Tag: social media business

Introduction to Digital Marketing

Posted on November 14, 2018 by - Marketing Strategy, Social Media

Digital Marketing for Your Business in 5 easy steps

Digital Marketing in today’s technological society is a must. Put simply, Digital Marketing is selling, promoting and marketing your product or service online. It uses tools such as SEO/SEM, search marketing, social media marketing and content marketing to attract, monetize, and engage customers. Done properly, a digital marketing strategy can turn prospects to leads, leads to customers and customers to promoters.

Step 1: Your Business

“Situation analysis” is the first step of your digital marketing strategy. This is your opportunity to evaluate yourself, your business and your industry. In effect, you are asking “Where am I now?”

The SWOT method is one of the most efficient ways to answer this question. Analyze your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Ask yourself, “What is working? What are the buying patterns/behaviors of your existing customers? Are they coming back, buying more, generating buzz? What does your industry sector look like? What are the trends in your target market? Who are your competitors?” Questions like these are invaluable to understanding what your digital marketing strategy should look like.

Step 2: Your Customer

The next step is understanding your customer. In this step you create a 3D profile of your target audience. You will create different profiles for each client. For example, Emerge Marketing Strategies might have a separate customer profile for home-based business owners, small business owners, corporate clients, etc. In creating these personas, you would of course include their demographics: age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, income, education, political preferences, etc.

Additionally, you’ll want to consider their experience level; products they ordinarily buy; where they get their information- newspapers, news stations, books, magazines, etc. Do they have any niche interests?

You’ll want to know where they network: Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook, etc. What are their goals and values? How can your product or service help them reach their goals? Why would they pass on your product or service?  The creation of a customer profile is essential to answering the question, “Where do I go from here?”

Step 3: Your Goals

Now that you know your business and your customer, you are ready to start your digital marketing campaign. Once again, this is a multi-step process. It is a good idea to keep in mind that all digital marketing strategies are a process, not a single event. The ultimate goal of your digital marketing strategy is optimizing your campaign for the best results. Emerge Marketing Strategies can help you decide whether your DMS needs small tweaks, large pivots, or something in between. This depends largely on the goals of your campaign, and like all goals- your digital marketing campaign goals need to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timed.

There are 3 main types of digital marketing campaigns: acquisition, monetization, and engagement. The specific goal of an acquisition campaign is to raise awareness of solutions you provide. A monetization campaign has the goal of generating revenue from existing customers- enticing them to buy more and to buy again. It is aimed at those who already know and like your business. Finally, there are engagement campaigns. They provide a value service to the customer and a call to action, such as subscribing to your website, or liking/commenting on your social media. This is the step to ask and evaluate, “Where do I want to be?”

Step 4: Your Channels

The next step in your journey is deciding which channel will most effectively help you reach your goal. There is the SEO/SEM channel. SEO and SEM are two different branches of digital marketing aimed at increasing your search engine ranking. SEO focuses primarily on key words and other ways of optimizing your web page to appear in search engine results, including inbound links and outbound links. SEM also seeks to increase search engine ranking but uses several routes to do so, including SEO and PPC (pay per click) advertising. In an SEM campaign, buyers are targeted within search engines as they search for solutions through specific key words.

Another channel is content marketing- which is digital marketing that offers a value to your customer: such as blogs, videos, podcasts, eBooks, newsletters and more. Social Media marketing can find customers and build customer loyalty through the various social media platforms- such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn or others.

Targeted email marketing is another channel for marketing to specific customer profiles. It may use copywriting techniques to discover the best language to describe offers in your emails and ads. Paid traffic is another option for your digital marketing campaign. It involves determining which ad platforms you should buy traffic and how to target those advertisements. Your digital marketing campaign answers the question: “How do I get where I want to be?”

Step 5: Your Results

The final step in your DMS is to track, analyze, and measure your results. What were your Key Performance Indicators for your campaigns? What was your Return on Investment? Which campaigns were most effective? This is the chance to ask yourself, “Did I get where I wanted to be? Why or why not?”

Whether your business is growing in Sacramento, Roseville, Rocklin or beyond, Emerge Marketing Strategies can assist you every step of the way.

 

Facebook Marketing For Your Business

Posted on May 21, 2018 by - Facebook, Social Media

 

Is your business marketing on Facebook?

 

Facebook is a social media platform that allows companies to advertise directly to consumers who use it.

 

Find out how businesses can use Facebook to expand their reach.

 

 

Do you advertise on Facebook? Has your business found success?

Comment below with questions and success stories!

The Ultimate Social Media Business Guide

Posted on March 21, 2018 by - Marketing Strategy, Social Media

A Guide to Ramping Up Your Business Pages on Social Media

“My business has been running fine for years without social media!”

