Digital Marketing: Why You re Doing it All Wrong PEPPERGANG. Digital Media With Spice

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1 Digital Marketing: Why You re Doing it All Wrong PEPPERGANG Digital Media With Spice

2 Table of Contents Executive Summary Why You Need to Change Your Digital Ways The Difference in a Smart Approach What You re Doing Wrong In Your Digital Marketing Strategy...6 A Light In The Darkness How to Create a Solid Plan...9 How to Use a Multi-Channel Approach...13 How to Leverage Opportunities in the Industry...14 How to Understand Your Target Audience...16 How to Dedicate the Right Resources...17 How to Build Off Your Strengths...18 Providing Value: How to Put the Customer First...19 How to Be Consistent In Your Marketing Plan...20 Conclusion

3 If you re a business owner, you re probably used to wearing a lot of hats. From idea to execution, to sweeping up at closing time it all comes down to you. When things are working smoothly, you probably don t give a lot of thought to all your hats. But when something isn t working right, it can feel like driving on a flat tire the one flat part affects the function of the entire vehicle. If your digital marketing strategies aren t bringing in business like you d planned, it s time to take a look at the flat tire in your business vehicle and see what you can fix. 3

4 WHY YOU NEED TO CHANGE YOUR DIGITAL WAYS There are some pretty strong statistics showing why digital marketing is so important these days. Traditional, offline marketing is still an important part of the entire, holistic marketing package, but it isn t enough on its own. Today s consumer has the ability to pull information from you or others, about what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. Not only that, but they have the means to inspect how your competitors do things, how things should be done, and which way of doing things works best for them as the consumers. It s an educated, self-aware consumer we serve today, and that consumer won t be pandered to or talked at through traditional media alone, anymore. It used to be that suppliers provided consumers with most of the information about a product or service. These days, however, by the time a consumer makes contact with a supplier--that s you--that consumer has already made it through most of the decision process. We can t afford to wait until consumers come to us. We have to be where they are, before they know they need us. And to do that, in the mobile, digital, connected, information age, we need to be online. We need digital marketing. DIGITAL VS. PRINT MEDIA INTERACTIONS IN % TWEET THIS: 10% It s an educated, self-aware consumer we serve today. #digiright Consumers spent 4.4 hours of leisure time in front of the TV every day. Most of that time 67% we are also using a smartphone or tablet. Google 4

5 THE DIFFERENCE IN A SMART APPROACH A smart digital marketing strategy approaches marketing from an integrative perspective, finding ways to work together, online and offline, for a complete, cohesive consumer experience at every stage of the buying cycle. A smart digital marketing strategy leverages the internet to get your message across to the people who need to see it. A smart digital marketing strategy plans for three main stages of the buying cycle: Appeal: Getting attention and standing out from everyone else in your field Creating opportunities: Using past successes to attract new custom ers and building relationships with key influencers, media, and others Convert: Turning strangers into consumers, and turning consumers into customers Considering the importance of digital media in the 21st century, shouldn t you be sure you re not making any of these digital marketing strategy mistakes? 5

6 WHAT YOU RE DOING WRONG IN YOUR DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY There are many wrong ways to do digital marketing, but it all boils down to: Not defining goals Not creating a marketing plan Failing to use a multi-channel approach Not measuring and analyzing results Not allowing enough time for results Treating online marketing as a stand-alone process Neglecting the customer s side of the conversation Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You Let Anyone Do It We re all for delegating, but it can be tempting to look at your digital-media-savvy teenage niece, with the smartphone permanently affixed to her hands, and see your next head of digital marketing especially if she ll work cheap. But digital marketing is more than just doing social media. It takes a comprehensive, strategic approach to come up with the perfect digital marketing strategy for your unique business. You need to stay on top of trends across the whole industry of digital media. You need to be prepared to not only craft the perfect marketing strategy, but also adjust that strategy as the industry changes. TWEET THIS: Don t treat online marketing as a stand-alone process. #AskPG 6

