5 ways to improve your digital marketing strategy

Thanks to the smartphone, consumers can be everywhere at once.

With brands having to keep on top of all touchpoints, from social media to websites, they need to find ways to engage and capture every consumer’s attention effectively. This means digital marketers need to find a way to stand out from the noise and create truly attention-grabbing content and interactions. 

We look at five ways marketers can create impact and results through refining and re-evaluating their digital marketing.

1. Data is Key

Analytics and data should be at the forefront of all your digital marketing decisions. Understanding where your potential customers are spending their time and where they are being lost in the customer journey shows where you need to be targeting them with specific engaging content. 

B2C marketing usually takes a broader approach, then drilling down with data and machine learning to achieve higher conversion rates. Targeting specific audiences with personalised incentives and recommendations can persuade a customer to continue down the marketing funnel towards a purchase.

B2B typically focuses on target personas in more detail to narrow down and attract the audiences needed for a higher conversion rate. Persuasive and informative content can help capture data to lead to sale closures.

2. Customer Experience & Journey

In digital marketing, customer service and experience can be forgotten, but it is key to understanding customer interactions, to gauge how touchpoints are impacting their decision making. Creating a seamless experience and journey, ensuring omnichannel marketing is used is a critical component in achieving success. You may also need to understand a little about user experience too. (Learn the difference between customer experience and user experience). Customer experience is a fundamental part of e-commerce and lead generation and should be considered within your digital marketing strategy. By aligning your customer experience and digital marketing you can create the ultimate consumer-centric experience. 

Whether through landing pages, email or conversational marketing, having a personalised experience will make a massive difference in the potential customer buying decisions. In today’s market, personalisation in the customer journey is no longer unique; it is expected. 

Nowadays, there are hundreds of ways to gather data on your audience, and digital marketers can strategically use this information to maximise ROI and create the perfect buying journey. For example, using data can enable marketers to understand their site traffic better; this can help create a smoother journey to get the customer from A to B. 

3. Content That Converts

To create content that converts, the reader must always be put first. Currently, 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. But not everyone is doing it right, and there is a tremendous amount of competition with marketers trying to rank on their keywords.

Step one is to know and target your audience and dive deep into what drives them. Create bite-sized and easily digestible pieces of content that add value to your audience and make sure it is trackable to see who is engaging with your content. 

Your content structure is also fundamental; unless you have a niche product or service, you will most likely be talking to various audiences. Your content needs to be broken down and segmented to attract each audience.

A great place to start with content is the AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) principle. Making sure each piece of content serves these four areas will encourage readers to follow the chain and purchase or become more marketing qualified. Also choosing your words and style wisely is vital to content success. Read our piece on title case and negative language to further understand the value of your content.

4. Know When To Refine Your Processes

Marketing is always changing, and digital marketing is the fastest way to adapt. This is why it is important to continually refine and improve your processes and test your different campaigns and strategies. If something is not performing as well as you would like, this is an excellent opportunity to A/B test areas that could be improved. This section links directly to data; this needs to be monitored and updated with new ways to change and refine processes. Using conversation rate optimisation tools is a great way to test how your customers are interacting with campaigns.

5. Long Term Value

Marketers should always be thinking about the long term value when making decisions. Short term wins, and one-off campaigns can harm your strategy if not researched to ensure the investment will provide a return in a long term. 

Long-term value is also significant when talking about investing in Martech. Martech allows you to bring on tools that assist in achieving marketing goals or objectives and has become a staple in digital marketing. Further, it can be used to optimise marketing efforts across any marketing channel. Make sure the Martech you invest in can get you where you need to be whether is it a:

• Content Management System (CMS)
• Advertising Tool
• Conversion Tool
• Customer Relationship Management
• Automation Software

Paid advertising is great if you have the budget, but creating valuable content is definitely worth the long-term return if you have a smaller budget. Consider the best ways to take your business forward for long term and sustainable growth.

Final Thoughts

As marketing is rapidly changing, your digital strategy should too. Being aware of the industry changes in processes and technologies will make your marketing team's life much easier.

Are you ready to improve your digital marketing strategy? Speak to one of our strategists today.