“I don’t have enough time to post consistently.”

Common misunderstandings about Social Media prevent businesses from entering the Social Media world and tapping into a market of over 3 billion users!

With each person spending over 2 hours per day on social media, there is a huge platform for businesses to reach customers.

Time spent on Social Media - Markeiting

 

Why Your Business Must Be On Social Media

It all starts with creating a profile, but the social media experience is far more for businesses.

Social media is a platform for connecting with your audience and provides an outlet for a free form of advertising.

Social media is also an important tool to help with developing a brand identity, reaching new target audiences, and receiving feedback from your target audience.

With over 3.1 billion social media users worldwide and internet users making up 53% of the population, there is a massive audience for businesses to interact with.

social media usage around the world

There are many different mediums for businesses to use, which at first can be intimidating for those who are unfamiliar with each.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and other social media sites each serve different purposes.

A good way to figure out which is best for a business is to try them all out at separate times.

Dedicate a specified amount of time to understanding how to post, what content your audience wants to see, and which platform your audience responds to.

If there is another company in your industry that does well on social media, look at how they are engaging their following and understand how your business can find success.

Create A Profile

The very first step is to just do it!

If your business has no profile on social media, it’s time to create some profiles.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram

Your customers are looking up your company on Google and other search engines before they purchase or do business with you.

Show them why they should choose your business with a great profile picture, a complete profile and updated contact information.

As a business, a logo is a great picture to use for a profile. Make sure it is easy to see and not cropped at all as seen on this Twitter profile.

 

Emerge Marketing Twitter Profile

On most platforms there is also a section to fill out about your company details.

This section is usually limited to a specific amount of characters so be short and direct about your services and provide a way for customers to reach you.

Include contact information and links to a website, podcast, alternate social media profile, landing page: wherever you would like to direct traffic.

Here’s an example of an Instagram profile that has a link to a subscription as well as a hashtag to use for featured content.

Instagram profile social media marketing

Once you have created a profile, post some content!

Depending on the platform, use a great video, post or picture to let your customers know you are now active!

Identify your Buyer and target Audience

Each social media platform serves a difference purpose.

For example, LinkedIn’s main focus is on building a professional community and encouraging networking.

LinkedIn mission social media

It is important to identify what you want your company to share with your audience.

Your target audience may be on different social media platforms or one only one.

Research where the target audience is most active and see what other companies are doing well.

 Decide messaging for your profile

Consistent messaging on social media is important.

Some companies decide that taking a professional approach is the most engaging method for their clients.

Other companies take a more creative approach and use comedy or witty methods to get engaging results from their audience.

Wendy’s Twitter account has a ton of personality and even challenges their competitors like this post about Burger King, in their marketing efforts.

wendys twitter post

 Research your competition

Find out what other competitors in your space are doing.

Using Google search and tools sites like BuzzSumo to conduct research on the top searched companies will allow the ability to see what competition is doing on social media.

Buzzsumo social media

A few questions to consider about the social media marketing for their business :

  • Are they providing content that gets people to respond?
  • What markets are they targeting and is what they are doing effective?
  • How can you improve on their content efforts?

 

Find other companies

Look for other companies –  outside of your industry, in other locations, different size – and see how they are telling their story.

Inspiration for ideas can come from anywhere and reviewing other companies that share a similar vision is a good way to start.

Other companies may interact with customers in a way that you never thought of.

Have a few posts ready

Take advantage of scheduling resources included with some of the social media platforms.

 For example, Facebook has built in scheduling capabilities.

Facebook scheduling social media

This will save you from dead time if you have a consistent log of posts ready.

 

Sharing a variety of posts – information, photos, specials, customer stories, blog posts, event information – will allow you to have a supply of content that your audience will appreciate.

Use Analytics to Strategize

Wondering how to get more likes, views, shares, or comments?

Take a look at analytics for your business accounts.

The analytics will allow you to take a deeper dive into each post and see how to adjust.

facebook analytics

If you have one post that is killing it, it’s time to make more posts similar to that.

If one photo got a ton of people to comment, try to find more posts similar.

Find the sources of engagement and with social media advertisements, find what customers are clicking to replicate and improve the process with future posts.

Conclusion

Social Media may not seem important to you business but in today’s quickly changing online landscape, it is more important than ever to build a presence.

As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago and the second best time is now!

It is not too late to get started and your customers are waiting to hear, see, and watch your company’s journey.

Is your business ready to dive deeper into social media? Leave a comment below!

Written by Emerge Marketing Strategies. For questions about Social Media or any digital marketing needs, please visit emergemktg.com or email: [email protected] for more information.

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