7 You re In the Wrong Places Not every business should be on Facebook. There, we said it. It s just not the right platform for everyone. Do you know what platforms your business should be using? 52% of companies get leads from Facebook 43% get leads from LinkedIn 36% 47% 43% get leads from Twitter get leads from the company blog 47% Understanding why not everyone should be on Facebook, and where they should be, and where else online they should be creating a presence in ads, blogs, and more depends on a deep understanding of a business, its target audience, and all the online behaviors of that target audience. You re Stumbling in the Dark Without a proper digital marketing strategy in place, you re stumbling around the online world like a giant, dark, cluttered room, searching for the power switch that will shed some light on your business. 7

8 A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS A carefully designed digital marketing strategy understands what needs to be accomplished for the business, and why. When you research and prepare a careful plan, you build a digital marketing strategy that welcomes people into the buying cycle and continues to work them through that cycle until they emerge as happy, repeat customers who tell other people about your brand. A digital media marketing strategy, done right, will always have common elements: A solid plan, with goals and a way to measure results A multi-channel approach Leverage of opportunities in the industry An understanding of the target audience Dedicating the right resources Building off your strengths--what you do best Focusing on providing value--putting the needs of the consumer first Consistency TWEET THIS: Refine what works in digital marketing, let go of what doesn t. #digiright 8

9 HOW TO CREATE A SOLID PLAN Your marketing plan should be laid out on paper ahead of time. It should include the goals you want to attain and the research you ll do on your target market, your industry, and digital media trends. Researching your target market will help you understand where you should be online in order for the right people to find you. Take some time to find out who your ideal client or customer is. Then, working backwards, work out where that ideal client spends time online. This will help you understand the elements important to your plan like keywords, locations and demographics to target, and which digital platforms to use. Researching your industry will help you understand who your competitors are, how they market themselves, as well as who they market to, and how that s working for them. You can use this information to refine your own plan by mimicking their efforts, avoiding what doesn t seem to work, or by filling a niche that is unmet by your current competition. Researching digital media trends will help you pinpoint just how, exactly, people are using digital media right now to research and find the products and services they need. Knowing that will help you make decisions that put you in just the right places. For example, According to Google: 77% of men age watch online videos. If this group makes up a significant part of your target audience, then it should be obvious that video advertising and other video marketing techniques (video blogging, how-to videos, etc.) should make up a significant part of your marketing plan. 9

10 Your marketing plan needs to include SMART goals. When defining your goals, be sure to make them SMART: Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely Specific goals include the 5 W s: 1. Who will be working toward these goals? 2. What do you want to accomplish? Increase social media followers? Increase sales? Get a spot on a national TV talk show? 3. Where will you carry out these goals? What platforms will we use? Where will we advertise and promote our goals? 4. When are your deadlines? Create a timeline for your plan, including intermediate deadlines. 5. Why are these your goals? What is your purpose? Measureable goals for digital marketing include a numbers that can be examined through analytics. Ask yourself How many or how much to quantify your goals. An example of an unmeasureable goal: I want more sales leads. An example of a measureable goal: I want to triple my sales leads. Attainable goals are just out of reach but still within the same galaxy. Astronomical increases in sales, followers, speaking engagements, or whatever you aim for are possible, but they won t happen overnight. Break your goals into bite-size, manageable chunks. An example of an unattainable goal: I want to be Donald Trump. An example of an attainable goal: I want to own six tenant buildings. 10

11 Realistic goals reflect not just what is within the realm of possibilities, but also the amount of work you want to do. If you want to own six tenant buildings, but you don t like doing repair work and you are not yet at the point where you can hire a maintenance crew, you may want to adjust your goals for now. Timely goals have a set schedule with end dates and intermediate deadlines. Set a firm date for when you want your goals accomplished, and set mini-goals to meet at specific dates along the way. This increases a sense of urgency and helps you do what needs to be done to meet those goals. Following these guidelines, a SMART goal for your marketing plan would be, I want to triple my sales leads in nine months, with numerical goals for every month in between. Your marketing plan needs a system of measurement. Having SMART, measureable goals doesn t do you much good if you don t measure your results, or if you don t know what to do with the numbers when you have them. Analytics helps you measure the results you have and know how to tweak your digital marketing efforts to reach your goals. You can analyze data for any part of your digital marketing strategy, including PPC, SEO, social media, blogging, video production, and so on. Sign up for a Google Analytics account. You can use Google Analytics to measure just about any aspect of your digital marketing plan. Sign up for your free Analytics account at A note on analytics: Many platforms have their own ways to crunch numbers. Twitter and Facebook, for example, each have their own analytics tools. Google Analytics, however, is a good place to track numbers from many different places in one place. 11

