely.
There are, though, HUGE wins to be had for those who implement even the most basic of digital marketing operations. In competitive markets, digital tactics can be the deciding factor that’ll set you that crucial step ahead of your competitors.
Any business, or even individual, can implement effective digital marketing. Unlike many traditional marketing channels, the barriers to entry are far lower. Don’t be scared – you can start today.
We like to break it down into 4 key steps
1- Plan Objectives & Messaging
In order to create a great digital marketing plan it is crucial that you have clearly defined your objectives, as this is the only way that you will be able to evaluate your success and prove return on interest as a result of your marketing efforts. You’ll then want to translate these objectives into key ‘messages’ that’ll resonate with your target market.
(Beware: This is by far the hardest step – but don’t be tempted to skip! Time spent here will ensure your efforts are well-focussed. Rest assured that plans can change, too: give something a try and review success in a few weeks’ or months’ time.)
2 – Choosing Your Platforms
Next, you’ll want to choose and set up your ‘platforms’ – the places where your customers hang out. Each platform has its own set of benefits. The idea is to cover all key customer touchpoints and to ensure that your brand message is consistent throughout – be it through your website, social media, or anywhere else. No time to cover it all? Simply prioritise and focus only on what you can manage.
Platform examples include:
- Email Newsletters and Promotions
- Blogs and Online Articles
- Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram…
- Google AdWords and Display Advertising
- And many more
3 – Optimise For Conversions
“For every £1 spent on digital marketing, our business earns £8.50 of revenue.” Imagine that. A money-making machine!
Brand awareness is great, but ultimately what you’re after is the ‘conversion’ – a sale, subscription or lead. By having a fully-fledged digital marketing plan in motion you will be able to examine this requirement in detail and analyse effectiveness. Creating conversions is about taking all that interest you’re receiving in your site and making sure that people take action and become paying customers.
4 – Innovate To Stay Ahead
In such a fast-paced, competitive digital world, inaction could always lead to serious risk of falling behind. It is imperative that you stay ahead of the game and gain that competitive advantage by, for example, adopting new platforms early, refreshing your messaging or trying new tactics. Digital marketing can enhance your business immeasurably, just by putting a little more preparation and effort into the planning and execution than your competitors. Be bold.
Kick Start Your Digital Marketing Adventure
iGaming Academy’s Acquisition and Retention courses are always being revamped to remain fresh, up to date, and to include all the elements needed for one impressive digital marketing plan. We’re really handing you a marketing toolkit that will give you all the knowledge you need to build your own plan which can be adapted to your customers.
Let us help you become that marketer everyone wants to be. Through our interactive and hands-on courses you will learn how to properly plan your SMART objectives, develop individual platform strategies, retain your customers, and everything in between. So go on. Take the challenge and become your company’s marketing master.
iGaming Academy’s Acquisition and Retention courses include Digital Marketing, Affiliate Management, Business Analytics, and CRM – Customer Relationship Management.
