Understanding Digital Marketing – The Missing Puzzle Piece!

Back in 2005, understanding digital marketing was still relatively new to me and businesses in general. Google had taken over the advertising landscape with Adwords, firmly superseding Yahoo and its Overture acquisition as the go-to place to run your ads online with “results-based marketing.”

At that time, I started to move away from doing offline direct advertising to Google Adwords. What blew me away was I could set up an ad and have it running to prospects within minutes… instead of waiting days or weeks to send a mailer out to someone.

But it wasn’t just the speed that impressed me, it was the fact I could also bring in new customers with simple text ads in a search engine, target “buyer” keywords, and split test them… all while paying only when someone clicked on my ad. That concept, Pay-Per-Click, was a game changer… not just for me, but for the whole advertising industry.

Fast forward to today, and while a lot of things have changed, some business strategies remain in the past regarding online digital marketing.

Most businesses have moved away from the past thinking of, “If I build a website, the customers will come.” However, they still struggle to understand the digital landscape on how to bring prospects to their site and convert them into customers.

What I intend to do with this blog is to share my knowledge, help you to gain an inherent understanding of digital marketing and show you all the latest tips and tricks for building a brand online and gaining new and repeat customers using paid media.

I’ll also show you how to get a leg up on your competition and use them to save you significant marketing dollars. These strategies have helped businesses bring in more customers, reduce costs and automate their entire marketing system to generate consistent results.

What’s Your Digital Marketing Strategy?

To succeed now and especially in the future, you must have an across-the-board digital marketing strategy, because chances are your competition will.

And, unfortunately, doing something like SEO is not a comprehensive approach. There are now so many people and agencies selling SEO services and downplaying paid media, that it’s become comical. Now don’t get me wrong, ranking in Google is always good. I used to focus heavily on SEO, always testing and learning new ways to manipulate the search engines so our sites would show up on the first page.

However, over time I’ve learned that SEO is only one small piece of the puzzle. Google will continue to tweak and change their ranking algorithms making it harder to manipulate. In fact, Google is developing AI ranking algorithms that will ultimately disrupt the SEO market over the next few years.

So, if you’ve decided to give up on paid media and put all your eggs in the SEO basket, you may be finding yourself facing a rude wake-up call in the near future.

To advertise effectively online, there are 5 simple strategies that will help lead to a successful campaign. Many of these concepts are probably ones you’ve already heard of… but, as they like to say, the devil’s in the detail. 

Five Key Online Strategies

1. Identify the right audience, relevant digital channels, and competition.
2. Create “personalized” ad campaigns targeting that specific audience. Nothing generic.
3. Further segment the audience to deliver relevant ads
4. Design automated online marketing funnels
5. Test and track everything to generate an ROI
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When you install these 5 strategies correctly, amazing things will happen. Things like widespread brand awareness and increased qualified leads, while at the same time decreasing your cost per customer.

Next up: Are You Blind to Your Competition and Your Ideal Customer? (We break down how to identify the right audience. The first key strategy to understanding digital marketing.