12 Track your numbers for all branches of your strategy. When you see patterns in performance, you can know where to invest more effort and where to adjust even what tactics you may need to withdraw from. It may be tempting to advertise to a wide customer base, in a lot of places. It may be tempting to use every social media outlet. But the truth is, your business is not for everyone. And the people who do need your business aren t all over the internet there is a pattern to where they shop, learn, laugh, and gather online. In order to make the goals that you ve set for your business, you ve got to focus your marketing efforts on what works. When new technology or social media platforms or other tempting outlets pop up, use your research to determine whether it s a good match for your target audience, test it out, and use your Google Analytics data to decide whether it benefits your business, or whether you should focus your efforts elsewhere. Analytics 12

13 HOW TO USE A MULTI-CHANNEL APPROACH When you re just starting out with a digital marketing plan, it can be tempting to focus on one method at a time just doing PPC, or just doing social media marketing, or just focusing on blogging but without a wide variety of digital marketing activities, you could be catching people in only one part of a very fast buying cycle and missing everyone else. At one time, the buying cycle was a very funnel-shaped idea. People came in at awareness, and left with purchase, going through very specific steps in between. These days, the cycle is a bit different: People move through the cycle at a rapid pace They don t rely on a company for information until late in the cycle, turning instead to other sources like review sites and peer recommendations People convert from just about any phase of the cycle What this means for your business is that if you aren t present at every step in the cycle, you could miss out on valuable conversions. Be visible to consumers at every step of the way with a multi-channel approach to your marketing plan. The more branches of digital marketing you use, the more visible you ll be. Consider: PPC SEO Social media Blogging Video marketing...just to name a few. Mobile marketing Local SEO marketing Reputation management Public relations 13

14 HOW TO LEVERAGE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE INDUSTRY Opportunities are those people, places, and things that you have in your toolbox that you might not even realize you can use toward your goals. Every person you know is a potential opportunity for your business. Now, using people as a means to and end is hardly the way to do business, and it isn t such a great idea for your personal life, either. People aren t commodities. But you should be open to the idea that every person in your life might have a talent they d like to partner with you on, or might know a person they d like to introduce you to, or might be interested in hearing about your product or service. The thing to remember when interacting with people on behalf of your business is to be genuine and provide value. Here are some ways you can approach people and look for opportunities: Interact on social media groups When you researched potential platforms as part of your marketing plan, you should have looked not just for where to reach your clients, but also where to reach thought leaders in your industry and complementary industries. Interacting in groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, in Twitter chats, and other groups related to your business provides you with the opportunities to share what you know and ask questions about what you don t know. It really is a small world especially in business and when you consistently provide valuable answers and thoughtful discussion, people will remember you and turn to you for solutions in the future. Be a super connector. People might forget what you do, but they won t forget what you do for them. One of the best things you can do for people is introduce them to other people in your network who fill a need they have. Know a guy who s shopping around his first book? Know a person in publishing? Introduce them. 14

15 This ability to connect people who need each other sets you up as someone to know, and someone to turn to. When you share what you know without asking for things in return, and when you connect people with each other in mutually beneficial ways, opportunities for your business will present themselves. Other practices include: 1. Connecting with influencers 2. Participating in networking events 3. Monitoring favorite outlets for publishing opportunities (Inc., Entrepreneur, etc.) Every piece of content you have is an opportunity. You might not think you have much content lying around but chances are, you have more that what you might think. Content can be shared through social media and built upon. You can take a survey of your clients on a relevant topic, and from the results you can create an infographic, an article, a video, a press release, and so on, until you have a whole series of pieces to share what you ve learned with your audience. Take a look at what you have, and build as you go. Use testimonials from customers and clients Highlight case studies that show how a customer came to a solution Interview customers Interview employees Show behind-the-scenes footage of your crew Get the idea? Content is everywhere. You just need to look. When you ve got it, share it. It doesn t do any good growing dusty and stale in your computer files. 15

16 HOW TO UNDERSTAND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE As mentioned, when you re writing out your plan, you must have a thorough understanding of your target audience: where they go online, what they look for, what they need, etc. Here are some questions to ask yourself when outlining your target audience. This information should inform every decision you make in your business. Draw up a document with the information so you can return to it as needed. 1. What are the demographics of my target audience? 2. Where do they go online? Are they on social media? Which platforms? Where do they search? What blogs and news outlets do they read? 3. What do they look for online? 4. Who do they look to as industry leaders? 5. What are their problems or concerns? 6. What products or services do they use online? 7. What are their interests? These questions will help shape every point of your plan, from where you focus your advertising, to whether your business makes 6-second Vine videos. Your target audience profile should be your personal business bulls-eye. Aim for it with every decision you make. 16

17 HOW TO DEDICATE THE RIGHT RESOURCES Now that you have an understanding of your target audience, you can determine the best places to show up online. For example, if your target audience is largely made up of women, age 65 and over, you probably won t want your ads showing up on paintball websites, and you probably won t use Instagram. However, if your audience is made up of mostly men age 18-25, those would be great places for your business to show up. A few ways to dedicate the right resources: In pay per click advertising (PPC), dedicating the right resources is mostly done through ad targeting. You can target your ad campaigns according to location, interests, and more. The more targeted your ads, the fewer people they ll be visible to but the more likely those people will want what you offer. In search engine optimization (SEO), choosing the right resources involves selecting the right keywords to optimize your content for. If you optimize for mostly broad, vague keywords think, skate, you might show up in more searches, but the chances that they want you are slim. However, if you choose long, specific keywords think, purple outdoor quad skates, you are more likely to show up in front of searchers who want just what you are all about. In social media, the platforms you select should match what you do. If you own a magic shop, you might do moderately well on Facebook or Twitter. LinkedIn would probably not be the right platform for you. But if you really wanted to bring in the leads, you would head to YouTube, and film magic tricks using products from your shop. Your next-door neighbor, the dentist, probably wouldn t get the same results from sharing the video of his latest root canal. The platform has to match your business. Consider this with all your digital marketing resources, and you ll see improved results. 17

18 HOW TO BUILD OFF YOUR STRENGTHS Everyone has things they do well, and things they do not so well. If writing is your strength, write a blog for your business and write in it often. If writing isn t your strong point, but you love talking to people, try video blogging. If you enjoy connecting with an audience, and you like to see an immediate response to your efforts, you ll love social media marketing. If you are into numbers, you ll enjoy the math behind PPC. Don t feel like you need to do everything on your own. Turn to the web for questions try our online resource center for a wide variety of digital media topics or hire help when you can. But whatever your strengths are, make those your special focus and use them whenever you can. 18

19 PROVIDING VALUE: HOW TO PUT THE CUSTOMER FIRST We ve seen many businesses fail because they irritated customers or engaged in some spammy marketing tactics and had their search rankings dinged and it usually comes down to failing to put the customer first. You know about treating your customers well when you deal with them directly. But value, for your customer, is about more than just customer service. It also involves the parts of your marketing plan that the customers never see. Take this example, which looks at three different marketing activities and what it looks like to put the customer first, and what it looks like to put the customer last. Activity PPC SEO Social Media Customer Last Untargeted ads Stuffing copy with keywords, buying links Spamming other pages, sharing irrelevant posts, not responding to posts and messages Customer First Ads that are targeted and relevant Writing quality, in-depth, valuable content Posting content people want to read and share, responding helpfully to comments and questions 19

20 HOW TO BE CONSISTENT IN YOUR MARKETING PLAN Consistency is key to a marketing plan that presents a strong message. If you lack consistency in your marketing, you risk confusing customers and sending them somewhere else. Throughout all your marketing efforts, keep your colors, images, messages, values, keywords in short, your brand the same. People should know when they ve landed on a part of your online presence. 20

21 CONCLUSION Rather than implementing marketing solutions as a reactive response to what s happening in your business, your industry, and the marketplace; a proper marketing strategy is proactive in nature. Examine the market and your target audience, build a plan, outline tactics, create a timeline, measure results, and refine techniques for better results for your entire year. This is your year to do digital marketing the right way, and it s just the beginning. Want help getting started on your proactive digital marketing strategy? Give us a call:

22 RESOURCES 1. Hubspot,

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